Chapter Six- Seventy Percent Too Weird

"So we're breaking into somebody's house then?"

The morning had come far too soon for Leah's tastes. Just as she was beginning to catch up on her sleep, she had been jolted awake. Her eyes had flown open for no discernible reason at 8:00 in the morning and she knew that she wasn't getting back to sleep.

In those first few groggy minutes she had forgotten that she wasn't at home, and the sight of the hotel room around her caught Leah by surprise. When the gravity of the situation finally sunk in, she groaned and rolled back over, wanting to just fall asleep and avoid the day. She was in London helping a man who needed to be here for Christmas Day. She didn't know who he was or why he needed to be here, but she was there with him anyway, and it wasn't seeming like such a good idea anymore.

Leah had always been one of those people who was kind to strangers, but it was never out of some sort of moral obligation. She went out of her way to do things for people partly because it was the right thing to do, but mostly because she was easily bored; helping other people was a better way to keep occupied than the other things people from her town did for fun. There was a small part of her, an embarrassing little part she never spoke of, that longed for adventure and mystery. She scoffed at Jack's talk of aliens and conspiracies, but she had always secretly hoped that he was right and that they would one day go on adventures together. She maintained her skepticism because she dreamed of some sort of Scully and Mulder dynamic. Television had taught her that helping random people led to adventures. No, it wasn't the smartest or most logical things, but there was always a chance that it would lead to something fascinating.

Well, this time it had, and it was scaring her to death.

The first problem with this adventure was that she wasn't with Jack. He had stayed home because she hadn't planned on travelling anywhere, but she somehow ended up on some sort of mission with a stranger. The second problem was that adventures meant doing illegal things, and though she wasn't perhaps the poster child for good behaviour, she did like to think of herself as a law-abiding citizen.

"Not just anyone's house," she continued, trying to sort out the day's itinerary, "but some fancy rich guy's mansion? I don't know what you usually do when you travel, but I know that when I go to other places I try not to get tangled up in the foreign justice system." Nevermind that she'd never left Canada before, but getting tossed into a London prison cell was not on the top of her list of "Things to Do in Another Country."

"Would you relax?" Harry had been a little bit snippier with her today than he had been yesterday. "We won't get caught, and even if we do, I'll make sure nothing comes of it." If only either of them knew how many foreign jails he had been in.

It took a bus ride and a bit of a walk, but before too long they had arrived at their destination. Leah's eyes widened as she beheld the large house in front of her. "That is... wow. That's some mansion," she breathed.

"They say this Naismith fellow has his own personal army."

"Oh, I see, that makes me feel better." She laughed nervously.

Harry shot her a serious look. "It shouldn't."

Rolling her eyes, Leah said "Whatever. How do we get inside?"

They found a back entrance and ducked through it. For a man with such supposed high security, he was sure letting in a lot of unwanted guests today.

"OK," whispered Leah. "We're in. That's the easy part, I would imagine. What now? Because this is all on you, amnesia boy, I'm just along for the ride."

He thought for a moment before he said "I'm not certain. We need to be here, but I'm not sure for what. To be honest, I'm just going by my instinct."

"Well that's just excellent!"

"It's really not," he said, shooting her another look. "Come on then, this way."

If Leah rolled her eyes one more time that day, they would roll right out of their sockets. She had always thought the Brits were sarcasm experts, but this guy was driving her up the wall with how literally he took everything she said. It wasn't as though her sarcasm was subtle. She decided to just chalk it up to his confusion, and he probably had more important things on his mind than interpreting her sarcasm. At least, she really hoped that was the reason.

They crept down the corridors and found themselves outside of a room. Harry had a bad feeling about this. Voices and an electric crackling noise drifted out of the room as they stood just outside.

"We can't go in there," Leah hissed.

"Just... give me a moment," Harry muttered as he cracked the door open ever so slightly. What he saw made his stomach sink and his head spin. CRASH. He remembered everything. Well, not everything, just the stuff about today, but nevertheless memories flooded into his mind and the realization of what was to come struck him like a physical blow. He couldn't say that he understood it all, but he suddenly knew exactly what needed to be done.

"Leah," he whispered sharply as he grabbed the girl by her shoulders and pulled her away from the doorway. "Do you trust me?"

Her brow crinkled. "Umm, I donno. Why? What did you see in the room?"

"Do you trust me?" he repeated.

"OK! Yes, I do." Leah's eyes widened in alarm. "What was in that room?"

Harry chewed his lip, trying to find the best way to describe what was going on. "Look, it's complicated, and things are about to get a whole lot more complicated. I need you to trust me because I know what's coming next and I really don't think you're going to like it."

"How the hell am I supposed to trust someone who claims to know what's coming next? That sounds mental."

She raised a good point, he realized, but there was a part of his brain that kept pushing him onward. "Look, I don't know how to explain it, but I've been here before. I've done this already. This is the reason I needed to get to London. I still don't know how any of this is happening, but I do know that there is a man that we need to save. He can help us. He can help me. He's the only one who can."

Leah considered this. How had they gone from sightseeing to madness like this so fast? It had practically given her whiplash. "Alright. Say I trust you. What would I need to-"

That was good enough for him. He didn't wait for her to finish, and he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into a little side room just down the hall from the one he had peeked into. The room was small and dark, so very insignificant compared to the grandeur of the rest of the mansion. The minimalistic decor included a wall of television screens flashing security footage at the room, a black office chair in the corner and in the centre of the room... yes. He didn't know what it was, but he knew what it did and he knew that they needed it.

It was a box. The box was not from Earth, nor was it Vinvocci technology. It was from a small planet called Shii, which no longer existed. It was rather large, roughly the size of a spaceship's escape pod, probably because it was a spaceship's escape pod which could make exactly one shift through time and space in the case of an extreme emergency. Because the box had already made its shift, it was now nothing more than a box. The surface shimmered and appeared to be opaque, but only from the outside. The walls were made of a one way glass material, and from the inside it appeared as though the walls weren't even there. Inside, nestled in the corner, there was a simple control panel which was now defunct.

Joshua Naismith, who was something of a collector of strange and alien items, had acquired this item on a happy accident when it had crashed into his backyard one night a few years back. The box had no occupants, which meant they had abandoned it, which meant that it was his. There was no real use for it, but it fascinated Abigail and that was a good enough reason for him to keep it. Perhaps he thought it would make a good bomb shelter or some such nonsense...

Harry, of course, knew none of this, but he did know that the box would provide a handy barrier when it happened, and it would keep the two of them safe.

"Come on," he urged, pulling Leah toward the box, but she resisted.

Leah's eyes had landed on the screens, and they were fixed on one screen in particular.

There he was, the Master, being restrained in his straight jacket after fixing the so-called Immortality Gate. He was surrounded by them all, the guards and the Naismiths, and they all assumed that things were still going their way. How cute, he remembered thinking. The precious little humans still believed that they had some control over the situation, that this was about them. The Master had known better than them. Now Harry knew better than them both, though it was still all a little bit fuzzy.

"That's your evil twin, then?" Leah said dryly.

"I told you it was complicated," he replied. "I also said I'd already been here. Well..."

"What the hell is going on?"

"Oh it gets better, trust me," he assured her. "Now please, get into the box, or else bringing you here would have been a waste of both of our time."

Leah obliged, albeit reluctantly. "Explain," she demanded once they were inside.

Harry sighed. "I told you, it gets better, and I'll explain it when it does. To the best of my abilities, anyway. Better to get it all out of the way at once. And trust me, when it happens, you'll know."

Leah eyed him suspiciously. This was getting weirder and weirder, and more uncomfortable by the second. She longed to be back in Alberta, celebrating Christmas with her mom and comparing gifts with Jack. She wanted to be snarking with him about his impossible theories, and convincing her mother that the new year would bring a new start to Leah's life. Instead she was crammed inside a box while Jack's science fiction, conspiracy theorist wet dream played out around her.

She did her best to make herself feel better about the situation by reminding herself that this was still better than her mother's infamous "Christmas Roast."

"Here it comes," Harry muttered, eyes glued to the screen.

Leah followed his gaze and watched the impossible events unfold. There was another man in the room now, tall and thin and shouty. He seemed determined to stop whatever was going on here, but judging by the glint in the Screen-Harry's eyes, it was far too late for that. Leah found herself wondering why, if he had known what was going to happen, they hadn't gone and stopped it already. There was probably some complicated reason for it, and she realized that it didn't really matter anyways since it was too late now to do anything about it. She still wasn't sure what, exactly, was happening that needed to be stopped...

Oh.

Her eyes widened and her stomach clenched. Something wasn't right. Something was wrong with everybody. Well, almost everybody. Screen-Harry and shouty man were fine, as was the man who stood in the glass box, but everybody else... They had seized up and began to sort of vibrate. They were changing. It was impossible. Humans didn't do this. They didn't just suddenly transform into someone else, and they especially didn't all transform into the same person.

"What the fuck," Leah breathed as six billion Harrys erupted into maniacal laughter. "Who are you?" she asked the version inside the box with her. Horror washed over her, growing from a single seed in the pit of her stomach. She backed into the wall and put as much distance as possible between her and Harry. "No, nevermind, don't tell me. Just get away from me. This is too weird... I thought I would be having a nice normal little surprise trip to London, maybe help you find your family, and instead I get this. I wanna go home... Back to my boring old small town. I thought I wanted adventure, but I don't. Nothing exciting ever happens in Canada, and I never realized what a blessing that was."

"Would you shut up!" Harry snapped. Leah glared at him, but remained silent. He continued. "Remember what I said about trusting me? It still applies."

"Why should I?" Leah demanded. "Why should I trust you?"

"Because you can either trust me, or you can take your chances with one of the six billion other versions out there."

She considered this for a moment. "Alright, I suppose bitching about it's not gonna get me anywhere. You got a plan? No, hold on, explain first."

"OK," he agreed, "but the quick version's going to have to suffice, since I don't know all the details myself. That version of me out there... that's not, well, me. I mean, it was, at one point, but somehow he's a completely different man than I am right now. He's... not very nice. And a little bit crazy. But don't worry, because he's the least of our problems. Everyone will go back to normal and something even worse comes through. But don't worry, because everything works out because of that other man. The Doctor, he's called. Except he needs saving, because he's going to die when all of this finishes. You see that glass box out there? The radiation inside that thing will kill him. We need to stop that from happening."

"This is too weird," Leah said. She felt numb. Empty. "It's about 70% too weird. This is like one of those things Jack keeps saying will happen one day. Oh God, Jack... and Mom. They're... Oh God." She didn't want to say it. "The worst thing about this?" She laughed nervously, trying to divert her thoughts from the sheer horror of the situation. "Jack was right."

"I knew a Jack once," said Harry absently. He wasn't paying much attention to what the girl was saying, focusing instead on what came next.

"I imagine so, it's not an uncommon name."

"I don't think he likes me very much."

"That's not helping."

"No, I suppose it isn't," agreed Harry.

"So hang on," said Leah, who was now slightly less dumbstruck. "How come we're still ourselves. Well... I'm still myself. I guess you never stopped being yourself. Or, no, how does that work? Oh nevermind. Why didn't I change?"

"This box protected us. It's made of some alloy I knew the name of once. The other me knows what it's called. Virtually indestructible and impenetrable. We're completely safe in here."

"None of the other yous will find us?" Leah asked.

"None of the other mes know this box is here."

"Then how did you know it was here?"

"I read the Naismith fellow's book," he explained. "I knew the box was here because the book mentioned that he was something of a collector. I knew what the box was because of the memories of the other me."

"That must be awful," said Leah, "having all those memories belonging to someone else and knowing that they're yours."

"I try not to think about them too much. Now quiet," he snapped, "I'm thinking." He began to mutter under his breath "So, how do we save the Doctor..."

"You said it was about that glass box, yeah? Well, why don't we find some way to shut it down," Leah suggested.

"I said shut up- No wait! That could work." Harry considered this for a moment. He didn't know anything about the machine offhand, but he was certain he would be able to figure it out if he saw it. He was brilliant after all, and floods of strange, otherworldly knowledge seemed to be triggered by specific items or events. "The only trouble is getting to it."

"Well, you're still you," Leah pointed out, "and so's everyone else. So if you went out there, you wouldn't notice that you weren't you, because you are, in fact, you, and you would be able to slip by and not get caught by you. You could do what you needed to do, and you wouldn't think anything of it."

"What? Oh, wait, that's brilliant!" Leah smirked in self-satisfaction as Harry continued. "I can go out there and figure out how the machine works and then when the time comes we can save the Doctor!"

"Excellent! What do you need me to do?" asked Leah, eager to be saving the world.

"Stay in the box."

"Oh wow, that's a dream come true! No, seriously, I want to help."

"No, seriously," demanded Harry. "You need to stay in the box. I mean it! You can't get caught. This box is the only safe place on the planet. You can not leave this box."

Leah sighed and slumped against the side of the box. It was far from ideal, what with her short attention span and restlessness, but at least she was safe. She had never really known what that word meant until now; never before had it made so much sense. Perhaps she could get some rest, sleep a little bit. "OK, fine. So, how long am I stuck in here for?"

"Not long," Harry assured her. "Everything will be over by tomorrow, so just sit tight."

"Alright. Have at 'er. Good luck."

Why couldn't he just be Harold Saxon? Life would be so much easier if he could just live a normal life instead of being the alter ego of some mad man. He so desperately wanted to be the one curled up in that box, safe and waiting it out, and returning to a normal life with a normal family and normal friends and a normal job. He wanted a mortgage, dammit! Things would never be that simple though, and instead he was doing things for reasons he didn't fully understand. He had to, that much was clear, but he didn't know what was at stake. Must be something huge if he kept going like this anyway.

So far things were going smoothly. There was a moment when he had made eye contact with himself, the original version of himself, and though there seemed to be a spark of recognition, nothing came of it. This was fortunate. He didn't know what it meant to be a Time Lord, but even as a human Harold Saxon realized that things could go very wrong if you interfered in your own timestream. Not that he had a lot of personal experience with that – it was not something humans did on a regular basis – so that made the whole situation that much weirder.

He had spent most of his time examining the machine's controls and he was fairly certain he had a good grasp on what needed to be done. Even as a human he was a genius, so figuring things out wasn't that hard. The tricky part came in how to carry it out without getting caught, and timing it just right.

It was going to be a two person job. He would take care of what needed to be done downstairs, she would handle the machinery in the office. Fortunately, Leah's part was not overly complicated. All she had to do was cut a few wires and reroute a few plugs, so it was something she could easily be able to handle.

Occasionally Harry would pop into the room with the box and check on the girl. Sometimes he brought her food or a book or something to do, but most of the time she was either asleep or watching the screens. He cared for her, and he felt guilty for getting her into this mess, but he did appreciate everything she had done so far. After all, it would have been embarrassing to have died out in the cold like that, and he was glad that she had saved him.

He had one last trip to make to her box, this time bringing her the supplies she would need, as well as a radio. Vague memories of what came next flashed in his mind, and he knew the time was fast approaching. They would have to be ready for it when it came. And then, when it was all over, he could go live a normal life for himself.

Shouty Man was back. Spectacular entrance, bravo, ten out of ten! Leah quite liked him. He reminded her of Jack, with the tall and gangly stature, the wild brown hair and the sharp, angular features. He dressed better than Jack though.

When things were happening, Leah's eyes had been glued to the screen. She was riveted by what was going on, and watching it unfold on a television screen made it seem a little less real and a little bit more like television. It made it easier to take in. There was certainly a lot of standing around, and during those parts she decided to read or otherwise occupy herself, but there had been some pretty good bits. Her favourite part was the escape. Now that was a real adventure, and Shouty Man was a real hero.

Not that she had a whole lot of time for theatrics. She had a job to do, and her turn would be coming up soon. Wait until everyone's back to normal, Harry had said. In the confusion she would go unnoticed. He had left her a list of instructions which she clutched determinedly in her rubber-gloved hand.

She was ready for this.

Everything that had happened though... It was a lot to take in. Screen-Harry was frightening and, from what she had observed, a real monster. It was hard to believe that he was the same man she had dragged in from the cold. She still wasn't sure she believed it, and thought that there must be some sort of rational explanation for all of this. She really wouldn't have believed any of this was happening if she wasn't seeing it herself. There was no denying that weird things were happening, and the man who had transformed the world certainly looked like the Harold Saxon she had met back home, but had he really travelled in time? Had he actually lost his memory and been sent back to this horrible day? Leah couldn't deny that any of this was happening, but neither did she understand any of it.

Another man had arrived, heading a flock of several strangely-dressed newcomers and bringing with them, seemingly, another planet. Leah decided that she was not particularly fond of this new man, and he didn't seem to be particularly fond of anyone or anything else, surely thinking himself to be above it all.

He changed them all back and that was her cue. Moving swiftly, Leah darted out of the box and ducked into the room next door. Underneath a desk and out of the line of sight of any of the room's other occupants was the control panel she was supposed to be accessing. OK, easy enough. She unscrewed the plastic casing that was covering the wires she was supposed to be fiddling with. The machine's guts spilled before her and her eyes widened. If she was into science, this would be a dream come true to her, but instead it just looked like a bunch of cables.

OK, good thing the instructions were nice and clear. Snip the blue wire farthest on the lefthand side, connect it to the red wire beside it. Unplug the middle cord. Cut the second green wire from the bottom. And so forth. Leah made quick work of it, welding mask protecting her face from stray sparks and rubber gloves preventing electrical burns. It wasn't long before she had finished her task.

Soon after that, the gun went off.

Shouty Man had become Shooty Man, having saved the day by shooting at another machine and, somehow, sending the new, sinister man and his compatriots back to wherever they had come from. He seemed to be determined to take Shouty Man with him, but instead the other Harry stopped him. Well, that explained the time travel Leah figured, even if she didn't have much idea what had been going on.

They were almost done. Harry had some other things to finish up with downstairs, and she had one last plug to pull, but not until he gave the signal. While she waited for his voice to crackle through over the radio, Leah watched the scene before her.

Shouty Man was upset because he knew that he was about to die, and he got a little bit, well, shouty over it. Hearing the emotion in his voice pained Leah, but she felt better about it knowing that things weren't going to go the way he was expecting them to.

Just as long as Harry sent her the signal before he made his sacrifice.

"Live too long," said Shouty Man. He walked towards the glass box and Leah fidgeted behind the desk. Harry had better hurry up, or else all this would have been for nothing. If all of this had been for nothing, Leah swore she was going to murder somebody.

"Now!" crackled the voice through the radio and Leah pulled the plug. Just in time, and a bloody good thing too. The humming from the machine died down and everything shut off. Shouty Man seemed unnerved by this development, but Leah was far too excited about this accomplishment to notice. She leapt up and chirped excitedly into the radio. "I think it worked!"

"What?" said Shouty Man.

"Excellent! I'm on my way up. Then the Doctor can help me figure out who I am, and we can see about getting you home."

Leah wanted to protest about that last point, being too excited to even think about her boring old small town life, but she remembered that Shouty Man was still there and probably still confused about what had just happened. She couldn't blame him. It had been a very long and confusing few days.

Christmas would never be the same again.