"The Mistaken M. Jones"

3. M. Jones

Lima, Ohio, Summer 2011

Sometime in the last few weeks, her parents had evidently gone and remembered that she was graduating at the end of her next school year, because all of a sudden college was so popular a word in the Jones household that she could have made a fortune off of how many times it came up. She didn't want to argue with either her mother or father, so she went along with most of it. The truth was, she didn't have as solid of a plan as she would have liked to have herself, so going along with her parents could both guarantee that they didn't find out and give her the opportunity to maybe pick up on a thing or two she needed to pick up on. One of these days though, it would all come to a head, and she was not all that anxious.

Every once in a while, she would go for a walk, leaving the house, the parents, and the piles of brochures and internet printouts and notes, in favor of fresh air to her lungs and her brain.

On that day, she'd gone and gotten herself something cold from the coffee shop and was taking her time walking back, deciding to cut through the park. It was incredible the amount of things that became suddenly interesting to you when you didn't want to be somewhere else. Even then, what happened next took her completely by surprise.

All she could think was that the space between the two trees up ahead was shimmering, sort of in the way air did when a barbecue was going, or a day was particularly hot, which this one wasn't, but much more intense. It almost crackled, blue and gold, and then something even more incomprehensible happened: a man appeared. He fell right through the shimmering gap.

He looked to be in his late thirties, maybe forties, although by how messed up he was, he might have been much younger and she'd have had no idea. He was wearing something that might have been a uniform, back when it wasn't dirty and torn. His hair had been sheared to near extinction, and there were a number of healed scars on his face and his head. Her first instincts, seeing he might have been injured, was to go to him. Within minutes, she would regret this move; within days, she would revise that judgement.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked the man. He looked up at the sound of her voice, and there was something about his face, like he'd found salvation.

"You're… you're her…" he stumbled toward her, grabbing hold of her arms. She wanted to back away, but he looked like he was about to cry he was so happy. "Jones, it's you, I found you…" he was struggling for breath.

"How do you know my name?" she asked, suddenly wishing he'd let go of her.

"They said… They said, right before, they said look for the one called Jones, she will help, she knows the Time Lord. Find her, find M… And then I was gone. Your name, what is it, your other name?"

"I… Mercedes," she said before she could think it through, and then his relief was grander.

"I found you, please…" he spoke, and then she felt something cold close around her wrist. When she looked down, there was a silver sort of bracelet around her arm. "You have to help, there isn't much time, please…"

"No, but I'm not…"

Before she could go on, his grip had released and he'd fallen to the grass. She crouched to his side and felt at his pulse… Nothing. And in the next moment, there was a pulsing tone at her wrist. She looked to the bracelet. The inside part, below her palm, had a clock, a timer, and it was running out. 00:00:02. 00:00:01. 00:00:00. And then the whole world compressed on her.

X

In those first seconds where awareness reasserted itself, she didn't remember what had happened a moment before, or where she was, but with each second more things became known. Primarily, she felt that she was on the ground, on her side. Then there was the sound… sounds… Voices and engines surrounded her, and then a girl's voice.

"What happened to you, did you fall?"

"I don't know, I…" It was the chill of metal on her wrist that brought it all back, the memory of the dying man, and what had happened when the clock had struck zero. Now she looked at it again, her vision clearing. 11:59:38. 11:59:37. 11:59:36…

"What is that?" the girl asked, and Mercedes finally looked up at her. Her hair was blue, vibrant blue and tied in a thick braid that rested around her shoulder. Her skin was fair and unbroken, though there was a trail of markings along her hairline, as blue as her hair. She would guess this was a cosmetic choice somehow. She was wearing a uniform, and it took only a few seconds more for Mercedes to realize that, unspoiled and unbroken, it was the same as that which the man wore.

"Nothing, it's nothing," she shook her head, deciding it was better not to say anything about it.

"You should hurry and get changed, the transport is leaving soon and they won't be pleased if you hold us up," the girl whispered.

"Hold… What?"

"You two!" a man's voice barked, and the blue-haired girl scampered off, joining the throngs of others standing nearby. They all wore the same uniforms, all of them looking her age, give or take a year. Many of them had hair colored like the girl had, many of them with markings on their faces that matched their hair. The man that came toward her though had no markings, nor much hair to match really. "What are you doing on the ground, and why aren't you dressed? You'll be one of those, won't you? Where is your ticket?"

"Ticket?" The man looked aggravated but also like he was used to this.

"Gravis, deal with this one, will you?" he went off, and having just managed to rise, Mercedes followed her initial instinct: she ran.

She was not so fast though, and the other man, Gravis, caught up to her and grabbed her arm, pulling her along back toward the crowd. Beyond those young ones in the uniforms, there were others, older, possibly parents, and even more others might have been observers. Some of them carried what she thought looked like cameras.

"Please! There was a mistake! It's not me! I don't belong here!"

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)