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‘Is that him?’ Do
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Nope. Shame.’
‘Excellent,’ the man intoned, a slight accent marring his otherwise precise English. ‘You are the Doctor.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘We can sense that you are not… entirely human.’
‘“Entirely”?’ The Doctor seemed affronted. ‘I’m not remotely human, thank you. Dreadful species. Always fighting and grumbling.’
‘Oi!’ said Do
‘See what I mean? Barely raised themselves above the use of guttural noises and, blimey, that stuff they call pop music. I mean, I know I’m getting on a bit, but it comes to something when you really can’t tell the boys from the
girls or understand the lyrics, doesn’t it? Then of course there’s the food. Have you ever had one of their hamburgers?’
The older man raised his hand to stop the Doctor’s gabbling, so he did, but smiled. ‘I could go on all night, but I’m guessing that might a
‘It’s lineage,’ the little man replied.
The Doctor threw a look to Do
‘Four of the humans here can trace their families back to one specific place in time. That gives me power over them.’
‘And the others?’
‘Drones. Slaves. Willing servants.’
‘Willing? Really? That’s nice. Not really true, though, is it? But if you want to believe it, fair enough.’ The Doctor started walking towards them, so Do
The small man with the scar shrugged. ‘All in good time, Doctor. Madam Delphi needs to speak with you.’
He raised his arm in the Doctor’s direction and, before Do
He was almost unconscious by the time Do
Do
‘And the human?’ asked one of the others in the group.
‘Kill her,’ the man replied, and Do
‘Not today, thank you,’ Do
She was almost at the French windows when they exploded into metal and glass around her.
Throwing her arms over her face, Do
‘Seen the movies,’ she muttered. She headed to the rear of the steps where, sure enough, there was a doorway leading to a cellar.
She wrenched it open, counted to three and slammed it shut, really loudly.
She then tiptoed to one of the offices and slipped inside it.
Seconds later, alerted by her ruse, a small group of the people from outside arrived at the cellar door. She watched as two of them walked down the steps, leaving
one on guard. Damn, she had hoped they’d all go down and she could shut them in down there.
The one on guard seemed to be looking around and for a second Do
The newcomer rammed a chair against the door handle of the cellar, trapping the two inside as Do
Do
‘Kitchen…’ the newcomer breathed. ‘This way…’
There was a small explosion and Do
‘I’m Miss Oladini,’ said Miss Oladini hurriedly. ‘Nice to meet you. Car?’
‘Came by cab.’
‘No, their car?’
‘Worth a try.’
They crashed through the kitchenette door and into the staff car park, straight towards the abandoned car. Do
‘Keys?’ asked Miss Oladini.
‘No keys,’ Do
Miss Oladini reached down under the dashboard and yanked out some wires. ‘Misspent youth,’ she said.
The engine turned over sluggishly, and then died again.
‘Once more,’ Do
Miss Oladini tried the hotwiring again, with no luck.
Two of their pursuers appeared at the kitchen door, arms raised.
‘Run!’ Do
Do
There was no sign of Miss Oladini, but it was difficult to see anything with the burning car blotting out her view.
Do
‘You have got to be kidding me,’ she muttered, then looked at her clothes. ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’
Hoping the same flames that were hiding her attackers from her would keep her out of their point of view, she slipped across the lawn to the bike.
With one last look around for Miss Oladini, and a sad realisation that the car had most likely become her funeral pyre, Do
No way was she going to get back to Chiswick by bike, she didn’t have three days spare, but it might get her to the nearest town.
As Do
reflecting off the mansion’s huge windows. But of people she could see no sign.
SUNDAY
When she was growing up, Do
As a child of the 1970s, she grew up hearing about things like the moon landing, the murders of both Ke
and ‘rationing’ and ‘bubble and squeak’ just meant the old people were reminiscing about twenty years previously and probably moaning that the youth of today never knew when they had it so good.
The first time Do
one of the neighbourhood kids who’d scratched her late father’s car – she was appalled at herself. She had finally become exactly what she’d derided in her parents and grandparents when she was their age. Nowadays there was nothing she liked to hear more than Granddad Wilf go on about the war, his life in the parachute regiment or Na
Today was a day like 22 November 1963 – a day when another shot would be heard around the world.
Sunday had, to be honest, started pretty badly. Do