by Doctor Who
'Don't ask what the problem is, just get up here and I'll tell—'
Geoff's attention was diverted once again by the view through the glass. Was that a man on a bicycle riding into the desert? He shook his head and looked again.
'Hello? You broke off?'
Geoff blinked and it was gone. 'Too twitchy,' he 136
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growled. 'Gotta stop doing this.' He thumbed the button again. 'Just get up here.'
'Lord. This is a bit dramatic, isn't it?'
Geoff spun around at the sound of Albert's voice as the scientist gestured to the orange observation glass.
'It's to stop us going blind,' he responded. Albert nodded slowly. 'Does it stop us getting cancer, too?'
Geoff gave a harsh laugh. 'Cancer's too long-term for the government to take the blame. They'll no doubt tell us it's our diet when we're all on life support in ten years.'
Albert yanked a half-eaten sandwich from his pocket and took a large bite. 'What's the deal then?' he asked between chews. 'Is the mood lighting making you feel all urgent again?'
'Yeah, you won't be joking after you hear this.' 'Ruin my day.'
'There's a Russian spy plane just passed over the west coast, heading our way. They've obviously heard something's going on.'
'I thought that was the point.' Albert took another mouthful.
'Yeah, well let's not even start on the political mess we've been stuck in the middle of. They were meant to arrive after the nuke went off. Now 137
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they're early, so Command wants us to get a move on.'
Albert didn't look as agitated as Geoff had hoped. 'Did you tell them it's not like we've been sitting around here doing nothing all morning?'
Geoff didn't reply, instead flicking his gaze to the scientist's sandwich and back. He raised an eyebrow.
'What? I'm not meant to be doing everything myself! Things don't stop just because I have something to eat.'
'I didn't say anything.'
'You didn't need to.' He went to toss the crust into a bin. 'I'm not hungry now, anyway.'
'Whatever.' Geoff reached for the radio again. 'I'm telling the men to start putting the androids on the trucks.'
Albert's face fell for a second, and he quickly disguised his look of dismay with a cough and a fumble in his pockets. He brought out a pen and clicked it a few times before realising that there was nothing for him to do with it and put it away again. 'Er, really? Now?' He choked for a second.
Geoff looked at him suspiciously. 'Yes. That's not going to be a problem is it?'
'I just... I just had some things I wanted to do.' Albert thought of something suddenly. 'Besides the EM field hasn't been set up in the courtyard.'
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'They've been in the transport fields long enough; it'll take them at least half an hour to come out of reset - plenty of time to load the trucks. Just make sure the soldiers don't say anything stupid.' He paused, reluctant to talk budgets with Albert. 'You do know that the EM generators cost about three times as much as the village? At least this way we'll be able to scrape a few nickels back on the parts if we don't set them up. To be completely frank with you, we need the brownie points with command. Our futures aren't looking good.'
Albert opened his mouth as if to protest, but decided against it. He nodded sullenly.
Geoff turned back to the radio. 'Action stations. Action stations. All personnel to the courtyard. We're going to load the trucks. Watch your mouths out there -
there's no EM field, so the less the androids hear, the more likely it'll be that we all live through this.'
A scattering of 'Yes, sir' responses came crackling back, and the colonel returned his attention to the scientist who stood hunched in his lab coat by the door.
'You will tell me if there's something wrong,' Geoff said, his voice hinting at a softer undertone. 'This operation is too delicate to have you going rogue on me.'
Albert smiled. 'Oh I'm not going anywhere.'
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Suddenly the walkie-talkie screeched once more, and Geoff rolled his eyes. 'Is there a problem, Post Five?'
he snapped. 'Need a diagram?'
'Uh, no, sir,' the timid sergeant responded. 'Just thought I'd inform you that we have a houseguest.'
Geoff looked puzzled. 'A houseguest?'
'Yes sir. Seems to have come from Apple- er, I mean the village.'
There was a pause.
'On a bicycle,' the sergeant finished sheepishly.
The relief Geoff felt for discovering that he wasn't hallucinating was overshadowed by the surprise Geoff felt for discovering that he wasn't hallucinating.
'A bicycle?' he echoed.
'Yes, sir. And that's not the only strange thing about him, sir.'
'Surprise me.'
'I think he's foreign. He can't speak properly and he walks all... funny.'
Geoff sighed. 'He sounds like the worst spy I've ever heard of.'
'But he's not a spy, sir.'
'No?'
'He has an American Health and Safety Pass —
Access All Areas.'
'Sergeant, such a thing doesn't even exist. Who 140
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ever heard of a Health and Safety officer with complete military clearance? You know what? Don't answer that. Just bring him up.' Geoff released his thumb from the call button angrily and dropped the walkie-talkie into a nearby paper bin. It rattled satisfyingly in the tin container. 'I am surrounded by idiots,' he said, almost sadly.
Albert was silent, and Geoff turned to look at him with such sadness in his eyes that the scientist thought he was going to cry.
'What have we done?' said Geoff.
'I don't know.'
'You know this means war, once the Russians spot the nuke.'
'I know.'
Geoff welled up then stifled it quickly, sleeve across his face before emitting an exhausted laugh. 'Not much use for infiltration androids anyway, I guess, in that case.'
Albert laughed in sympathy. 'No, I guess not. But at least our part will be over when this is done.'
'Do you think it'll stay with us?'
'What?'
'The fact that we were here at the start. Do you think we'll be able to forgive ourselves?'
Albert turned away, moving to look out of the window. 'I never had a choice.'
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Geoff didn't respond and after a few seconds he dropped to his haunches with an exasperated groan and began gathering the papers that had spilled out of his blue folder. From the middle of the file a particular sheet slipped out and zigzagged away across the floor. He reached out to grab it and, as he turned the sheet over, he noticed that something had been written on it. Scrawled roughly in chunky red felt-tip, the message read I am living backwards through time. There is no point asking me any more questions. There was a gap then of a few lines before one final phrase.
I'm sorry.
'Strange,' Geoff muttered.
'What is?' Albert looked around. The colonel flipped the sheet over in his hand but the rear was covered merely in the same inscrutable typeface that the other small-print sections of his folder contained. The scientist peered over his shoulder.
'A joke?'
'Maybe, but this folder came straight to my hands
from
the
Pentagon.
There
were
no
intermediaries.'
'Maybe it's a test to see if you actually read the whole thing. If it is, I don't think you've passed.'
Geoff placed the sheet carefully on the foldout table.
'Ridiculous.'
Albert began shifting restlessly. 'OK, well, if that's everything, Geoff, I think I'd better get 142
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downstairs to do some overseeing.' He moved towards the door.
'No, wait,' Ge
off called after him. 'There is one more thing.'
He moved over to a stark grey filing cabinet and pulled out a bunch of keys, Albert watching him intently as he fiddled, painfully slowly, through the collection for the correct one. The drawer finally open, Geoff reached inside and pulled out a parcel wrapped in browning Christmas wrapping paper. 'Sorry,' he said apologetically. 'It was the only paper left in the house.'
He hefted it in his grip and Albert extended a hand to take it, but Geoff didn't move. 'It's sort of a...
goodbye gift, y'see,' he began. 'Probably shouldn't give it to you now, but it seemed appropriate given the circum—'
A loud bang cut him off, and the door to the observation deck slammed open, nearly striking the scientist in the back as he hopped out of the way.
Geoff hurriedly pushed the package back into the drawer and slid it closed. 'What... what is the meaning of this?' he stammered guiltily. 'You can't just barge into a confidential meeting!'
'Sorry, sir.'
It was the nervous sergeant. Geoff didn't know his name, nor had he any wish to. He knew the men on the base weren't really working for him; 143
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there was a greater agenda from a higher authority driving their actions. 'We've brought you the, ah, Health and Safety guy.'
Albert raised an eyebrow as a tall young man hopped backwards into the room with astounding grace for someone who couldn't see where he was going. Bow tie, drainpipes, tweed jacket, fancy hair - he would have blended in well in the hipper areas of Michigan, but as a Health and Safety government official he looked frankly ludicrous.
The man turned to spot the pair, waving a swift hello accompanied by the strangest sound the scientist and the colonel had ever heard.
'Yibtoog. Yeerrur yah nee meiy,' the man intoned solemnly.
Albert looked at Geoff. Geoff looked at Albert.
'Anything?'
'Nope.'
The scientist shoved his hands into his pockets and slipped around behind the sergeant and his two guards. He grinned over their heads. 'Well, good luck with that, then. I'll leave you to it!'
'Wait, where are you going?'
Albert considered lying, but he was in a hurry. 'I've got my own goodbyes to make,' he said, before closing the door behind him.
Geoff didn't have time to respond. He turned to find the strange man standing over by the map 144
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on his table. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
he growled, stepping over to haul the man away. But when he realised what the stranger was doing he stopped in his tracks, hand resting on the nearby chair.
The man had picked up the sheet of paper. He inspected it thoroughly for a few moments before carefully taking the red felt-tip from the far corner of the table and beginning to trace over the message scrawled on the back.
Geoff raised his eyebrows in shock as the writing began to vanish with each stroke of the pen. A moment later and the paper was blank, the felt-tip clattering to the lino floor. The man turned to point at him, then at the backs of his knees, a comical look of surprise on his face. He motioned to the chair. 'Ewe tat zow?' he said.
'I am so not in the mood for this.' Geoff closed his eyes in anger. 'What's that, Mr Crazy?' he said, mimicking the Doctor's gesture. 'You want the chair?' He heaved it swiftly and violently. 'Well, take a seat why don't you?' The chair slammed across the room into the man as he spun around. The plastic seat hit his legs and he dropped suddenly and unexpectedly onto the seat, his face screwed up in pain. The soldiers standing at the back of the room exchanged glances, but the sergeant shook his head.
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'He's in control,' he said.
sednoo dnoad eye,' the man started shouting mid-sentence. His voice was tinged with frustration and sadness.
Geoff began pacing up and down in front of the prisoner. 'I haven't got time for this, Mr Crazy,' he snarled. 'So stop with the gobbledegook and start talking.'
There was no response.
'Who's side are you on?' he yelled.
Still nothing.
'What are you doing here? Where are you from?'
The stranger looked up at him impassively and shrugged. Geoff broke.
'Where are you from? Where are you from? Where are you from? Where are you from?!' Each demand brought his face an inch closer to the man until he could see flecks of his own spit on his prisoner's cheeks.
The man slowly raised a hand and reached into the inside of his jacket pocket to withdraw a thin leather wallet. He flipped it open. 'Won?' he said.
'Health and Safety?' Geoff roared. 'Do you have any idea what's going on here?' He drew back a clenched fist, but the clack of the sergeant's boots as he stepped forward, ready to intervene, made him hesitate and rethink.
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The man slapped the wallet closed and stuffed it back inside the jacket, raising a finger as he did so with a sharp exclamation of 'won eye'.
'I give up,' Geoff said rubbing the back of his jaw.
It ached from his explosion of anger. 'Take him away.'
The sergeant stepped forward, sweat glistening on his top lip. 'Er, where, sir?' he asked. 'Do you want us to let him go?'
'Of course I don't want you to let him go!' Geoff snapped. 'If he's a spy then he knows too much, if he's a US citizen he definitely knows too much, and if he's not a US citizen or a spy then nobody will care what happens to him. Load him in the trucks with the androids and return him to the village.'
'Are you sure? He'll die! Uh... you know he doesn't exactly seem to be too with it. Sir.'
'Don't question me, soldier.' Geoff spat the last word.
He swivelled his head menacingly. 'You've missed the party, sonny. There are too many deaths on my conscience already from this project for me to be swayed by a... freak. Maybe you should think about how much you know about the classified nature of the work you're doing here before you start questioning orders.'
The sergeant swallowed.
'Exactly,' Geoff continued. 'This isn't going to end happily, I can tell you that right now. And if 147
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any of us -' He looked around the room at the other men -
'live to see tomorrow, then I suggest that you head directly to the nearest church, because you'll have been blessed my friends. And it will truly be a miracle.'
'Yes sir,' the sergeant choked, snatching the stranger's proffered hands as he stood up from his chair and hauling him to the exit. The nearest soldier grabbed the handle and yanked the door open.
Suddenly, every man in the room froze.
'What on God's green earth is that?' Geoff whispered hoarsely.
Drifting up from the steel staircase outside the open door was the sound of screaming. There was a sharp burst of gunfire that cut off abruptly, and then suddenly the alarm kicked in, a howling klaxon that made all talk virtually impossible.
The soldiers thrust their palms against their ears, and Geoff had to shout to make himself heard.
'They've been triggered!' he yelled. 'The androids are on the loose!'
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Chapter
12
Colorado, 28 August 1981, 2.38 p.m.
Albert closed the door to the observation room as slowly as he felt was necessary to avoid arousing suspicion, and his soft brown loafers barely made a noise as he padded down the rough iron staircase to the outpost below. Even at the bottom he could still hear Geoff's roaring voice, and he smiled wryly to himself, half in sympathy at the poor stranger and half in relief that he wasn't in the same room to suffer the colonel's wrath.
The shanty town of the outpost glistened in the early afternoon sun as he walked through it. He was surprised to see that there were still large groups of men sitting around on the various crates 149
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and barrels that were strewn around the dusty walkways between the hastily erected officers'
messes, soldiers' messes, sleeping quarters and storerooms.
'Oi oi, chop chop!' He gave a sharp clap with his hands drawing the attention of the stragglers as they turned their heads lazily to look at him. 'No one's waiting for you, so if you don't want to be in the village when the nuke hits I recommend getting a move on!'
There were groans and moans as the men eased themselves away from the shady metal walls and into the harsh light, trailing behind the scientist as he strode purposefully towards the unmarked transport trucks that had been walled into the complex.
He paused at a particularly stubborn group who were playing cards on the kegs behind the mess and made a show of peering over the shoulder of the closest man. 'Two aces, boys,' he said cheerfully. 'I'd get out while you still can.'
The men threw down their cards in unison.
'Thanks a lot, sir, I was clearing up!' the lead player protested, quickly grabbing the notes on the table before any other members of the circle had a chance to reclaim their cash.
Albert waved back at them over his shoulder without looking round. 'Don't care!'
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His stride was too quick to be casual as he rounded the corner to the parking lot, a tarmac section of road that had been boxed in by the huge imposing walls. The trucks had been positioned at as much of an angle as possible. With their delicate interiors and tyres that were certainly not fit for the rocky terrain off the beaten track, it still meant a lot of awkward manoeuvring of the cargo to take it down the covered interior corridor that led to the main courtyard, and the vans that would transport them on the final leg of the journey.
Foldout steps had been lowered from the backs of the vehicles, and a stifling hush had fallen on the area, a stark contrast to the low chatter Albert had experienced up until now. Silently, the future citizens of Appletown were being guided carefully down and out into the open as if they were the most delicate things imaginable. Only their basic motor functions were active after so many hours of being bathed in the interior EM fields of the trucks. Sweat dripped from every soldier's brow, each of them fully aware that one false move could be his last, and it was with a gentle touch that Albert silently pushed through the flanking guardsmen with their itchy trigger fingers.
