Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 |
"So you are sure that this information is forged? How could somebody change computer records like that?" DI Burke listened to the voice on the phone. "Just cut the technobabble and tell me this - could a person who can decrypt PROBE e-mail change records like that?" He listened again. "Thanks. It's nice to know when I'm right about someone." Burke hung up the phone and banged his fist on the desk a bit. "Pearson, you out there?" he shouted.
A uniformed officer entered the office. "Yes. What do you need, Inspector?"
"Has Liz reported back yet? Dr. Shaw, that is?"
"No, sir. And the young man that she was with is also not available. We have a man stationed in the garage about where they reportedly disappeared from, but there's been no sign of them there or anywhere else in the airport."
"Damn. Leave her to get captured by the instigator." The Inspector looked around the room distractedly. "Look, stay here and monitor the phones. I'm going to the garage again and have another look. I can't think of anything else to do." The young officer nodded as the Inspector left the personnel office.
Burke was kicking himself for not trusting his instincts. Everything about the boy had suggested he was a miscreant. Burke swore that if anything happened to Dr. Shaw as a result, he'd personally make sure the boy never saw daylight again.
As he entered the garage he nodded to the officer on duty. Then he began pacing the garage, looking for something that they may have already missed. After several minutes of pacing, which seemed to make the officer on duty uneasy, they heard a scream. Well, that was the closest term they could use to describe it. It sounded muffled and distorted, as if someone was playing the scream under water. Burke moved over toward the wall of the garage and listened carefully. "What's on the other side of this wall?"
The officer thought a minute. "It's another part of the parking garage, sir."
"Get on the horn and see if any of the other patrols heard that strange scream."
The young officer complied and after several minute's discussion he replied, "No, sir. I think you and I were the only people who heard it. And Jenkins is on the other side of the wall."
"I don't know about you, son, but my imagination isn't THAT good." He began feeling the wall, trying to see if it was hollow or if it had any machinery inside of it. He was beginning to doubt his senses when they heard the scream again. This time it did seem to be coming from the wall. He moved over to where the sound seemed to emanate. The wall felt odd at first, then it seemed to slip away. Burke's arm had almost completely disappeared before he thought to remove it. "Shit!" he shouted. "Something's grabbed my arm!"
The young officer broke out of his astonished stupor and raced to the aid of his CO. He tried to pull back on the Inspector as the object in the wall pulled in the other direction. Despite their efforts, the Inspector was slowly being dragged into the wall.
"I want to go home! I don't LIKE this camp!" Young Tegan was pleading with her parents on the phone. She'd never wanted to be a Girl Guide in the first place, and she was very homesick at camp. She expected the usual platitudes and encouragement from her parents, but all she got was a slight hum on the phone. "Mum? Dad? Are you there?"
There was no answer. Tegan hung up the phone. All the other girls were laughing at her. "Don't your mummy and daddy love you?" they asked in a chorus.
As tears formed in her eyes, Tegan thought, "But that's not how it went!" She closed her eyes to the taunting girls and eventually the shouting stopped. When she opened them again, she was back in the place of no definition, as she'd called it. She curled back up into a ball and cried and cried.
Turlough put his hands up to protect his face and neck and then feigned back. He'd left the maneuver late enough so that his attacker wasn't able to compensate and his momentum carried him forward. The man with the knife fell, the knife seeming to penetrate the energy field that acted as the floor. Turlough exhaled the breath he'd been holding and looked to see Dr. Shaw already by the man.
"You are in safe hands now. We aren't going to hurt you." She had her arm over his shoulders as he sobbed, his knife long forgotten. Liz looked up at Turlough. "You're white as a sheet. Are you okay?"
Turlough only nodded as he struggled to get his flight instinct under control. After a few minutes he said, "Thank goodness for physics."
Liz smiled. "Yes, the first law of motion is always useful, isn't it?"
He could have debated the issue of whether Newton was a worthy enough physicist or not, but was too tired. This place was really eating on his nerves, and he couldn't get the sight of his mother out of his mind. "I hope you won't think less of me when I suggest we take our assassin friend and the other woman out of here and recoup before we explore any further."
"Turlough, you read my mind. I'm afraid that if I stay here any longer, I'll wind up like him toot sweet."
Toot sweet? Humans are so odd, he thought. Turlough helped Liz get the man to his feet and headed back the way that they came. He used the energy sensor to direct them to the woman's distinctive quantum pattern. When they arrived at the chamber where they'd first met the woman, they realized that she'd moved on.
"Damn. I wish we could have done something to get her to stay in one place," Liz muttered.
"Don't worry. I think she's made her way to the exit." Turlough moved forward, supporting the man. He was practically unconscious at this time, but he was still whispering threats to the universe at large.
When they reached the chamber that they'd entered, they saw the woman pulling onto this arm that seemed to be growing out of the wall. The arm kept pulling back, but the woman wasn't giving up. "She doesn't look like the strong, muscular type," Turlough said as he propped his load against a wall.
Liz turned back from where she was talking gently to the woman. "She's on an adrenaline rush. I think her body sees this as her only chance at surviving and is pulling for all its worth." She put her hands on the woman's shoulders as she started to whisper that she'd be okay if she stopped pulling on the arm.
Turlough went over to help release the woman's hold on the wrist. As soon as he'd get one hand to let go, it would bat at him and then grab again. He tried to get her to grab his arm instead of the mysterious one and with a bit of work, got himself between the two. But now the mysterious arm had a firm grasp of his left arm and the woman on his right. "I do hope there isn't a demo on shear forces scheduled for today," he gasped. He motioned for Liz to help push the woman toward the exit and with the aid of the mysterious arm, they made their way out of the void.
Turlough blinked when he arrived in the garage. He barely heard Burke saying, "Yer nicked, lad," and didn't notice the other officer handcuffing him. He shook his head to help clear it and noticed that Liz was doing the same.
"That was some trip, wasn't it?" he asked her. He moved to re-enter the void and was stopped by the officer behind him. "What are you doing? Let me go!"
"Burke! What are you doing?" Liz was kneeling beside the woman who was now prone on the floor of the garage. It seemed the change of scenery was too much for her system. "Would you stop playing cops and robbers and help us out here?"
"Who's the bird?" he asked, ignoring her question and plea for help.
"She's one of the missing people. I would have thought you'd figure that out on your own." Liz propped the woman up against the wall and felt for a pulse. It was racing, but seemed to be slowing.
"There's another man in there. If you let me go, I can get him too." Turlough was still struggling with the officer who was gripping his arm. He did note with some satisfaction that Burke was constantly rubbing his wrist which the woman had latched onto in a feat of panic.
"The next place that you are going to is prison. Turns out that all your records are faked. Thought you could fool us, didn't you?" Burke smiled at his prisoner. "Take him away, Turner." The young officer pulled Turlough toward a squad car that was parked nearby. Another officer was waiting for them there.
Liz stood up, furious. "Burke! You don't have any idea what you are doing! This man is not the threat in this case. There's something inside that wall that is kidnapping people and driving them mad. We have to find a way to rescue the others and stop it from kidnapping more. And you've just taken the one man who could possibly help us."
D. I. Burke simply ignored Liz and walked over to another officer. He used the woman's radio to call for an ambulance. Remembering the claim that there was another person possibly in the wall, he asked for two. Then he headed back to his temporary office, grateful that Liz was okay. Irate, but okay.
The next morning, Dr. Shaw read the medical report on the two people that they'd rescued. Cindy Taylor was dehydrated and both suffered some scrapes and abrasions, but apart from a few self inflicted wounds on Captain Reynolds, they were unharmed physically. They still had no idea how long lasting the psychological damage would be. Liz tried to imagine what it would have been like to have been in that place for more than a few hours. And she wondered if she would have done as well had she been alone. She sighed as she thought of Turlough incarcerated at the local jail. There were times she wondered why she put up with the regular police.
Patsy, her immediate superior at PROBE, was walking down the hospital corridor toward her. "Any luck on getting Turlough released?"
Patsy shook her head. "He forged fake computer records of himself and that's a felony. I don't think that the conspiracy and kidnapping charges will hold, however."
Liz nodded. "I didn't think they would. After all, he was essential in rescuing half of the victims. We need to get him out, Patsy. He's the one person who can help us solve this case. I don't fancy going back into that void alone, and I can't think of anyone else equipped to go with me."
"Sorry Liz. My hands are tied in this case."
"I just wish there was some way to rescue Officer Newman, Todd Zimmerman, and Tegan Jovanka from that place. Two of them haven't been in as long as our other two victims, but believe me, any time spent in that place is welcoming insanity. I fear that they'll end up like Reynolds and Taylor before too long."
"They're thinking of sending troops into the void. The troops would go in, rescue the civilians, and then try to destroy whatever is in there."
"That's mad! Typical military thinking. Shoot first and ask questions later. One of the main reasons I left my last job was because of the military mindset. I thought the police would be more interested in people's lives."
"I've told them to hold off on any decisions until you have a chance to come up with an alternative, Liz."
"You know my alternative. He's sitting in a cell somewhere, probably thinking foul thoughts about humankind."
Patsy smiled. "I wouldn't blame him right now." She furled her brow as she thought for a moment. "Liz, if this Turlough isn't human, as you say, then why is he helping us?"
"Even aliens can have friends." Liz smiled at her friend. "He's trying to help Tegan. And I can imagine his frustration right now." Patsy patted her on the back as they made their ways to their respective cars.
Turlough was sitting in a jail cell trying to think of a way out. The primitive locks were nothing against his equipment, but they had taken that when they had searched him. He wondered if calling Liz would help, but then he realized he only knew PROBE's email, not their phone number. Besides, Burke would probably answer the phone instead. Greg Canning might be able to help, though. Turlough got up and pounded on the door. He tried to think how prisoners always behaved in movies and said "Oi! Let me out of here. I get a phone call, you know!"
"Get back from the door," an imposing voice yelled. Turlough complied and the door was opened by the same surly officer who had locked him in. "So you're finally going to call your solicitor? About time, I'd say."
"Who I am calling is none of your business." Turlough allowed himself to be handcuffed again and then to be taken to a room with a phone. Soon he was waiting for Greg to answer.
"Looks like he isn't home," the officer said after it had rung 4 times.
"Give it time. He's a bit distrau... Greg!" Turlough was relieved when he heard the voice of Tegan's fiancé. "You might not believe this, but I'm glad to hear you."
"Who? Turlough? Is that you?" came the voice from the ear piece.
"Yes. Look, I need your help. We've found Tegan, but I can't get out to rescue her."
"You've found her?" Greg's voice was ecstatic and relieved. "Get out? From where?"
"Jail. A Detective Inspector has had me arrested because of my fake records. He thinks I'm responsible for Tegan's disappearance. He couldn't get it past his blunt brain that I nearly managed to rescue all of the missing people. With Dr. Shaw's help, of course." Turlough was toying with the cord of the phone while he was talking, and trying to think of a way to unlock the handcuffs that were around his wrists.
"Look, I'm not understanding any of this. Where is Tegan? Why have the police prevented you from rescuing her?"
"She's in a spatio-temporal void. What that is, doesn't matter. What does matter is that I'm in jail and I need to get out. Can you come down here and post bail or whatever it is people do to get people out of jail?"
There was silence at the other end of the line. "Spatio-what? Turlough, are you deranged or something? If you've gotten yourself arrested, why should I bail you out?"
Turlough sighed. So much for thinking that Greg was the reasonable type. "How does rescuing Tegan before she gets mad enough to kill herself sound. Look, if you don't believe me, talk to Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. She's with an organization called PROBE, the Preternatural Research Bureau. She can explain how close we are to getting Tegan. I can't talk any more, the natives are getting restless. Please get over here and get me out." Turlough paused for a minute before adding, "Toot sweet!"
Greg heard the other end of the line click off. Toot sweet? He wasn't sure what to make of this Turlough. After all he'd only heard of him yesterday morning. And Tegan hadn't been around to vouch for him. But the young man's concern for Tegan, and the Jovanka's assurances that he was a good man, reassured him somewhat. But now Turlough had gotten himself arrested and it was up to Greg to get him out. He sighed. He phoned his solicitor and told him to post bail for Turlough.
Tegan no longer had the visions of her past. She kept refusing to believe them whenever they came in view. Her head hurt and she was very hungry. And she was angry. Where were her rescuers? Why wasn't the Doctor here? Why wasn't Turlough here? Where was Greg when she needed him most? Another memory tried to float to the top of her mind, but she refused it again. "If you want me to cooperate," she told the void, "you'll have to let me go!" The place of no definition said nothing in reply. But then she heard a growling from a distance. Oh great, now it was time for fun park effects. Just what she needed most.
Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 |