Post by Fitz Kreiner on Jul 19, 2012 18:42:47 GMT
Jess looked up at the outer doors. With a loud creak they slammed closed, the bang echoing around the console room. She scrambled to her feet and looked to the Doctor, her eyes wide in panic as he dashed round the console. The wheezing and groaning of the TARDIS engines filled the room and her head with a sickening lurch and she felt an emptiness form in her stomach.
“No, no, no, no,” the Doctor cried, rushing round the console, “No, no, no, not now old thing.”
“What’s happening?” Jess asked.
“We’re taking off,” the Doctor cried, hitting at the console with his fist. “Something is pulling the old girl away from Earth.”
“Can’t you stop it?” Jess asked, diving at the console as the TARDIS gave a lurch. “Tom’s still out there.”
“I’m trying, I’m trying,” the Doctor replied as he pulled hard at one of the levers as a low chiming suddenly filled the console room.
“What’s that?” Jess asked.
“The cloister bell,” the Doctor replied. “She’s pulling herself apart. I’ve got to try to materialise immediately.”
“Where?”
“Wherever we can,” the Doctor replied. “Some great force is trying to pull us apart.”
With a great strained wheeze, the TARDIS engines groaned and the rotor stopped moving. Cautiously, Jess let go of the console and looked at the Doctor. The Time Lord was stood looking around the console room. She was about to ask why he wasn’t doing anything when she saw why. The edges of the room were getting darker, the wood of the walls seemed to be being drenched in shadow. As she watched, the shadows got longer. She could no longer see into the alcoves which contained the kitchen or the library.
“Doctor?” she asked, tentatively.
“No,” the Doctor was saying, “No, no, no, no.”
Feeling an icy chill run through her, she quickly moved round the console to be at the Doctor’s side. “What is it?”
“Something’s draining the power,” he said. “It’s impossible; nothing should be able to break into the TARDIS’s power supply.”
“Well, something has,” Jess replied as another shiver went through her. “Is it me, or is it getting cold in here?”
“Yes, I think the temperature has dropped a bit,” the Doctor said. “I think the environmental systems are being drained.”
“Well, come on then,” Jess said, making for the door, “let’s not hang about to suffocate or freeze.”
“The doors?” the Doctor asked.
“Yeah, what about them?”
“They’re power operated,” the Doctor replied flatly. “Also, we don’t know what’s waiting for us out there.”
“You mean, we could be changing one death sentence for another?” Jess asked.
“Precisely,” the Doctor replied before holding a hand up as though he was about to say something before turning and running into the encroaching blackness.
“Doctor?” Jess called into the darkness. The only light was now coming from the central column and a couple of the illuminated switches on the console.
“Ah-ha!” cried a voice from the darkness. There was a brief flash of light in the near distance and the Doctors grinning face was briefly lit up. “I knew I’d put it somewhere,” he said, waving a crank handle in the light.
“What’s that for?” Jess asked.
“An oil lamp so I can see what I’m doing, and a crank handle for the door,” the Doctor smiled, breezing past Jess. “You stay there, just in case.”
Jess watched from the console as the Doctor crossed the darkened console room towards the door. He skipped up the steps and towards the doors. Reaching the side of them, he turned to Jess and waved before slotting the crank handle into a small hole beside the doors. With what looked like great effort, he slowly turned the handle and the doors slowly jerked open. As soon as they were open enough, the Doctor stopped and moved to exit the TARDIS. Stepping away from the console, Jess made to follow him.
“Ah, not until I’ve seen what it’s like,” the Doctor said, looking back.
Almost downbeat, Jess stepped back to the console and glanced around the darkness. Another shiver ran through her.
“It’s alright,” the Doctor’s voice came from outside the TARDIS. “Come on out.”
Cautiously, Jess crossed the darkened floor, feeling with her feet so that she wouldn’t trip up the steps or over any of the rugs on the floor. As she neared the doors, she could see the chink of light from the outside doors. Emerging from the TARDIS and blinking in the light, she took in her surroundings.
“We haven’t moved,” she said, looking around the lab in UNIT HQ.
“I think we have,” the Doctor replied. “Not necessarily in space, but time.”
“What about Tom?” Jess asked.
Not replying, the Doctor tapped his top lip thoughtfully as he crossed to the main bench. Looking round, Jess took in the sights of the lab. The Doctor was right, it was clearly a different time; there was a computer sat in the corner with seven monitor screens attached and a sofa sat in the opposite corner. They hadn’t been there last time she’d been in the lab. Whether it was now past or present, she wasn’t sure.
“Well?” she asked, turning back to the Doctor. “What about Tom?”
“I’m sure he’ll be about somewhere,” the Doctor replied scooping a newspaper from the bench and quickly scanning the front page before handing it to Jess.
Jess scanned the front page of the paper; it was local to the area. She wasn’t sure what the Doctor wanted her to know from it; the headline was about someone having gone missing. “What am I supposed to get from this?” she asked.
“The date,” the Doctor smiled.
Jess looked up at the top of the paper. The date was clearly written; 24th April, 2000. “We’re in the year 2000?” she asked.
“Six months after we left,” the Doctor replied. “Of course,” he suddenly cried, hitting the palm of his hand against his forehead. “We were meant to be here all along.”
“What do you mean?” Jess asked.
Spinning on the spot, the Doctor grabbed Jess by the shoulders. “Remember when we last landed, I said that it was as though the TARDIS was pulled down by something distorting time and space?” the Doctor asked Jess before continuing without giving her a chance to reply and stepping back. “I naturally assumed that it was the Klil-Raath ship coming out of space-warp. It did have an effect but it wasn’t the reason we landed. The TARDIS was already heading here for something else but the ship just knocked us out of tilt slightly. When I got the systems repaired, she just nipped forward those six months to when she should have arrived.”
“You mean we were meant to be here now, not with the Klil-Raath?” Jess asked.
“Exactly,” the Doctor replied.
“That doesn’t exactly make me feel confident,” Jess said. “Each time you say something like that, it means trouble, don’t deny it.”
The Doctor gave a smile before his gaze flitted over Jess’s shoulder to something on the wall behind her. Stepping around her, he walked over to the wall.
“What is it now?” Jess asked, turning after him before spotting what the Doctor had.
A “Wanted” poster was pinned to the wall. There were three pictures on it, one was a photograph and the other two were clearly pictures drawn by police sketch artists. She recognised the three men immediately without having to look at the one name given; the Master. The photograph was of him when she had last met him when he was using the Autons to attack the Earth. The two sketches were of the Master when she’d first met him, one being the ‘old’ Master who had kidnapped her and tried to steal Tom’s body and the other being the ‘young’ man who had appeared on the TARDIS screen afterwards; the regenerated Master.
“I should have known a cell wouldn’t have held him,” the Doctor said. “Although I guess it was inevitable really, otherwise we’d never have met him to begin with.”
“Timey-wimey stuff, eh?” Jess said.
The Doctor looked down at her and smiled before holding his hand up. Jess was about to ask what he was doing this time before she heard it; the sound of running feet. She opened her mouth to speak before she heard the sound of the door behind her slamming open.
“I knew it!” she heard a familiar but breathless voice cry.
“Tom!” she cried, turning round in time to be caught in a huge bear hug and being lifted from her feet.
“My God, am I glad to see you again,” he grinned before turning and greeting the Doctor in the same manner, causing the Doctor to look hugely bewildered. “How long has it been this time?” he asked letting the Doctor go.
“About two minutes,” Jess said. “Well, for us, six months for you, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Tom replied.
“Well, I see you’ve been busy,” the Doctor grinned.
“Well, you’ve got to do something to pass the time,” Tom smiled. “Stop some despot from becoming King; stop an alien attack force and all that.”
“And let the Master slip away?” the Doctor asked.
“Not like I didn’t try to stop him,” Tom replied, stepping back defensively.
The Doctor smiled and clapped Tom on the back. “Don’t worry about it,” he smiled. “It was bound to happen.”
Jess took a step back to look at Tom. He looked different from how she remembered him. He looked the same, but he was more gaunt, his skin paler, his eyes dark and shadowy.
“Are you ok?” she asked, her head cocking to one side and placing a hand on his arm.
“Yeah,” he smiled. It was still the same warm smile. “Even better now you’re back. Both of you. I was getting worried I’d never see you again.”
“I thought you knew me better than that,” the Doctor said.
“I do, and I know what the TARDIS is like too,” Tom said with a wry smile.
The Doctor looked hurt, before a large smile spread across his face. “I’m glad you’re OK, Tom,” he said before the smile faded, “But could you please tell me what’s going on? Something has attacked the TARDIS systems and drained her.”
Jess felt her smile fade as the Doctor finished his sentence. The look which fell over Tom’s face then made her blood run cold.
“Not again,” Simon Rutherford swore as the image on his monitor crackled. He had been working on some anomalous readings for the past six hours and was no closer to finding any cause. For what seemed like the hundredth time, his monitor was crackling, as though there were static fuzzing across the screen and the less said about how unreliable his internet connection had been over these past six hours, the better.
Several times, Rutherford had tried to contact IT support and several times the call hadn’t gone through and those times it had, the line seemed distant and distorted. From what he could gather, it wasn’t just his line that was the issue. There had been reports from many of the other UNIT stations around the country. He had received further reports from field agents, that it wasn’t just UNIT who were experiencing these technical troubles; other military groups and rumours were even about that the Americans, NASA, the FBI and the CIA, were having the same troubles.
Rutherford was distracted when he received a message confirming that NASA was having troubles. An email from his counterpart in the New York UNIT HQ told him that there were reports of several satellites disappearing and contact being lost with others. Not only that but several key GPS satellites were on the blink.
As much as he wanted to believe it, Rutherford knew that this was all too convenient to be mere coincidence. Convenience would be a good rationale for all the troubles; sun spots or solar flares just putting some technical equipment out of order, or the radiation of these solar activities just throwing a few gremlins into the works.
What further threw the belief that this was more than mere coincidence was that there were confirmed reports of civilian disruptions as well. He already knew about the troubles that London Underground were having, disruptions to their services, surveillance troubles, and now, reports that someone was messing around on the lines and the disappearance of a member of the British Transport Police.
“How’s it going?”
Staff Sergeant Lovatt’s voice brought Rutherford back into the operations room. He looked up to see the Warrant Officer stood inside the operations room, in civilian clothes. He hadn’t heard her come in, which worried him; he should have. He should have been paying attention.
“Staff,” he said, standing to attention.
“As you were,” Lovatt said, pulling up one of the office chairs and bringing it over, sitting next to him.
One thing Rutherford liked about Lovatt was her approachability, one of the many. She never stood on ceremony and almost seemed to resent her rank at times, despite carrying out her duties almost beyond the call of duty. She was unwaveringly loyal to Captain Morris and someone you always wanted on your side in a tight spot. Not that he’d fought alongside her; he was only drafted to UNIT in early February.
“We’re having troubles with our networks and internet, not to mention the phones. It seems to have worsened over the last six hours if you want my opinion,” Rutherford reported.
“As long as you’ve got some facts backing them,” Lovatt replied.
“Yeah,” Rutherford said, “a report from UNIT NYC, NASA have lost a few satellites, including some of the GPS satellites. Jodrell bank has reported some similar readings. I’m also getting reports of public issues in communication too; from small things like phone calls not connecting and internet connectivity troubles, which we’re having ourselves, to security issues and troubles with surveillance.”
“Where have these come from?” Lovatt asked.
“Reports from field agents,” Rutherford said. “There has been an increase in calls to call centres for all internet providers. That, and it’s starting to hit the news a bit, Ofcom have noticed it and so naturally have we.”
“Are you sure that’s not just a virus or something?” Lovatt asked.
“Well, if it is a virus, it’s affecting everyone in the world by the sounds of it,” Rutherford replied. “Civil and military are both experiencing it. And that’s not the weirdest part.”
“Oh?” Lovatt asked, raising an eyebrow.
“There have been reports that power stations are being drained.”
“Being drained?” Lovatt asked. “Have you any more details than that?”
“Well,” Rutherford said, flicking through some of the papers that littered the desk beside him. “I’ve got some reports here somewhere. Ah, here we are,” he smiled, removing a piece of paper. “Yeah, there are several reports, not just from the UK, that power stations, nuclear, hydroelectric, thermoelectric, gas, coal, et cetera, are losing power. They’re producing their required amounts, but somehow, somewhere, the power isn’t getting out. It’s like there’s a leak in the power grid somewhere.”
“And this is all over the planet?” Lovatt asked, almost incredulously. “How can it?”
“I dunno, Staff,” Rutherford replied. “Well, I say all over the planet, I’ve heard that there are some instances of it in the States, and some in Britain. In fact, one of the reports said that the government are on the verge of discussing emergency measures for energy rationing. It’s as though someone is siphoning off the power.”
“Energy rationing?” Lovatt repeated, “isn’t that rather 1970s? What next, a three day week?”
“If only, eh?” Rutherford chuckled. “And on top of all that, one of our field agents has apparently gone AWOL. There’s been no word from them for about fifteen hours. Something rather dodgy is going on.”
“Oh nuts,” Lovatt muttered. “Welcome to UNIT, Simon; there’s always something dodgy going on.”
“No, no, no, no,” the Doctor cried, rushing round the console, “No, no, no, not now old thing.”
“What’s happening?” Jess asked.
“We’re taking off,” the Doctor cried, hitting at the console with his fist. “Something is pulling the old girl away from Earth.”
“Can’t you stop it?” Jess asked, diving at the console as the TARDIS gave a lurch. “Tom’s still out there.”
“I’m trying, I’m trying,” the Doctor replied as he pulled hard at one of the levers as a low chiming suddenly filled the console room.
“What’s that?” Jess asked.
“The cloister bell,” the Doctor replied. “She’s pulling herself apart. I’ve got to try to materialise immediately.”
“Where?”
“Wherever we can,” the Doctor replied. “Some great force is trying to pull us apart.”
With a great strained wheeze, the TARDIS engines groaned and the rotor stopped moving. Cautiously, Jess let go of the console and looked at the Doctor. The Time Lord was stood looking around the console room. She was about to ask why he wasn’t doing anything when she saw why. The edges of the room were getting darker, the wood of the walls seemed to be being drenched in shadow. As she watched, the shadows got longer. She could no longer see into the alcoves which contained the kitchen or the library.
“Doctor?” she asked, tentatively.
“No,” the Doctor was saying, “No, no, no, no.”
Feeling an icy chill run through her, she quickly moved round the console to be at the Doctor’s side. “What is it?”
“Something’s draining the power,” he said. “It’s impossible; nothing should be able to break into the TARDIS’s power supply.”
“Well, something has,” Jess replied as another shiver went through her. “Is it me, or is it getting cold in here?”
“Yes, I think the temperature has dropped a bit,” the Doctor said. “I think the environmental systems are being drained.”
“Well, come on then,” Jess said, making for the door, “let’s not hang about to suffocate or freeze.”
“The doors?” the Doctor asked.
“Yeah, what about them?”
“They’re power operated,” the Doctor replied flatly. “Also, we don’t know what’s waiting for us out there.”
“You mean, we could be changing one death sentence for another?” Jess asked.
“Precisely,” the Doctor replied before holding a hand up as though he was about to say something before turning and running into the encroaching blackness.
“Doctor?” Jess called into the darkness. The only light was now coming from the central column and a couple of the illuminated switches on the console.
“Ah-ha!” cried a voice from the darkness. There was a brief flash of light in the near distance and the Doctors grinning face was briefly lit up. “I knew I’d put it somewhere,” he said, waving a crank handle in the light.
“What’s that for?” Jess asked.
“An oil lamp so I can see what I’m doing, and a crank handle for the door,” the Doctor smiled, breezing past Jess. “You stay there, just in case.”
Jess watched from the console as the Doctor crossed the darkened console room towards the door. He skipped up the steps and towards the doors. Reaching the side of them, he turned to Jess and waved before slotting the crank handle into a small hole beside the doors. With what looked like great effort, he slowly turned the handle and the doors slowly jerked open. As soon as they were open enough, the Doctor stopped and moved to exit the TARDIS. Stepping away from the console, Jess made to follow him.
“Ah, not until I’ve seen what it’s like,” the Doctor said, looking back.
Almost downbeat, Jess stepped back to the console and glanced around the darkness. Another shiver ran through her.
“It’s alright,” the Doctor’s voice came from outside the TARDIS. “Come on out.”
Cautiously, Jess crossed the darkened floor, feeling with her feet so that she wouldn’t trip up the steps or over any of the rugs on the floor. As she neared the doors, she could see the chink of light from the outside doors. Emerging from the TARDIS and blinking in the light, she took in her surroundings.
“We haven’t moved,” she said, looking around the lab in UNIT HQ.
“I think we have,” the Doctor replied. “Not necessarily in space, but time.”
“What about Tom?” Jess asked.
Not replying, the Doctor tapped his top lip thoughtfully as he crossed to the main bench. Looking round, Jess took in the sights of the lab. The Doctor was right, it was clearly a different time; there was a computer sat in the corner with seven monitor screens attached and a sofa sat in the opposite corner. They hadn’t been there last time she’d been in the lab. Whether it was now past or present, she wasn’t sure.
“Well?” she asked, turning back to the Doctor. “What about Tom?”
“I’m sure he’ll be about somewhere,” the Doctor replied scooping a newspaper from the bench and quickly scanning the front page before handing it to Jess.
Jess scanned the front page of the paper; it was local to the area. She wasn’t sure what the Doctor wanted her to know from it; the headline was about someone having gone missing. “What am I supposed to get from this?” she asked.
“The date,” the Doctor smiled.
Jess looked up at the top of the paper. The date was clearly written; 24th April, 2000. “We’re in the year 2000?” she asked.
“Six months after we left,” the Doctor replied. “Of course,” he suddenly cried, hitting the palm of his hand against his forehead. “We were meant to be here all along.”
“What do you mean?” Jess asked.
Spinning on the spot, the Doctor grabbed Jess by the shoulders. “Remember when we last landed, I said that it was as though the TARDIS was pulled down by something distorting time and space?” the Doctor asked Jess before continuing without giving her a chance to reply and stepping back. “I naturally assumed that it was the Klil-Raath ship coming out of space-warp. It did have an effect but it wasn’t the reason we landed. The TARDIS was already heading here for something else but the ship just knocked us out of tilt slightly. When I got the systems repaired, she just nipped forward those six months to when she should have arrived.”
“You mean we were meant to be here now, not with the Klil-Raath?” Jess asked.
“Exactly,” the Doctor replied.
“That doesn’t exactly make me feel confident,” Jess said. “Each time you say something like that, it means trouble, don’t deny it.”
The Doctor gave a smile before his gaze flitted over Jess’s shoulder to something on the wall behind her. Stepping around her, he walked over to the wall.
“What is it now?” Jess asked, turning after him before spotting what the Doctor had.
A “Wanted” poster was pinned to the wall. There were three pictures on it, one was a photograph and the other two were clearly pictures drawn by police sketch artists. She recognised the three men immediately without having to look at the one name given; the Master. The photograph was of him when she had last met him when he was using the Autons to attack the Earth. The two sketches were of the Master when she’d first met him, one being the ‘old’ Master who had kidnapped her and tried to steal Tom’s body and the other being the ‘young’ man who had appeared on the TARDIS screen afterwards; the regenerated Master.
“I should have known a cell wouldn’t have held him,” the Doctor said. “Although I guess it was inevitable really, otherwise we’d never have met him to begin with.”
“Timey-wimey stuff, eh?” Jess said.
The Doctor looked down at her and smiled before holding his hand up. Jess was about to ask what he was doing this time before she heard it; the sound of running feet. She opened her mouth to speak before she heard the sound of the door behind her slamming open.
“I knew it!” she heard a familiar but breathless voice cry.
“Tom!” she cried, turning round in time to be caught in a huge bear hug and being lifted from her feet.
“My God, am I glad to see you again,” he grinned before turning and greeting the Doctor in the same manner, causing the Doctor to look hugely bewildered. “How long has it been this time?” he asked letting the Doctor go.
“About two minutes,” Jess said. “Well, for us, six months for you, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Tom replied.
“Well, I see you’ve been busy,” the Doctor grinned.
“Well, you’ve got to do something to pass the time,” Tom smiled. “Stop some despot from becoming King; stop an alien attack force and all that.”
“And let the Master slip away?” the Doctor asked.
“Not like I didn’t try to stop him,” Tom replied, stepping back defensively.
The Doctor smiled and clapped Tom on the back. “Don’t worry about it,” he smiled. “It was bound to happen.”
Jess took a step back to look at Tom. He looked different from how she remembered him. He looked the same, but he was more gaunt, his skin paler, his eyes dark and shadowy.
“Are you ok?” she asked, her head cocking to one side and placing a hand on his arm.
“Yeah,” he smiled. It was still the same warm smile. “Even better now you’re back. Both of you. I was getting worried I’d never see you again.”
“I thought you knew me better than that,” the Doctor said.
“I do, and I know what the TARDIS is like too,” Tom said with a wry smile.
The Doctor looked hurt, before a large smile spread across his face. “I’m glad you’re OK, Tom,” he said before the smile faded, “But could you please tell me what’s going on? Something has attacked the TARDIS systems and drained her.”
Jess felt her smile fade as the Doctor finished his sentence. The look which fell over Tom’s face then made her blood run cold.
*
“Not again,” Simon Rutherford swore as the image on his monitor crackled. He had been working on some anomalous readings for the past six hours and was no closer to finding any cause. For what seemed like the hundredth time, his monitor was crackling, as though there were static fuzzing across the screen and the less said about how unreliable his internet connection had been over these past six hours, the better.
Several times, Rutherford had tried to contact IT support and several times the call hadn’t gone through and those times it had, the line seemed distant and distorted. From what he could gather, it wasn’t just his line that was the issue. There had been reports from many of the other UNIT stations around the country. He had received further reports from field agents, that it wasn’t just UNIT who were experiencing these technical troubles; other military groups and rumours were even about that the Americans, NASA, the FBI and the CIA, were having the same troubles.
Rutherford was distracted when he received a message confirming that NASA was having troubles. An email from his counterpart in the New York UNIT HQ told him that there were reports of several satellites disappearing and contact being lost with others. Not only that but several key GPS satellites were on the blink.
As much as he wanted to believe it, Rutherford knew that this was all too convenient to be mere coincidence. Convenience would be a good rationale for all the troubles; sun spots or solar flares just putting some technical equipment out of order, or the radiation of these solar activities just throwing a few gremlins into the works.
What further threw the belief that this was more than mere coincidence was that there were confirmed reports of civilian disruptions as well. He already knew about the troubles that London Underground were having, disruptions to their services, surveillance troubles, and now, reports that someone was messing around on the lines and the disappearance of a member of the British Transport Police.
“How’s it going?”
Staff Sergeant Lovatt’s voice brought Rutherford back into the operations room. He looked up to see the Warrant Officer stood inside the operations room, in civilian clothes. He hadn’t heard her come in, which worried him; he should have. He should have been paying attention.
“Staff,” he said, standing to attention.
“As you were,” Lovatt said, pulling up one of the office chairs and bringing it over, sitting next to him.
One thing Rutherford liked about Lovatt was her approachability, one of the many. She never stood on ceremony and almost seemed to resent her rank at times, despite carrying out her duties almost beyond the call of duty. She was unwaveringly loyal to Captain Morris and someone you always wanted on your side in a tight spot. Not that he’d fought alongside her; he was only drafted to UNIT in early February.
“We’re having troubles with our networks and internet, not to mention the phones. It seems to have worsened over the last six hours if you want my opinion,” Rutherford reported.
“As long as you’ve got some facts backing them,” Lovatt replied.
“Yeah,” Rutherford said, “a report from UNIT NYC, NASA have lost a few satellites, including some of the GPS satellites. Jodrell bank has reported some similar readings. I’m also getting reports of public issues in communication too; from small things like phone calls not connecting and internet connectivity troubles, which we’re having ourselves, to security issues and troubles with surveillance.”
“Where have these come from?” Lovatt asked.
“Reports from field agents,” Rutherford said. “There has been an increase in calls to call centres for all internet providers. That, and it’s starting to hit the news a bit, Ofcom have noticed it and so naturally have we.”
“Are you sure that’s not just a virus or something?” Lovatt asked.
“Well, if it is a virus, it’s affecting everyone in the world by the sounds of it,” Rutherford replied. “Civil and military are both experiencing it. And that’s not the weirdest part.”
“Oh?” Lovatt asked, raising an eyebrow.
“There have been reports that power stations are being drained.”
“Being drained?” Lovatt asked. “Have you any more details than that?”
“Well,” Rutherford said, flicking through some of the papers that littered the desk beside him. “I’ve got some reports here somewhere. Ah, here we are,” he smiled, removing a piece of paper. “Yeah, there are several reports, not just from the UK, that power stations, nuclear, hydroelectric, thermoelectric, gas, coal, et cetera, are losing power. They’re producing their required amounts, but somehow, somewhere, the power isn’t getting out. It’s like there’s a leak in the power grid somewhere.”
“And this is all over the planet?” Lovatt asked, almost incredulously. “How can it?”
“I dunno, Staff,” Rutherford replied. “Well, I say all over the planet, I’ve heard that there are some instances of it in the States, and some in Britain. In fact, one of the reports said that the government are on the verge of discussing emergency measures for energy rationing. It’s as though someone is siphoning off the power.”
“Energy rationing?” Lovatt repeated, “isn’t that rather 1970s? What next, a three day week?”
“If only, eh?” Rutherford chuckled. “And on top of all that, one of our field agents has apparently gone AWOL. There’s been no word from them for about fifteen hours. Something rather dodgy is going on.”
“Oh nuts,” Lovatt muttered. “Welcome to UNIT, Simon; there’s always something dodgy going on.”
I must be mad! haha