SMOKE WITH MIRRORS: PART SIX

Trixie looked up from her cafeteria tray. She immediately regretted doing so. “Beam,” she groaned. “Now that you’re out of quarantine, could you, like, wear actual clothes? Unless you’re headed to a pool.”

The blonde holographic woman tilted her head to the side, while still leaning in across the table. Giving Trixie a very good view right down into the cleavage of her swimsuit. “No. I feel all tingly when I cover up more than this,” Beam answered. “Which then seems to make the effects of the virus worse later on.”

“Then at least make the effort to not charge up my hormones this way,” Trixie griped, now finding it impossible to look away from Beam’s heaving chest. “I need to focus, so that I can solve this mystery and get the heck out of here.”

Beam glanced down towards her own torso, then stood up straight again along with taking a step back. “Oh yeah. Sorry. Was just with Para, who’s less susceptible to my wiles than you or Fate. It DOES take a conscious effort for me to not be sexy in this state y’know, pyon pyon.”

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE VIRGA
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

Trixie sighed, finding it easier to stare at her bowl of melon balls now that Beam was a couple metres away. She brought her spoon to her mouth, munching in order to have a moment to consider a response.

Honestly, even if Beam wasn’t contagious - as far as they could tell - having the bunny girl hopping around the Station felt more distracting than it was helpful.

Sure, Fate needed someone to handle station work. And Alice had recently reported that, over time, Smoke could completely clear from an infected person, and revert people to normal. But the number of cases there were still in the minority, while Beam was still very much infected.

But then, Trixie reflected, maybe she was simply biased. Because she had become enraptured by the holographic girl’s coding, which was written in some programming language that she didn’t have a hope of understanding. It was mysterious, magical code, from which a lovely female personality could emerge, and blossom. Blossom, and thrive.

Blossom, and thrive, and perform skilled sexual acts on the fairer sex.

“Why do you consistently send my mind into the gutter?” Trixie finally asked.

Beam smiled and shrugged. “It’s a gift? Though when you first saw me I was giving off more lusty vibes than usual. Doubt that helped for impressions, pyon pyon.”

Trixie shook her head. “Guess I’m not blameless. After almost a week here on this Station, I’m craving more human contact. So, why are you interrupting my lunch? It better not be to hit on me.”

“It’s because Fate’s going to make contact with someone else shortly,” Beam answered. “And she thinks it might be best for all of us to be there.”

Trixie pushed the cafeteria tray away, focus restored. “Let’s hope it provides a breakthrough. Lead the way, and don’t shake your cotton tail at me.”

“No promises, but I’ll try, pyon pyon,” Beam stated, spinning on her heel as Trixie stood up.

Trixie climbing off the ladder in the main control room seemed to prompt Fate to start in on an explanation.

“Okay,” Fate said. “I ran a new character analysis. There was our initial information, which suggested to us that Trixie might have some solutions, plus the data from Alijda and Alice. All conditional on us only consulting someone with whom Epsilon’s previously interacted.”

“Isn’t that kind of a short list?” Para mused. “There haven’t been that many big missions.”

“Small missions count. Like Beam’s first archaeologist assignment,” Fate clarified. “People who have never met us, but they are aware of artifacts and the like.”

“What turned up then?” Trixie asked, coming closer.

Fate turned to the computer. “One name. Time to give this a try.”

The blonde woman reached out and tapped a few keys, then stood back as a phone began to ring.

“We’re not bringing them here, pyon pyon?” Beam murmured, leaning closer to Fate.

“According to his file, he’s got the means to get here if he wants,” Fate answered. “In a British taxicab.”

Trixie turned. “He?” she said, surprised. She’d started to take their all female cast for granted.

The sound of the phone ringing cut out, and an image appeared on the computer monitor. Trixie took in darker skin and what looked like a tan suit, before there was a flash of blinding light. Light that must have come from a swiss army like device that the man was holding. His face came into view as he looked at it, then back at the monitor.

“Oh,” he said. “This is actually a call. I thought for sure there was a malfunction.”

Fate stepped forwards and waved. “Hello! I represent a group of people who are looking for some assistance in terms of a dimensional pandemic. Possibly with a temporal angle.”

“Oh, that’s MASON,” Para said, smiling. She stepped forwards next to Fate, waving. “Hi! How have you been, friendly alien guy?”

Mason’s look of confusion was replaced with a half smile. “Oh, there’s someone I recognize. Para, yes? You still with… the Epsilon Project, was it? Guessing it hasn’t been easy to track me. I’ve been off the grid.”

“I don’t think we were trying to,” Para answered. She looked at Fate. “Were we?”

“No. Alice even put a flag on his file, but we’re in a bit of a bind here. Mason, can I send you all the data we have? For your opinion? You can decide if you want to join us in person after reading it.”

“Oh, HE gets all the data first,” Trixie muttered.

Beam took a step closer to her. “Mason has already been on this Station, and signed a non-disclosure form. Or some equivalent,” she informed her, quietly.

“I’ll take a look,” Mason was answering, as Trixie processed Beam’s words. “Kind of in the middle of something though. Include the best coordinates to phone, in case I can’t visit?”

“Will do,” Fate stated. She stepped forward to tap again at the keyboard.

“Thanks,” Mason said. “I’ll be in touch as soon as – wait, stop, good kitty. No, kitty. No, don’t jump on the–”

The connection cut out.

“Huh.” Trixie ran her fingers back through her twintails. “Well, that was informative. When can we expect him to–”

She was interrupted by a ring, and Fate reached out to tap a button on the console. The image of Mason reappeared, although this time he was wearing a fez and sunglasses.

Trixie stared, her fingers still stuck in her hair. Apparently more time had passed on his end of the phone line than on theirs.

“Hello again. Good news and bad news,” Mason remarked. He peered at his swiss army knife, then pushed the sunglasses up to the top of his head, knocking off his fez.

“Bad news first, pyon pyon,” Beam chirped.

“Hm? Ah, yes. Can’t triangulate to your location, but it’s not because of chronon particles on your end,” Mason said, ducking out of view. “As there are none. I think the trouble’s my stabilizer.” He reappeared and pulled off the sunglasses. “And the affectations aren’t helping. Oh well.”

“Did you want us to try and lock on from here?” Fate asked.

“Don’t bother,” Mason said, waving her off. He peered again at his swiss army knife, then shook it and looked back at them again. “I can deliver the good news this way. I think I know why your pandemics are happening, if not how.”

Trixie slowly lowered her hands. “Just from reading Fate’s files?”

Mason smiled. “Well, and from looking at your group. A bunch of white females. Who are, aside from the lady rabbits, human too.”

As Fate looked back around at their group, Trixie had to concede the point. Even Alice and Alijda fit the bill in terms of his description. Perhaps that’s why the algorithm had pinpointed a brown skinned male alien for them? Assuming biological sex even worked the same way with his race.

“Uh, we’re sorry for that?” Fate said, looking back at him.

Mason shook his head. “Never apologize for being yourself. Unless you’re supporting institutional racism, then do better than simply apologize. No, it just got me thinking, to a virus you’d all be the same too. Except while Beam looks the same, she is different inside. So why go to the trouble of attacking that code, and not the nearest router?”

“Um, I’m more complicated than a router,” Beam protested.

“Right,” Mason said. “You can move about. Go places you shouldn’t. Whereas a router is stuck in one place. You see it yet?”

“Hey! When I go places it’s CONSENSUAL,” Beam insisted. “I mean, I might come on a little strong with the prettiest women, but before I put my tongue–”

“Beam, stop. He means you were deliberately infected,” Trixie broke in. “That’s it, right? This wasn’t natural. Someone adapted the virus to her.” It was starting to click, and not in a good way.

Mason nodded. “The thought had occurred,” he remarked.

“Except the virus was affecting immobile technology on the adjacent world too,” Para reminded them. “Wasn’t that in the data we provided?”

“Well, looked like something was affecting those devices,” Mason granted. “Possibly a program for purging information that people didn’t want getting out. To stay hidden. Another a good way to stay hidden is to be somewhere that nobody wants to go. Like a world in the midst of a massive pandemic. Which is where I was leading.”

“Oh no,” Trixie said, a chill running down her spine. “You don’t think multiple worlds were infected merely to try and divert attention away from the one place where someone was doing experiments, do you?” Misdirection was a classic way of concealing a truth.

Mason shrugged. “Hey, I have no certainties here, only more hypotheses.”

“Okay. So we’re talking about someone trying to stay concealed,” Fate reasoned. “Someone on Bunny World, since that’s where Beam was.” She paused. “We need a better name for that place.”

“Smoke Machine?” Beam mused.

Fate rolled her eyes. “Anyway, this is progress. We can now plan to track down whomever could reprogram a holographic woman to be infected, or otherwise think she was, to keep her and other people away. Not a common thing on that world.”

“They also gave Beam the capability to spread the regular virus in the process, for plausibility,” Para added. “Since Beam gave us an initially positive test, right?”

“I feel like Alijda could do those things,” Beam mused, crossing her arms. She looked over at Trixie. “You probably could as well, pyon pyon. So you’d both be helpful for finding the real crook.”

“I could too,” Mason remarked, reminding them he was still watching. “Not that I - or any of us - would. That is, any of us in this present moment. I’m not sure how your temporal issue factors into the–” Something sparked behind him, and he looked over his shoulder. “Oh, shoot.”

“More trouble with your cat?” Fate wondered.

“You mean the Flerken?” Mason said. “No, I think this is… uh oh, I gotta go. Thanks for the chat, all the best with your problems.”

He waved his hand, seemed to fall down, and the communication line cut out again.

“I’m sure he’s fine, pyon pyon,” Beam said after a moment.

“So that happened,” Trixie said, rubbing her forehead. “Moving on, remind me whether it was confirmed that Bunny World had the first outbreak?”

“Yes, as best as we could tell,” Fate answered. “With the latency period ranging from one day to fourteen days, it’s hard to be 100% sure.”

“All right. So either it started there, and someone’s taken advantage of it to spread it further and give themselves a hiding place… or it was brought there by this individual deliberately.”

“A-Am I the only one thinking Alice could be in danger?” Para spoke up. “Like, maybe anyone who gets too close to the truth gets infected the way Beam did.”

“Alice was steering clear of where Beam had been,” Fate assured. “Precisely because we didn’t want Alice being infected, and didn’t think Beam had found anything. Though I suppose Alice IS staying in the same apartment.”

“I should go back down,” Beam decided. “Not only to help Alice, but maybe seeing me still poking around despite my infection will throw our enemy off their game, pyon pyon.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should go,” Trixie said, crossing her arms. “Aside from how I don’t think I can stand being on this Station much longer, you said it yourself. My ability to give you this virus makes me well suited for pinpointing a like-minded individual.”

“Or maybe Alijda should go,” Para offered. “She also has programming power, we know she works well with Alice, and right now she’s on a decoy world.”

“We’d need to route her through quarantine, which would delay things,” Fate said. “Also, Alijda was seen in the past of the planet she’s on… wait, you don’t think she’d go rogue in the future, and be the person we’re after, do you?”

“If so, all the more reason to have Alice watching her,” Para suggested.

“Hello? Was I not brought on board to investigate?” Trixie insisted. “And I have magic, which Alijda doesn’t have.”

“Your field work is hit and miss,” Beam noted. “And if I was on the planet, I wouldn’t be distracting your research up here.”

Fate crossed her arms, brow furrowing. “Great. Another decision to make.”

OPTIONS:

[crowdsignal poll=10584203]

VOTING CLOSES ON SUNDAY AUGUST 2nd?

EXTRA ASIDE: After a week online, there was only one view and one vote. Again I sighed on Facebook, which brought me to three votes, all tied. I had vague plans for working with all three, but did retweet Tuesday Serial and put out a call on Twitter (twice) for anyone wanting to tiebreak. Happened late on Thursday, so went with the Mason plan. (I’d have thought it was the first person re-voting, possible after 7 days, except it wasn’t for their initial choice.) Thanks for reading, spread the word!

NUMBERS GAME, PART TWELVE: CHOOSE YOUR PATH

Alison took a step closer to Alice, so that they were nose to nose. “Listen Alice, Alison, or whatever your name is…"

“You can still call me Alice.”

“We are NOT going ANYWHERE until you explain to our satisfaction WHAT this project is, WHAT you propose to do with Lissa, HOW–"

“Alison,” Para murmured, reaching out to tap the brunette on the shoulder.

“WHAT?!”

Para shrank back momentarily as Alison spun to face her instead. But she held her ground. “It’s just, even if this Epsilon Project is a shadowy group controlling everyone behind the scenes, I don’t think that’s Alice’s fault…" She looked to the other woman. “Is it?”

“Not in the strictest sense, no,” Alice answered. “I simply do what God tells me.”

“God?” Mason said, arcing an eyebrow.

“Well, since I’ve never met her, I think of her as God,” Alice answered with a smile. “She rescued me from a Hell Dimension and all.”

Alison pursed her lips. “I think I need to sit down,” she decided, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.

Alice gestured to the side of the room, where chairs were arranged about a small table. “We can all sit for a quick Q and A, if it will make you feel better?”

After a moment of hesitation, Alison nodded and went to sit, the others trailing after her. “Are we in Heaven then?” Para mused as she sat.

“No,” Alice answered. The side of her mouth twitched. “Or I don’t think so.”

“So WHERE…" Alison paused, to rein in her irritation. “So where are we?”

Alice leaned forwards, clasping her hands together. “The Hub. A self-regulating station, tracking right and wrong, located in neutral territory. A place of projects of deep mystery, for an unspecified number of humans and aliens. A shining beacon in space-time… all alone in the night.” She paused. “So, Purgatory maybe?”

“You mentioned different dimensions,” Mason reminded.

Alice nodded. “There’s the one you and Alison come from, and Para’s, and the one you were all just in, and a multitude of others. I mean, you could have a world with no shrimp, or with nothing but shrimp!”

“Then which world are we in now?” Para asked, growing confused.

Alice’s nose crinkled up. “You got me there. I’m not entirely sure. All of them. None of them. Does it matter?”

“Well, yes!” Alison shot back. “I mean, are you floating overhead, tracking everybody, planning to abduct any one of us again at a moment’s notice??”

“Yes.”

Alison visibly flinched. “Words cannot even describe the levels of creepiness which you have attained by uttering that one single word.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. You could always tell us to go to Hell, or whatever your equivalent is, and refuse to help with the problems we find,” Alice amended. “But our tracking software pinpointed you not merely because of your skill set. It also told us that statistically, you were the individuals who would be the least likely to turn us down. So, are you in?”

Alison looked to Mason and Para, her eyes widening. “Please tell me that the more she talks, the more she’s creeping you out too. That this is not all mere paranoia on my part.”

“It’s… troubling,” Mason admitted. “But at the same time, Alice, your system isn’t infallible. That letter we received said there were to be two of us. Somehow you got that wrong.”

Alice beamed at Mason. “You ARE good at the details, huh? Yes, we had everything set up to summon you, and then snare Alison from the same dimension through the wake of your TARDIS - only to discover the possible Lissa Jous connection. So my superiors-“ (Alice pointed up at the ceiling) “-roped in Para as well. And, go figure, she arrived first.”

“But then why didn’t you just talk to us then?” Para protested, shaking her head. “Why such limited information at the beginning?”

“I’ll point out that you took off before I could come here to explain,” Alice reminded. “But besides that, we didn’t know for sure that Lissa was involved. We didn’t know if you would go along with us once you knew how we’d tracked you down. We didn’t know if you would be willing to help a world that was not your own. We weren’t even a hundred percent sure of the Big Ben landing site. We’re not omniscient here. Or at least, I’m not,” Alice amended. “I can’t speak for God.”

“There you go invoking religion again,” Alison said, frowning. “Who is this God?”

“She’s…" Alice smiled and shook her head. “On second thought, I won’t tell you everything. Or you might not come back.”

“We’re not coming back either way!” Alison said angrily, rising to her feet. “Or at least, I’m not,” she amended, glancing again to Mason and Para. “I can’t speak for them.”

“You’re not returning? Not even if doing so becomes the only way to save one of their lives?”

Alison’s gaze whiplashed back to Alice. “Is that a THREAT?”

Alice shook her head, continuing to sit calmly. “Not at all. But everyday life isn’t safe. Just ask Para about Sine.” The parabola flinched. “So, Alison, what if one day your hacking skills become the difference between life and death? Would you help us then?”

Alison’s hands balled into fists. “That’s not a fair question.”

“It goes both ways. While you’re working for us, if we discover your everyday life is in danger, we’d make an effort to save you too.”

“My life is always in danger! Even ignoring the Biochemical company, and the chances that I could accidentally teleport myself into a wall, my depression could simply consume me one day and cause me to kill myself!”

“I’m sure we can recruit a good psychiatrist or psychologist to help you.”

Alison glared. “You don’t get it. At all.” She looked to Mason. “You explain. I’m out. I’m done.” She began to stalk across the room, towards the only obvious point of exit, the door opening to a walled off area within the cylindrical room.

“Alison!” Para called out, jumping to her feet and running after the other woman.

Mason half turned in his chair to watch them go, then turned back to Alice. “It really wasn’t a fair question. Alison has legitimate concerns regarding people in positions of power who are after her. Saying that the only way for her and her friends to be safe… is to give herself over to some Project that has even MORE power? It’s not a choice she should have to make.”

“True. But making the hard choices is something we all have to do at some point in our lives. Don’t you agree, Chief?”

Mason narrowed his eyes slightly at the use of his former name. He slowly shook his head. “You have the data. And your goals, I think, are noble. But that doesn’t make what you’re doing here right.”

“The right choice isn’t necessarily the most popular one,” Alice countered.

“So you’ve been told,” Mason retorted. “Tell me, the idea that you’re only following your God’s orders - is that what makes it easier for you to sleep at night?”

Alice’s expression morphed into one of surprise, then quiet sadness. “What helps me to sleep is the knowledge that I’m giving something back to the multiverse. And that I’m not in a Hell dimension.” She stood. “You know what? You and your group saved the Roman Numerals of an entire world. Let’s celebrate that, rather than dwell on the circumstances.”

She then interlaced her fingers and extended her palms out in a stretch, smiling again. “Speaking of which, are you going to let me see Lissa Jous already? Because we really don’t know how she managed a dimensional jump, or where that Phillip guy ended up. And we still want to set that right, don’t we?”

Para found Alison in the small, darkened storeroom, sitting on the floor next to a cylindrical container. She was hugging her knees. Not sure exactly how to help, Para crouched down and adopted a similar position. Alison glanced over. Para smiled uncertainly, and her bunny ears twitched. Alison shook her head, smiling ruefully. “You are so not-human and yet near-human that I don’t even know how to react, Miss Sexy Cute.”

“Para,” the blonde said quietly.

“Para. Sorry,” Alison apologized, looking back at her feet.

“You can call me whatever makes you feel more comfortable!” Para hastened to add. “Just… yeah. I thought we’d started using proper names and such.”

“We had. Are. Should be. You know what? Call me Alijda. I think I’ve missed that.”

“Sure, Alijda.”

They both sat in silence.

“I can’t justify joining this Project to save you,” Alison said at last. “Or Mason, or even Erika back home. But at the same time, if I cut out, I’m not sure if I could live with myself, knowing my leaving may lead to your death. It puts me between a rock and a hard place, where the only viable alternative becomes killing myself-“ (Para let out a gasp) “-but I’m not willing to give in to that side of myself. Not yet. Not over this.”

“I can handle myself,” Para pointed out. “I don’t need you to save me. This Alice, she’s dealing in hypotheticals.”

Again, a short silence. “So would you think less of me if I cut and run from all of this?” Alison asked. “Potentially leaving you and Mason in the lurch?”

Para slowly shook her head. “I’d understand.”

“Because here’s the other thing. This Project is RIGHT. Statistically speaking, I should do this. I’ve spent most of my adult life looking back over my shoulder, wondering when my misdeeds and twisted sense of reality will catch up with me. But finally, I’ve got a corporation - or maybe religious cult - who is not only willing to protect me, but who are trying to do GOOD, if in a bad way. And is their data mining really any worse than all the hacking I’ve done, looking into people’s lives?” Alison let out a bitter laugh. “Hell, I’ve probably broken more laws than this group!”

“Laws are relative to who’s making them, Alijda,” Para pointed out. “Lots of human governments do terrible things without breaking any laws.”

“Hum. Valid.” Alison lapsed into silence again. Then she stretched her legs back out. “Para… if I join them, saying my ultimate goal is to take their whole network down, do you still think they’d want to recruit me?”

The blonde shrugged. “Seems like what they’re looking for is, for lack of a better term, field operatives. I’m not sure what harm you could do to them if you’re never around this Hub place.”

Alison turned. “Might be interesting to find out.”

“Then you’re pulling a Skye,” Alice said. “That’s fine. We operate on a ‘Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You’ basis anyway.”

Alison stared back at Alice for a moment. “Okay - you realize that what you say means nothing without context, right?”

Alice blinked. “Do you not have the ‘Agents of SHIELD’ show in your reality? Skye - not her real name - joined a team but had her own agenda.”

Alison sighed, pressing two fingers to her temple. “Whatever. If that means we’re done here, let’s move on.” She looked towards Mason, now standing with Lissa Jous, who was still in handcuffs. Lissa was again keeping quiet, looking about warily while scowling. “Is the Lissa issue resolved yet? Is Phil back, and is Lissa going to prison?”

“Alice took some scans,” Mason remarked. “She thinks the technology exists to restore Phil. I plan to stay until she does so. In particular, upon Phil’s return, I rather hope he won’t be too upset by the fact that all the clocks that are supposed to read IV have returned to doing so.” He glanced to the pink haired woman. “With that done, we’ll see about restoring Lissa to her own dimension.”

Lissa let out a “Humph”, but otherwise made a point of ignoring them.

Mason turned back, stroking his beard. “As to this place - I’m not the sort of person to interfere. But it’s hard to turn down a distress call. So it could get interesting.”

“While I was kinda MADE to be helpful,” Para remarked. “Particularly where numbers are involved. So… yeah. We might see each other again. Alijda.”

“That might be nice. Para,” Alison admitted, with a half smile. She looked to Alice. “Okay, I’m done here. Get me home before I change my mind.”

Alice beamed. “Easiest thing to do is dial up the coordinates from where we took you. Which was actually your house, in the instant after you teleported. But it would be better to do it with our whirlpool. You okay with that?”

“Maybe?” Alison said warily.

Alice strolled back to one of the computers. She pulled up a virtual keyboard, tapping at it. “Dialling now!” she remarked. A rumbling noise began, and the whole room started to subtly vibrate. After a few seconds of this, a light on the floor suddenly switched on. Looking over, Alison realized that the light was located within one of nine different chevrons. All of them equally spaced around a large ring device, embedded in the middle of the room. The ring itself was large enough to accommodate a small car.

A second chevron illuminated next to the first. Alison’s eyebrows shot up. “Okay, I have seen SOME science fiction shows. Surely you CAN’T mean…”

“Same planet. Different dimension. We’ve found the gateway,” Alice chirped. “Wrong show, but you get the idea.”

A third chevron illuminated. “I’m headed over the rainbow,” Alison concluded dryly.

-END?-

WHICH CHARACTER WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO SEE AGAIN?

OPTIONS: (Alice isn’t listed because you’ll see her again for sure.) (Feel free to explain your choice below too!)

[polldaddy poll=8465591]

Voting will… probably remain open, actually. Votes for the next story and character set will occur in a week.

NUMBERS GAME, PART ELEVEN: TOUR DE FORCE

Para had never thought that she, a personified parabola, would one day be equated with a twenty something human male. But then she, Alison, and Mason hadn’t really thought through the finer details of their plan to capture The Denominator.

The tour for Big Ben had started at 4pm that afternoon, on the ground floor. There were 334 steps to climb, which were done in stages, the guide providing information along the way. The tour group would arrive at the top with time to hear the big bell chime, hence Alison originally figuring she had an hour, from 4 to near 5pm, to track down necessary information in their present. After all, The Denominator had appeared near the top of the tower in the past, so he had to have left from there, spatially speaking.

So when the group returned to that present, it was right after Big Ben rang to signify 5pm. Mason had assumed that Phillip’s untimely disappearance would have caused the tour to descend early. He was incorrect.

This meant that several people in the Elizabeth Tower were witness to the appearance of a SmartCar, as the chiming of the bells ended. They then saw two security guards emerge from inside of it, along with Para, in her usual garb of a bunny girl. Both groups stared at each other for a moment.

“Okay!” Alison declared. “Mason, I leave this to you.” She immediately hurried off.

“Wait! What’s happening here?” the tour guide demanded.

“Reality warp,” Mason answered, speaking with authority. “I’ll have to ask you all to move into that corner of the room until we can get this sorted out.”

The tour guide shook his head in response. “No - we need to clear the area. Someone’s gone missing, and a security sweep is necessary.”

“I’m security. I’m performing the sweep. Also, your missing person is right here. The reality warp transformed him into this blonde woman with bunny ears,” Mason countered. Para’s eyebrows went up. “So unless the rest of you want to be similarly transformed, please do as I say.” For emphasis, he reached into his pocket, pulling out his Bardiche. He tapped at it, and a band of blue light emerged from the swiss-army like device, a light which he began to train around the room.

There was another pause. “What if I’m okay with becoming a buxom blonde?” one of the people on the tour asked.

“Let’s get in the corner!” Para declared. Waving her hands, she tried to gently shoo everyone back to where Mason had indicated. There were skeptical looks, but with a shuffling of feet, they all complied, even the tour guide. Perhaps it was to get away from Mason, who continued to train his light beam around the area.

After about two minutes of this, Mason abruptly let out a “Ha!” and moved closer to the gated off mechanisms of the clock. He fiddled with his Bardiche again, the light switching off, the device now giving off a slight humming noise. He held it aloft, waving it in the air.

Para looked from Mason to the tour group, then back. “What–" she began, but before she could finish the thought, a small device flew through the air connecting to Mason’s Bardiche with a soft ‘clink’. Immediately thereafter, there was a sudden strange sensation - as if, for a fraction of a second, Para had been squashed back into two dimensions.

“Too late,” Mason sighed, demagnetizing his device and letting the flying object fall into his hands. Para realized it was Phillip’s reality-changing Alternator device. “But with this, I should be able to get everyone on the tour to forget about what’s presently going on - except I’ll need my Transformer back.” He looked to Para. “Here, take this to Alison. She can get the necessary readings off of it, if she hasn’t found The Denominator yet. Then bring her back.”

Para nodded, moving to grab the Alternator from Mason before heading off in the direction where Alison had vanished. As she departed, she heard the tour guide speaking up again, only to have Mason shush him.

Whereas the rewriting of reality had seemed to involve a squashing sensation, when Alison first activated the Transformer, she was overcome by a sensation of expansion. As if there were now a fourth dimension, putting her at right angles to herself. That curious effect also lasted less than a second, but it was enough to cause momentary disorientation. Fortunately, Lissa Jous seemed to be similarly affected, throwing off her attempt to knock Alison down.

The two women ended up staring at each other, an arm’s length away. Alison wondered how Lissa was even still there, given how reality had now - theoretically - been reset. Which is when she realized that indeed it HAD been Phil she’d been talking to, up until moments ago. When he’d been replaced. When his whole history had been replaced. Indeed, a part of her still believed that Lissa had been the one their group had been tracking for the last couple days! This reality altering technology was more powerful than she’d thought.

Lissa slowly shifted to an offensive stance, arms up, eyes cold. “I’m Lissa Jous. Former commander of the Bowditch. I know how to fight with nunchaku - and without. Teleport ability or not, you really think you’re capable of stopping me??”

“I don’t– wait, what’s that?” Alison countered, pointing behind Lissa.

Lissa smirked. “I’m not falling for–"

The Alternator executed a perfect parabolic arc in the air, smacking the pink haired woman in the back of the head. She stumbled forwards, turning to regard Para. Which allowed Alison the chance to lash out and smack Lissa upside the head with the Transformer. “Oh, bloody…" the pink haired woman managed to mumble before crumpling to the ground.

“I think we have to return to that ‘Hub’ place,” Mason concluded. “This is unsettlingly beyond me, and I still have their coordinates.”

Alison made a face. She didn’t like that option. It felt like admitting defeat, like they were putting their fate back into the hands of powerful, unknown people. Ones who were somehow pulling the strings. But if not even Mason knew how to restore Phillip to this reality, there wasn’t anything she could think of as an alternative.

After all, Alison reflected, the Time Lord had managed a lot already. He had been able to subtly alter the perceptions of those who had been in the Tower, to prevent any future investigation. (And when even the tour guide identified Lissa as being the missing person, not Phil, Alison knew they had a problem!) Mason had then parked his TARDIS back in the Jubilee Gardens, giving her time to cross reference external computer files with the ones in his ship, which apparently hadn’t been affected by the Alternator device. (It turned out Phillip’s identity was completely gone - all the files were for Lissa.) Mason had even worked out a way to undo the prior problem of that “Back to the Future” movie - apparently a trilogy - and restore that fictional clock to using an “IV” as well.

But restoring Phillip Denomolos was another story. They had handcuffed Lissa and locked her up in the wardrobe room. She wasn’t talking. And they had no idea how to uncouple her from the fabric of this world.

“The Epsilon Project obviously has more knowledge than us,” Para ventured, looking tentatively towards Alison, perhaps sensing her reluctance. “It may be the only way we can help.”

“Let me try talking to Lissa one more time,” Alison decided.

Mason shrugged. “I’ll start on some calculations, in case talk doesn’t work. I anticipate another rough ride, but maybe I can smooth it out a bit this time.”

Alison nodded, then marched for the door leading out of the control room. She heard Para trailing along after her.

The pink haired mathematical woman looked up as they entered. Lissa was stretched out on the ground, arms elevated, her hands cuffed around a piece of the wardrobe. Her expression was neutral. It looked like she’d tried to pull free, unsuccessfully.

“How do we fix this?” Alison demanded. “How do we send you back to where you came from?”

Seconds ticked by, and it seemed like Lissa still wasn’t inclined to say anything. Alison continued to try and stare her down. Lissa scowled. “Even assuming I knew, why would I tell you?” she said evenly.

“Because, if you hadn’t noticed, you’re on an alien ship. Maybe we have something you want. Maybe we can even work out a deal.”

Lissa sniffed haughtily. “Please. There’s only one thing I might be interested in knowing.” Her gaze shifted past Alison, to look at Para. “How did YOU get out?”

Para blinked, startled. “I- I don’t know. I was just here, with them.”

“PARA!” Alison almost shrieked, spinning on her heel. “That was our bargaining chip!!”

The bunny girl looked stricken. “Oh! I… I didn’t think, I just spoke…"

Alison resisted the urge to shake the blonde, or to go to the wall and slam her own forehead into it multiple times. Instead, she turned back to Lissa, who now simply lay there with a smug smile on her face.

“Fine,” Alison ventured. “At least answer me this. Did you actually love Phil? The same way he loved you? Because he apparently loved you enough to give up his own life, his own existence for you! Can you say the same?”

Lissa’s eyebrow arched. “Please. Even if we assume he was my Rory Williams, do I look like Amelia Pond?”

Alison stepped forwards and slapped Lissa. Lissa didn’t react, other than to slowly turn her head back to face her. Alison flexed her fingers. “You’re why a woman like me can’t have nice relationships.”

“Hmm. We both know that’s not true.”

Alison clenched her jaw. It was becoming a lot harder to resist that urge to slam her head - or Lissa’s - into a wall. She turned to Para. “Let’s get back to the Hub.”

The central control room for the station was big. And unlike the last time the TARDIS had materialized there, this time the computer banks had an operator. Alison stared at the apparent technician via Mason’s monitor long enough to register the long, brown hair, T-shirt, and jeans, before storming out to confront her.

“Answers. Now,” Alison demanded, reaching out to spin the other woman around by the shoulder.

Her adversary blinked back, and when she spoke, Alison recognized the voice of ‘Alice’ from their earlier computer communication. “What could I possibly tell you that you haven’t already figured out?” Alice asked politely.

Alison gaped. “How about what is this place? What was the deal with that Earth where I didn’t exist? Where Phil now ALSO doesn’t exist? Where personified math DOES exist? Can you teleport Lissa home, and Phil here? Hell, is it even me who’s supposed to be here, or were the ‘two’ you originally specified in your letter only Mason and Para?! SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.”

Alice frowned slightly, sliding a hand into her pocket as she contemplated Alison’s outburst. “Huh. Okay,” she decided after a beat. “I meant what could I possibly tell you about the Roman Numeral plot. Seeing as you’ve successfully repaired the damage and all.”

“Not all the damage,” Alison countered. “Reality’s still rewritten.”

Alice quirked an eyebrow up. “Um? Oh, Phil? Yeah,” Alice agreed. “We’re still trying to figure that one out. Did you bring Lissa back for analysis?”

“Even if we did, you’re not GETTING her until we get some answers!”

“Hum. Alice, is it?” came Mason’s voice. Alison glanced over to see him approaching, along with Para. He obviously hadn’t felt the same urgency about dashing out to catch the technician before she could escape. Though to be fair, Alison supposed that Alice wasn’t acting like she was in a hurry to go anywhere.

Alice turned and nodded slowly in response to Mason’s question.

“Or is your name actually Alison?” Mason continued. “Because I notice you bear some resemblance to OUR Alison, and when you first introduced yourself, you said to CALL you Alice… not that it was actually your name.”

Alice half smiled, glancing to her fellow brunette. “Ooh, he’s good. Or he’s very aware of how the two of us violate the One Steve Limit.”

Alison felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Yet again. “You… you don’t mean you’re really… me?!”

“Oh, nothing THAT dramatic,” Alice answered, waving her hands in a cancelling motion. “But consider. What if you could find brand new worlds, right there on Earth? Where anything is possible. Same planet, different dimension! And what if you, Alijda van Vliet, subconsciously tapped into one of those other dimensions when you were setting up your fake identity, hmmm?”

The technician returned her gaze to Mason. “It’s true, my name is Alison Vunderlande. Former secretary to Angel Investigations. Presently recruited to the Epsilon Project, the multiverse’s last, best place for hope.” She idly brushed off her jeans. “Now then, any final remarks before I send you back to your respective dimensions?”

WHAT’S LAST?

OPTIONS: [polldaddy poll=8452275]

VOTING WILL CLOSE EARLY TUESDAY NOV 18 EDT

THE NEXT PART WILL CONCLUDE “STORY 1: NUMBERS GAME” (Any lingering questions unaddressed at this point, place them in the comments!)

Next ->

NUMBERS GAME, PART TEN: REALITY SHOWS

Alison van der Land. Or rather, Alijda van Vliet. She was, Mason reflected, a force to be reckoned with. In the short time since their last visit to Big Ben, the woman had hijacked his TARDIS, flirted with a known criminal, befriended a personification of math, and apparently considered suicide. Yet through it all, she had managed to act in all their best interests - despite being, at least in his opinion, focused primarily on herself. It was simultaneously infuriating… and captivating.

In the end, Mason decided that he had to trust her with his Transformer device. Given her teleporting ability, she WAS the person who could get it close enough to the Denominator’s Alternator to read the necessary frequency. Which would then allow her to undo the problem of Big Ben’s Great Clock displaying IIII instead of IV. Along with any other side effects, which might relate to TV opening sequences.

Mason DID hope that any such side effects wouldn’t include the Elizabeth Tower itself being erased from reality, as they’d previously hypothesized. Mainly because his ship would very soon be parked inside it.

“We’re on course for the location in the Tower near where we left the Denominator in 2005,” he told the others, checking his monitors. “Seeing as there won’t be time for climbing stairs.”

Para danced back and forth from one foot to the other. “Should… should I have had you make a security uniform for me after all? To blend in? Along with you? It’s just, I’m NOT used to wearing foreign clothes…!"

“Kinda late to bring that up, Para,” Alison noted. “Besides, not many security guards also wear cute bunny ears.”

“It’s fine,” Mason assured, as Para’s cheeks went pink. “No sense overtaxing my wardrobe, it doesn’t have infinite power to create outfits.”

“No? Damn. I was hoping I’d never have to go shopping again,” Alison lamented. “Not to mention this bra actually FITS properly.”

Mason glanced over. “Is that why you’re still wearing it, even though it’s padded out to Lissa’s proportions?”

“Actually, YES. Now eyes back up.” Alison shifted her gaze to Para. “Men. Alien or not, in some ways they’re all the same!”

“Right! Besides, you look fine at ANY proportion,” Para said with a smile.

The side of Alison’s mouth twitched. “I don’t. My inner self always makes me look hideous. But thanks for the compliment.”

Now Para seemed unsure about how to respond. “Okay,” Mason broke back in, having decided to return his attention to his TARDIS and ignore Alison’s jibe. “I figure I can head off anyone coming up the stairs. Para, you handle any security already in the Clock Room. Leaving Alison to locate the Denominator. Sound good?” He looked up. The others nodded. Mason hesitated, then added, “One more thing. We should consider the possibility that everything out there is really just a pocket universe, designed by this Epsilon Project to test our ability to work together as a team.”

Alison slammed her hands down on the side of the centre console. “Whoa! Ex-CUSE me??”

“Something I’ve been wondering about. It would explain why getting here the first time was such a rough ride,” Mason elaborated. “Also why Alison herself apparently doesn’t exist on this world, and why my race seems to be part of a television show.”

“You mention this NOW?!”

Mason turned to face Alison more directly. “I wasn’t sure about bringing it up at all, given your paranoia. After all, it’s only a theory. But maybe it’s important.” The TARDIS let out a whining noise. Mason glanced to the side. “We’re materializing.”

“Oh, sure! Just a theory! Mention it when we can’t talk!” Alison turned back to Para. “Seriously, men! What’s the deal with their thinking?!”

“Yeah!” Para said, nodding. She then pursed her lips. “Ah, just to be clear, we’re bonding here, right? This despairing about men, it’s not because you’re romantically attracted to me?”

Alison let out a small sigh. “Remind me to have another talk with you.”

There was a THUD as Mason moved to open the main door. “We’re here.”

Phillip Denomolos smacked the side of his temporal displacer. He’d been back for several minutes now, long enough to find a hiding spot, but for some reason he still couldn’t pick up on the alternator’s frequency. Was it malfunctioning? Perhaps he should have jumped back in time before this, to create an extra week for testing! But no. That black man and his female companions had been right about one thing. The technology could be dangerous. Lissa had been clear: One jump back, of minimum seven years in length, then a return to the present. Any more, and there would be risks to his health, not to mention time itself. He wouldn’t betray her trust.

Perhaps the problem was interference. He’d had to use the alternator briefly to get his devices past security. He nodded. Merely a matter of giving the displacer another few minutes to self-calibrate…

“Hey. Stop. Give me that.”

Phillip snapped his gaze up from the device in his palm to see a female security guard approaching, arm out, voice curiously deadpan. She seemed familiar somehow. “No, you stop!” he shouted back. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll detonate this!” He held up his displacer, which had no explosive capabilities, but she wouldn’t know that.

The woman did stop, glancing down at a device she was also carrying - possibly a calculator. And the association clicked. “You’re one of the three from outside! Who were also in the past!” he accused. “Who ARE you people? Why are you following me?!”

She looked back at him. “We’re trying to help you.”

“Trying to help me change this clock?!” he challenged.

Her head shook. “Phil, we both know you’re trying to do more than that. And it’s going to mess with Roman Numerals everywhere. I’m sorry, but the parts you’re using in your alternator - they’re sub-par. They’re going to have a detrimental effect on reality. For the last time, I ask you to believe me. Please. Don’t do this.” To her credit, her expression seemed legitimately sad.

But he’d come this far. He couldn’t stop now. Besides, this woman couldn’t know what sort of parts he was using! The only person who knew all about that and his goals was… he froze. He pictured the security guard with pink looping hair and a tight blue dress. His mouth twitched. “You posed as Lissa.”

She visibly winced. “The remarks I made then were my own.”

“You POSED as LISSA!!” Phillip felt like he had been punched in the stomach. Maybe THIS is why he’d been tempted to stop and talk to her and the others outside! “WHY? No, no - HOW?? She’s someone IN MY MIND! Granted, I made sketches, but you couldn’t have even seen them until after we met! You never explained it that day I accused you, you simply ran off!” He almost took a step forwards to grab her, before realizing he should keep his distance. “Tell me, Fake Lissa, how long have you and your people had me and my apartment under surveillance?!?”

The brunette sighed. “Call me Alison. And we haven’t been spying. At least I haven’t.” She briefly glanced accusingly at the ceiling. He hoped that was merely a failed attempt to divert his attention, as otherwise, it had sinister implications. “All I know is that this whole deal is going to go sideways - and that’s why me, Mason and Para got called in.”

He stared at her, trying to figure out if she knew more than she was letting on. And for some reason, he felt compelled to state the obvious. “It doesn’t matter, Alison - I love her.”

“I know.” Alison’s expression became pained. “I’m sorry.”

The displacer in his hand let out a ping. “I’m not.” Without even looking, he reached down to spin the dial and hit the appropriate button.

She’d been trying to apologize for posing as the object of his affections. He hadn’t understood. That was all moot now, as whatever Phil had done must have activated the alternator. Either that, or he’d released some sort of hallucinogenic gas, as for a moment Alison could swear that the three dimensions around her managed to compress themselves down into two. The effect lasted less than a second, but forced her to gasp for air.

Then, it was as if… nothing had happened. That was it? Somehow, Alison had pictured something more drastic occurring. Though for all she knew, something drastic WAS occurring - somewhere else. The world was a big place. She had to act, had to undo things. She glanced down at what Mason had dubbed his “Transformer”. Readings told her to get closer. She took a step towards Phil.

“No, you stay THERE!” he insisted, now levelling the displacer device at her as if it was a weapon. She supposed it could be, depending on what else he’d done to it. It didn’t really matter.

“No,” she answered simply. And she teleported to a metre behind him.

In the time it took him to register her disappearance into the purple smoke, and then to realize that wafts of the same smoke from behind him was actually a tip off as to her new position, she’d gotten the data she needed. So as he turned and took a step back, she held her own device up. “This will fix it,” she remarked. “This will repair the damage.”

“Who ARE you people?!” he demanded again, this time with more frustration than anger in his voice.

Her heart went out to him. In a sense, they were both pawns in a larger game. “I’m someone who’s interested in returning home.” She shifted her attention back to the ceiling, regretting that she had no better way to communicate with her abductors. “You hear that, Alice back with the Epsilon Project?? I can repair everything… but I’m not going to! Not until you somehow guarantee safe and IMMEDIATE passage for me, my companions - and Phil here! Because as compensation for being caught up in this, I think he should also be allowed to go wherever he wants!”

Phil glanced up, then back down. “Who are you talking to?”

Alison decided that answering would only make herself seem more crazy, so she elected to continue shouting upwards. “You understanding me, Alice?? We can solve your little problem for you - in our own little screwed up way! So what was your endgame? For that matter, what proof do we even have that Phil’s actions aren’t correct for this reality??”

“Are you saying that your device can undo all my efforts rewriting the Roman Numerals?”

Again, Alison didn’t answer, though she began to wonder whether hacking some sort of communications channel on the TARDIS might not have been a better plan. Actually, scratch that, it definitely would have been a better plan - always go for the data! Somehow, personal interactions never went the way Alison hoped.

“Then you leave me no choice.”

For instance, she hadn’t anticipated that Phil might have a backup plan. As soon as he’d said that, she reached out to grab for him. To prevent whatever he was keying into his temporal displacer. To keep him from somehow escaping through time. Her arm connected with his elbow. There was again that momentary squashing sensation, as three dimensions seemed to become two. Then she reaffirmed her grip on Lissa’s arm.

Then she did a double take.

It wasn’t so much a physical double take as a mental double take. Her past didn’t make sense. Why had she dressed up like that guy named Phillip Denomolos in order to gain access to Lissa’s apartment? Why had doing so necessitated Mason’s wardrobe creating fashionable boots for her to wear? More to the point, why was she currently holding off on resetting everything for Lissa’s sake, when she really felt no sense of attachment to the woman?

“Alison!” Para called out from somewhere nearby.

Lissa grabbed for Alison’s arm, trying to pull her in closer, the woman’s other hand reaching for the Transformer device. Alison immediately teleported out of reach, making the conscious effort to do so ALONE, as was necessary when she was in physical contact with other people or objects. Though she made sure to maintain her grip on the object in her hand. And as soon as she had reappeared, and saw that Lissa was charging for her again, she keyed in the ‘Undo’ feature, setting aside her plan of blackmailing the Epsilon Project.

Whatever was going on, it had just become a whole lot bigger.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS: [polldaddy poll=8434832]

VOTING WILL CLOSE EARLY TUESDAY NOV 11 EDT

Next ->

NUMBERS GAME, PART NINE: PREPARE YOURSELF

Alison set aside the pink wig that had turned her into a double for Lissa Jous. She then ran her fingers back through her natural brown hair, rumpling it and letting it fall back onto her shoulders like usual. That done, she put her back against the wardrobe and slid down to the ground, hugging her knees in towards her chest. “Goddamn it.” She tugged up a little on the bottom of the tight dress, ultimately just letting her knees fall to the side instead, lifting her gaze up to stare at the ceiling. “What is even the hell, Alison?” she questioned herself aloud. “You only gonna fall for guys you have no chance with?”

She grimaced. Two problems with that statement. First, she hadn’t fallen for Phillip Denomolos. Not really. Granted, he was a nice guy, and smart, but despite his technological know-how, personality-wise he hadn’t felt like her type. Too obsessed with what was “right” or “wrong”. She had more fallen for the idea that he’d fallen for Lissa. Yet right after confirming that fact, he’d made it clear that he knew she wasn’t really Lissa, so never mind. Which led to the second problem, namely that this meant she had yet to feel a spark of romantic interest with ANY man who didn’t run completely counter to her personality.

Nice guys. Happy guys. Honest guys. All things that she was not. Even David Rose, who had been as messed up as she had been in terms of being affected by that Biochemical experiment - and where she’d gained teleportation, he’d gained super speed - that had not been a good match either. Because David was a police officer. While she was effectively a fugitive. Alison looped some hair around her finger and tugged at it angrily. “Why even think about guys, Ali? Why the hell do you want to pass on your stupid, messed up genes? Because you’re over 30, and your biological clock is ticking? Screw that nonsense.” Despite verbalizing it, Alison wasn’t thoroughly convinced.

There was a knock at the door. Alison quickly pulled herself back to her feet, brushing off her dress. The door began to swing open. “I said no peeking!” Alison shouted curtly.

The pair of bunny ears vanished as quickly as they’d appeared. “Sorry!” came Para’s voice as the door closed again.

Alison sighed. “Bunny girl, come back! I need your help unzipping anyway,” she realized.

The door reopened, the blonde peeking around the corner. “Yeah?”

“Just make sure you leave the alien out there,” Alison noted. “I don’t want anything resembling a man talking to me right now.”

Para blinked. “Oh. So, you don’t like guys any more? Because of Phil? I mean, that is, it’s your life, but you shouldn’t make a hasty decision…"

Alison let out a long breath. “Para, stop. Just get your ass in here, close that door, and strip this dress off of me!” She pursed her lips. “Which I did NOT mean in an indecent way!”

The blonde slipped inside, obviously trying to hold back a smile as she closed the door. “You called me Para.”

“Yeah. I know.” Alison attempted a smile herself, but felt it came out more like a grimace. “I feel like this might end up becoming a serious chat, one which I don’t want to have with a rabbit.”

“Oh. Then… you didn’t do it because you’re feeling any closer to me.”

“Maybe, maybe not. You never know. SNAFU.”

“Snafu?”

“Situation Normal, All F-ed Up.” Alison turned to present her back to Para, pulling her hair out of the way of the zipper. “After all, I’m on some parallel Earth, trying to prevent a mathematical construct named Lissa from destroying Roman Numerals, via her influencing the dreams of a fanboy technician. Not exactly typical!”

Para moved in to pull the zip down. “Right. Well, speaking of preventing disasters, out of all the options you gave, Mason thinks we should engineer an undo for that alternator.” Alison’s dress undone, Para stepped back as the brunette began to disrobe. “It would mean we can flash forward to the present again, rather than mess around any more outside of our proper time.”

Alison stepped out of the blue dress after it hit the floor, going back to the wardrobe to retrieve her original black number, which Mason had said he would clean. “Makes sense,” she yielded. “The big question is, what then.”

“You mean how will we confiscate the alternator, so that the Denominator doesn’t try again?”

“I mean, will we magically end up back in our worlds? Or on that Hub space station? Or will Mason fly the two of us off somewhere for a new adventure? Assuming we succeed, what then??”

“Oh.” Para twisted her fingers together. “Is that what you humans would call a rhetorical question?”

“I don’t know.” This time, Alison was sure she was grimacing. “Part of me wants to end up back at home, with no memory of any of this mess. Yet at the same time… I’m learning things about myself. About my past, about depression, even about romance. It’s like the whole Powers mess all over again.” She briefly debated switching out her lingerie - becoming Lissa had necessitated a little extra padding - but then figured hell with it, and began to pull her regular dress back on.

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Alison held back a sigh. “I’m one of a few people who got accidental powers in my reality,” she admitted. “I realized that, to survive, I’d need to join forces with the others in the same position. This after giving off a terrible first impression, plus I’ve always preferred technology to people anyway. So part of me wishes it had never happened. Except, I grew as a person because of it. Same thing seems to be happening here.”

Para nodded, picking up the blue dress off the floor and looking for a free clothes hanger. “Okay, well, what happened in the other situation?”

“MBE, the Biochemical Engineering company was… persuaded to back off. Let’s say that blackmail, or the perception of such, may have been involved.” She adjusted the straps of her dress. “Which means that, while I haven’t lost touch with the others, at present there’s incentive not to hang out. Because MBE has to be looking for a new angle on us.”

“And so… you’re not sure you want to lose touch with me and Mason the same way? Is that it?” She slid Lissa’s dress back into the wardrobe.

“Kind of. I DO know that I don’t want to stay with you if it means doing things at the whim of this Epsilon Project.” Dress in place, Alison pointed her toe. She decided to keep the boots on too. “I guess I’m wondering if there’s any way we can turn the screws here, maintain the ability to ‘undo’ the ‘undo’, should the Mystery Group not agree to return us to our regular lives. After we save the world and all.”

Para’s nose crinkled. “You don’t think the Epsilon Project would do that anyway?”

“I don’t know, that’s the thing! But I’m also not convinced that Mason would be cool with me playing with his technology to engineer such an undo. At best, he’ll think I’m “joyriding” again, and at worst, he could think I’m in league with Phil. Given how I was maybe playing up the romance angle a bit much, before my last two temporal visits.”

“Maybe? Alison, before leaving us the last time, you said that the best way to figure out if he was truly in love with Lissa would be to kiss him on the lips!”

Alison winced slightly at the memory. “Oh. Yeah.”

The two women stared at each other. “So… did you?”

“No!” Alison felt her cheeks warm as she turned away. “But I was going to. Not because I loved Phil, it’s more that he loved Lissa, and I was Lissa, and it was… nice to feel loved. Besides, let’s face it, you can’t find a safer environment to experiment in than a universe where you don’t actually exist.”

Para crossed her arms. “Then are you truly sure that NO part of you wants to see the Denominator succeed? Because forgive me, you’re not making yourself an easy person to trust right now. And for me, saving Roman Numerals is more than just preserving a bunch of numbers.”

Alison turned back, opening her mouth to protest, but in the face of Para’s resolute gaze, the words died on her lips. “You’re right. I can’t guarantee it,” she finally admitted. “But I’d like to think I have more than my own interests at heart.”

Para continued to look at her for a few seconds before smiling again. “That much I believe.” She moved to grab the pink wig, to put it into the wardrobe as well. “Either way, don’t worry about keeping in contact after this - if Lissa can appear in someone’s else’s dreams, there might be some way I can appear in yours!”

Alison finally managed a true smile. “Or not. No offence, Para, but I don’t love you in quite the same way Phil loves Lissa.”

“I guess.” Para froze in place. “OH,” she breathed. “Do you mean he was having THOSE sorts of dreams about Lissa??”

Alison’s smile faded. “What?” Her eyebrows shot up, seeing Para’s expression. “Whoa! No! I don’t know! Gods, why would you even go there?!”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around someone loving personified math!” Para said, her eyes growing wide. “Maybe the only way you can truly love one of us is if you get to… you know…"

“Stop! Bunny girl! No!” Alison made emphatic cancelling motions with her arms. “Not where I wanted your sexy cuteness to take me! I mean, does that imagery even make SENSE in two dimensions?!” She let out a long breath. “Oy. How about we just go help Mason with his anti-alternator plans. Alright??”

Para nodded mutely back at her, her eyes still large and wondering.

Alison adjusted her new belt. “Just to be clear then,” she remarked. “This whole time, you’ve had a wardrobe that can make proper fitting clothes given almost any specifications… and we’ve only NOW used it to create disguises to get into the Elizabeth Tower?”

“Yes. Because we’re only now trying to undo an interference,” Mason countered. “When we arrived at the Tower that first time, we were observing, not interacting.”

“Mmm. You know, I could probably hack into the government system and actually give us credible backgrounds too.”

“These security uniforms will be quite enough,” Mason assured. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt. “Besides, I thought you said that we’d have to deal with the alternator device almost immediately upon our arrival back in the present.”

“Point,” Alison yielded. “Though now that you’re here, and you know how the TARDIS controls work, you could take me back to a week before, where I could plant a virus to…"

“No.”

“Is our plan really to fully materialize a London taxicab inside the Tower?” Para questioned. “It doesn’t seem safe.”

Mason turned. “Oh, didn’t I mention? I think I’ve got the chameleon circuit partially fixed. My ship will have the appearance of a SmartCar. Should fit in the building okay.”

“We don’t have a choice, there’s no time to run in from outside,” Alison explained. “We’ll be arriving only moments before - maybe even after - Phil, er, the Denominator arrives back in the present. And I’ll need to get this,” she held up the device, resembling a calculator with a small satellite dish on it, “close enough to his temporal displacer to read the alternator’s charged frequency. With that, we can undo his misguided efforts, once he triggers it.”

“I’m still hesitant on letting you be the one to manage that thing,” Mason admitted.

“I know him better than you two. I can get closer. Plus, I suck at running interference.”

“I trust Alison,” Para assured him. “Remember, she saved the both of us last time.”

Mason looked towards her, frowned, then nodded. “All right then. Let’s get this trip over with.” He reached out to throw the switch.

Alison tensed a little at the motion, then looked down again at the device in her hands. Regrettably, she didn’t really know how it worked - only Mason did. She only knew the buttons she would have to push. Her lips thinned. What she did know was that she wasn’t going to push that last button, not until she knew for darn sure that “The Epsilon Project” was going to let them all go free. Including Phillip Denomolos.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS: [polldaddy poll=8414543]

VOTING WILL CLOSE THURSDAY NOV 6 2014 EST

(That’s not a typo. Marks are due Friday, not writing until then.)

Next ->

NUMBERS GAME, PART EIGHT: PERCHANCE ROMANCE

Phillip Denomolos frowned. The pink hair was correct, but the ovals didn’t seem to be the right size. The overlapping waves shown on the blue dress also seemed wrong, even if the boots were accurate. Or were they? “Lissa Jous?” Phillip repeated back to the woman.

Lissa nodded. “I’ve heard about your efforts. I’m here to help you.”

He wasn’t buying it. But at the same time, ‘Lissa’ had to know something, otherwise how could she look so much like the real deal? The one who had been appearing in his dreams? He kept his face impassive. “All right,” he said after a moment. “Join me upstairs.” It didn’t hurt that her features were easy on the eyes.

Yet the woman hesitated again at his invitation. “It might be better to talk somewhere more public, maybe a park…"

“All the stuff for my device is in my flat,” he pointed out. “I can even order us a pizza.”

Her lips pursed, and he thought he heard her stomach rumble. “Food would be good.”

“They’re going into the building!” Para realized, leaning against the central console of the TARDIS as she peered at the video monitor. “Can you still track them? Let us see into his apartment??”

“I’m not a magician,” Mason countered. “My Bardiche can act as a micro transmitter, but Alison elected not to bring it with her. And if we try to sneak in to observe in some more mundane manner, we might blow her cover.”

“But what if he sees through her disguise and assaults her or something?” Para protested.

“She can teleport away,” Mason reminded. “Besides, Alison is a grown woman. We have to trust she knows what she’s doing.” Even so, his tone implied he was still less than happy about her joyriding in his TARDIS.

“But… oh…" Para felt her shoulders slump. “I guess you’re right.” The blonde managed to resist the urge to rock on her heels. “I really hope I remembered the legend of Lissa Jous correctly.”

Mason leaned back against the console. “You want to take another look at the mathematical files I’ve got? See if they trigger any other memories?”

Para immediately shook her head. “No. First of all, seeing the people I know back home reduced to little more than lines on a grid, while understandable, is vaguely creepy. Second of all, some math legends like Lissa may be better left hidden - I don’t want to witness some kind of logical nightmare that I can’t unsee. And finally, if it turns out I DID screw something up in recalling Lissa’s appearance… at this point, I don’t think I want to know about it.”

Mason nodded. “Don’t forget, any visual errors might not be on you. While my wardrobe can custom make items, it’s only as good as the person programming it. And I haven’t had much cause to make outfits for women.”

“There’s that.” Para half smiled, remembering how Alison had refused to give Mason her measurements, demanding to be able to enter those numbers herself - despite the fact that he could probably look them up later, if he wanted to. The blonde looked back at the monitor, which still showed the building outside. She stared at it for a full minute. “Well, Alison hasn’t tried to make a hasty exit yet,” she concluded. “So if the Denominator’s not sold on her act, he’s at least going along with it.”

Mason nodded. “Want to help me program in our next little time leap then? I might not be able to impress Alison with my ship now, but you’re another story…”

“Whelp, we were wrong on a lot of counts,” Alison stated as she re-entered the TARDIS over an hour later. She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it.

Para resisted the urge to run and give the other woman a hug. She settled for a bright smile and the remark, “You’re safe, at the least!”

Alison nodded. “Also fed. Guy has good taste in pizza.”

“When you say we were wrong, do you mean you don’t look like Lissa?” Mason inquired.

Alison shook her head, the wire ovals of her wig wobbling slightly as she finally pushed off from the door to approach them. “No, I do look like her. Or I think I do. Or Phil thinks I do. But you remember how I thought that coming here would start the whole Roman Numeral process, closing up a causality loop? Ixnay on the ooping-lay. Lissa’s apparently been appearing in Phil’s dreams for months. So the sequence of events leading up to our future encounter might not have been altered too much by our showing up here.”

Mason let out a breath, his entire posture now seeming more relaxed. “Thank goodness. I was rather dreading doing a cleanup of the time streams.”

Para was rather more concerned by something else she heard. “Phil?”

Alison turned. “What, bunny girl?”

“Not Four I’s? Not even Phillip? You still call me bunny girl, but you’re now calling him Phil?”

Alison pursed her lips. “Huh. Interesting. Alright, yes, I suppose I am. I mean, we had a long chat and… he doesn’t seem like a bad person, really. In fact, he’s quite bright. If I were to explain the dangers of that temporal displacer to him in my current guise, I dare say he’d listen. I don’t think it’s his fault he was targeted. So it doesn’t feel right to use that nickname to mock him any more.”

Para wondered if she should reach out to grab Alison’s arm, but elected not to. “Um, you DO remember how this guy will rant about how we’re supposed to ‘bow to his wisdom’ though, yeah?” she reminded. “He could be psychotic.”

“He’s not,” Alison fired back defensively. “Or not any more than I am. Besides, I don’t want to blurt out ‘Four I’s’ when I’m in the middle of speaking with Ph– with him, do I? I mean, I almost did when I first saw him, and I need to keep up this charade through at least one more encounter. If not three or four.”

“Three or four?” Para protested. “I thought you said you’d only need a couple visits! The first to see where he was at, and the second to provide him with the devices he would end up with!”

“That was before I knew he was pretty much inventing the things himself, as opposed to receiving them,” Alison countered. “Granted, some of the materials he’s using have been scavenged in rather suspicious, even mystical ways…"

“To that end,” Mason interrupted. “Do we actually have confirmation that this Phillip will be messing with the alternator device? Trying to change the Great Clock along with rewriting the Roman Numeral opening for this television show he likes?”

Para pursed her lips, not sure she wanted to move on from the topic of Alison’s interpersonal relations with ‘Phil’ - but Alison was already answering Mason before Para could even figure out how to vocalize her concerns.

“Yes and no,” Alison stated. “He definitely wants to fix clocks to have four I’s, Big Ben in particular. He’s also obviously a fan of this ‘Doctor Who’ - he’s got merchandise, T-shirts, all that stuff. But I’m not sure he’d screw with the alternator to try and do it all at once. He would know that it’s risky, even after a trial run.”

“Unless…" The other two turned towards her as she spoke, making Para flinch a bit. She tried to quickly unscramble the thoughts in her brain. “Unless maybe he felt he had to do it? To impress someone? Humans can do that sometimes. I know of one guy who suddenly started studying me - well, parabolas - very intently, merely because he wanted to be smart enough to tutor someone else.”

Alison frowned. “You think Phil is going to screw up all the Roman Numerals in the world because he’s trying to impress a girl?” She shook her head. “Kindly keep your romantic notions out of this science fiction story.”

Para was almost tempted to fire back with ‘I will if you will’, but she restrained herself. “It doesn’t have to be romance. Maybe he’s got a dying relative who really hates the show’s new opening sequence, I don’t know. I’m just saying, humans can be driven to do crazy things.”

There was a slightly awkward silence. “She’s got a point,” Mason finally offered up.

“I guess,” Alison sighed. “Okay. Let’s do the time hop, two weeks forward, as scheduled. Once there, I’ll get more from Phil about his family and friends, along with whether he’s had any more dreams about me. About Lissa,” she amended quickly. She then looked to Para. “And I shouldn’t change dresses? You math personifications, you always wear the same clothes?”

“Not the SAME,” Para corrected. “But we have multiple copies of our outfits, yes. After all, changing clothing styles generally means a form change, like standard to vertex. Not something you’d do on a whim.”

“Mmm. All right then,” Alison concluded. She pointed her toe out. “Though personified math might want to reconsider it’s clothing policy. Trying new styles can lead to new discoveries - for instance, I’m liking these boots a lot more than I thought I would.”

“He knows I’m not Lissa.”

The admission hung in the air until Para finally asked, “How?”

Alison rubbed her nose, then headed from the TARDIS door through the control room, towards the wardrobe area. “Lissa apparently appeared in Phil’s dreams again last night, telling him it was time to test the alternator. I obviously didn’t know this, and was unable to fast talk an explanation.” She paused to lean against the wall near the back doorway, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Truth be told, I think he’s suspected me of being a fraud since our second meeting. Maybe even the first.”

Mason cleared his throat. “Do we at least know whether–"

“Yes, yes, it’s confirmed, Phil’s in love with Lissa,” Alison cut in, anticipating the question. Para almost fancied that Alison wanted to add ‘and not with me’, but what she actually said was “So yes, it’s equally likely that his upcoming acting like an idiot with technology is an attempt to impress her.”

“He’s in love with a personification of math,” Para said, feeling like she actually had to say that out loud in order to believe it. “That’s so WEIRD. Most humans HATE us!”

Alison crossed her arms. “Put on a bikini, go to a beach, and then tell me how much the guys HATE you, Miss Sexy Cute,” she countered. “Heck, appearances aside, even I like you more than I thought I ever would.”

Para took in a deep breath, deciding to finally call her out. “Yet… I notice you’re still not calling me Para.”

Alison’s gaze darted over to a random corner of the control room. “True. But at this point, the fact that I’m using pet names to your face, rather than behind your back, is probably more of an attempt to push you away from me. For your own good.” Para felt her eyes widen at the admission.

“Regardless, this means Phillip is going to play with technology he doesn’t understand,” Mason summarized, steering the conversation back to their mission. “Leading us to the question of whether we can prevent that, without interfering with events as we’ve already seen them.”

“We can.”

Again, Alison’s remark implied a follow up that never came. Para exchanged a glance with Mason. He shrugged. “Well?” Para ventured again.

Alison looked back at them. “The problem is actually with his alternator. He’s swapped in some parts, which he doesn’t think will affect the shielding - but I have my doubts. And if there’s bleedthrough, more than just clocks will be affected. In fact I’m starting to suspect “Back to the Future” wasn’t a six hour epic, but rather a series of movies, separated by Roman Numerals.”

“Okay,” Mason said slowly. “But then what’s your solution to preventing the problem?”

“We repair his device,” Alison stated. “So it works properly. Or, if you prefer, we sabotage it, so that it doesn’t work at all. Or we use what I know about it to devise some countermeasures, fixing the problem after it occurs!” She spun on her heel. “Whatever, I don’t care. I’m going to change. No peeking.” With that, she completed her march out of the room.

Para took a step after Alison, but upon realizing she didn’t know what to say, thought better of it and looked to Mason instead. “Well, you’re the time expert,” she observed. “Which of those options do you think is the best?"

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS: [polldaddy poll=8401155]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE TUESDAY OCT 28 EDT

Next ->

NUMBERS GAME, PART SEVEN: CAUSALITY

Mason exchanged a quick glance with Para before looking back at Alison. “What do you mean this isn’t the Earth where you grew up?”

“I’ll explain later,” Alison said dismissively. “As it is, we need to focus on catching Four I’s, aka Phillip Denomolos!”

“Oh! You figured out the name of the Denominator?” Para said in surprise.

Alison grinned. “Yup! Been sifting through data for over a day, as I said. I knew what he looked like, and when he was going on the tour of the Tower. Matter of being a genius with computers and cross referencing.”

Mason frowned. “But where could you have pulled in the raw data? I don’t keep records of every Earth activity in my TARDIS. These data banks aren’t like your internet! For that matter, the records I have stored are apparently not even for this Earth?”

“Truuue,” Alison admitted hesitantly. “But I discovered you can interface this ship temporarily with the internet out there.”

“Even so,” Mason asserted, “that would be the internet of the current time. 2005. Before tours were regulated, before this Phillip signed up.”

Alison coughed. “Potentially.”

Mason’s look became a glare. “You haven’t stayed in 2005.”

“Potentially.”

“You’ve been joyriding my TARDIS through time and space?!” Mason couldn’t even think of the number of regulations that this sort of an act would have violated. And he had let Alison on board, so this meant he was an accessory! He leaned in against the centre console, moving his face closer to hers. “When you picked me and Para up immediately after you left us - it was so that I had no time to PREVENT your actions, wasn’t it!”

“No!” Alison fired back. Her mouth twitched. “Though I grant that was a side benefit.”

The audacity of the woman! “Exactly where did you take–"

“Look, no TIME for this,” Alison interjected. “We’re currently headed back to the present, and by the time we get there, we HAVE to have a plan for stopping the alternator device that got planted in that Tower! I kind of used up any extra lead time with my research.”

Mason walked over to spin a dial on the console. “Time is a bad excuse. I’ve now adjusted our destination to be a few months previous to your setting.”

Alison frowned slightly. “Okay, knowing about that dial a day ago would have been useful information. Still, the alternator - it’s a serious problem! We can discuss my so-called joyriding later!”

“Here’s the thing about that technology,” Para chimed in, seemingly seizing the new topic in order to prevent an argument. “We don’t know what it does. Other than apparently build up a charge, for something like a decade.”

“Oh, an alternator alters the perceptions of everyone in it’s vicinity,” Alison offered. “That information WAS in this TARDIS database. In this case, I hypothesize that it will make people believe they’ve always seen four I’s on Big Ben’s clock, rather than an IV. It’s rather ingenious. Since the trigger ends up being activated retroactively - generally once enough people have been targeted - the newly affected population can then simultaneously convince anyone who was NOT altered over the last several years that reality’s been like this all along. Even historical records and web pages can be changed by unwitting people. Because as we all know, history is written by the victors.”

Despite his mounting annoyance with Alison, Mason was impressed by her deductive reasoning. In fact, he knew something about alternators too, and when coupled with a temporal displacer, they could help to alter local perceptions - so that no one would notice the arrival of the time traveller themselves. Though his being impressed quickly morphed back into irritation over the fact that she was now showing off all this otherworldly knowledge instead of him. “What, did you spend ALL your time alone doing research? Merely to justify your taking my ship wherever you wanted?” he demanded.

Alison’s jaw clenched. “No, not to justify! To resist the urges I had to throw myself into the Thames and be done with it!” she shouted, rounding on him. “Okay? You happy now? Because here I am, hungry, nearly out of meds for my depression, and it’s ONLY my interest in this ship and the technology element of this case that’s kept me going. To try and save a planet where my death won’t even register, because you know what? I don’t exist here!” Her eyes looked a bit like they wanted to tear up, but even so, she held Mason’s gaze.

He flinched away first. “That… doesn’t make me happy,” was the only thing he could think of to say, staring at the wall. He idly reached up to touch his face, where Alison had slapped him during their first trip out of The Hub. That physical strike had been a lot easier to ignore than some of her more recent verbal blows. Yet it was difficult to make a connection with her. She was so unpredictable.

A challenge which he sort of appreciated. Perhaps Alison was right - he should have run off with her all those years ago.

“So how do we stop the alternator device?” Para said quietly, even as she moved to touch Alison’s arm. The brunette flinched back at the touch, but then resumed her earlier pose, taking in a shallow breath as she fired a weak smile back at Para.

“I… I don’t know,” Alison admitted. “That’s why I had to get the both of you. I’m in over my head - I don’t know why it would cause problems for all Roman Numerals either.” She ran her fingers back through her hair. “If it helps, I’ve learned that Four I’s already used his device once before. On the clock tower in the movie ‘Back to the Future’. Yet the only thing to happen there was updates to all beliefs and online files reflecting the lack of an IV in their production. Unless that six hour movie already HAD four I’s on it’s clock, but then why would that girl Alice have brought it to our attention way back on The Hub??”

Mason pushed his increasing thoughts about Alison aside - particularly the fetching way her hair fringe now covered her forehead - to focus in on the more immediate problem. “Okay. The solution to stopping the problem might be in why the device malfunctions… either way, with all this time hopping, we’d better focus on that. Because if we’re not careful, we could end up causing the very problem we are trying to prevent, and be responsible for the current crisis ourselves!” He crossed his arms. “So ladies, throw out any ideas you have, nothing too ridiculous.”

“I thought maybe it was the scope,” Alison admitted, relief in her voice now that Mason had accepted the conversational shift. “Because so many people know about Big Ben, no matter what Earth you’re on. But I found nothing to back up that theory, or know how to deal with it.“

“Maybe it’s a problem with proximity to the Great Clock’s inner workings?” Para offered. “Plus there’s actually four clocks on the Elizabeth Tower, not one! Maybe the Denominator’s device wasn’t properly calibrated.”

Alison shook her head. “Seems like pretty basic stuff to take into account,” she objected.

“Hold on. Calibration. Would this Phillip have calibrated the alternator himself?” Mason mused. “From what we’ve seen so far, he doesn’t understand how dangerous this technology might be. He probably inherited it. Or had it presented to him by someone.”

“By Lissa,” Para asserted. “He’s said as much.” She frowned. “Alison, were you able to track HER whereabouts at all?”

“I didn’t get that far,” Alison said, shaking her head. “Kinda had my hands full already! But from what I read, Four I’s DOES have something of a technological background. He works as a computer tech. What if he tried to recalibrate the alternator on his own? To affect MORE numerals than just those in this one area? In fact - oh!” Her eyes got a bit wider, and she looked back and forth, seeking affirmation.

Para looked hesitant, but Mason nodded slowly, seeing what Alison meant. “This Phillip makes adjustments, failing to anticipate what would happen when he tries to influence all clocks in the country, not just the ones in the Elizabeth Tower.”

Alison shook her head. “No, no, you missed it! Not all clocks. A specific clock. Remember him ranting about ‘the latest Doctor Who opening’? Remember the connection to our date in 2005? Moreover, why do you think this guy’s first trial run was on a clock in a FICTIONAL film? He’s out to rewrite a television franchise. One which, incidentally, I have discovered to be something of a worldwide phenomenon.”

“But if he wants to change the show, why not just change the show?” Para objected, her bunny ears twitching in confusion. “Why change this actual iconic clock itself and wreck all of math in the process??”

“Perhaps because of how the Great Clock has been featured in the show,” Mason suggested, stroking his beard. “Or maybe he’s a bit mentally unbalanced. But even so, this is still mere supposition! We need to PROVE this link. If we’re wrong, our future actions could STILL be what causes the whole situation.”

“But the only way to be SURE is…” Alison stopped, looking thoughtful. Her fingers tightened a little where she was gripping the console. “Ooh. I have a new thought. But you’re not going to like it.”

She told them. And she was right - Mason didn’t like it. But he wasn’t sure whether to be impressed at her ingenuity, or horrified by the possible repercussions. Regardless, he decided that he had been right about one thing all along. Alison was definitely difficult to predict.

Phillip Denomolos turned off his music player and pulled out his headphones as the bus approached his stop. Normally music helped to centre his mind, but apparently the technical problems he had been trying to resolve today at work had pushed him beyond any place where music could help. Yet his invention was so close to being completed! Why this month, of all months, had his muse fled from him?

The twenty six year old got off the bus, pushing his way through the people waiting there with a sigh. He supposed he knew the answer to that unspoken question - with all the recent network problems, his mind was overtaxed. If only someone else could deal with fixing the damn computers! These days, when he went to bed, he was no longer in the right mindset (whatever that might have been) for her to seek him out.

Phillip smiled, now that he was thinking about her. Lissa Jous. His muse. His dream girl. The one who had so often visited him while he slept, speaking in his mind, whispering the hints that he needed. The hints that would allow him to finish assembling the device. The device that would allow him to set right what had once gone so very wrong.

His smile became a grimace at the reminder of the problem, and Phillip glanced down at his watch. He nodded. At least there, the Roman Numerals were done right. He shoved his hands back into his pockets, hurrying for his flat. Perhaps if he had a chance to meditate this evening, it would help? Or perhaps if he watched some reruns of his favourite television show? After all, his device was supposed to time travel too… maybe the connection would help! Certainly time travel was the only way to truly fix things. To show everyone the error of their ways!!

Becoming lost in his thoughts, Phillip was two steps away from the old style taxicab before he even noticed it parked in front of his building. By that point, the door was opening, with a woman stepping out to regard him. He froze. Her hair was pink, and done up in intricate ovals - or perhaps it was a wig? Either way, her blue dress sported a very similar wave-like design. It cut off at her knees, helping to show off her long legs and a pair of fashionable boots. “Four– Phillip,” she stated. “I have come here on a very important mission.”

“What?” he retorted, startled at the use of his name, pulling his gaze back up to her face. “Who are you?”

“My name,” the woman said hesitantly, “is Lissa Jous.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS: [polldaddy poll=8384444]

VOTING WILL CLOSE EARLY TUESDAY OCT 21 EDT

Next ->

NUMBERS GAME, PART SIX: LEAD TIME

Para glanced back and forth between Alison and Mason, ultimately turning to run after the man with the temporal displacer remote. The one calling himself the Denominator. “Stop!” she called after him. “What you’re doing - it won’t merely change this clock. It will cause problems for all Roman Numerals everywhere!”

“Hah! Lies,” the dark haired guy tossed back over his shoulder. He headed into the Clock Room, which contained most of the inner workings for the Clock Tower. Along with the tower bells, among them Big Ben.

“No! It’s not a lie!” she protested, following after.

“Proof?” he called out.

That brought her up short. She realized that they didn’t have anything aside from a lot of supposition and inference. Certainly nothing resembling a two column proof. As she stood there, trying to decide how to respond, Mason hurried past her. “Denominator! Temporal displacers are not safe,” he remarked. His posture remained relaxed, but his tone was becoming mildly strained. “There’s a reason you don’t see people from the future wandering around the past with them. I mean, why do you think that Lissa sent you, rather than go herself?”

“She trusts me,” he responded simply.

“How much do you even know about her?” Alison asked, joining them and crossing her arms.

“Enough.” And Para saw the Denominator remove something from the bottom of the remote device and toss it towards the clock’s mechanisms.

“But maybe Lissa doesn’t know what will happen either!” Para pointed out.

“No, I mean enough talking,” he countered, scowling at them. “You’re not going to stop me with speeches! I should never have said anything when I first saw you. It HAD seemed like you might understand me… I see now I was wrong.” His expression shifted into a half smile. “Besides, now that this alternator is building up a charge, you can’t stop it.”

“Oh? You’re very sure of yourself,” Alison observed, edging closer.

“Yep,” he answered. And, punching a button, he disappeared in a crackle of energy. Caught off guard, Alison leapt for him too late. Mason, who had taken another step forwards, stopped.

“All right,” the Time Lord murmured. “That could have gone better.”

“At least it also could have gone worse?” Para offered.

Which is when the bells started to toll for the top of the hour. Para, and everyone else, immediately clapped their hands over their ears. She was also unable to hold back a little shriek as she fumbled for her earplugs - Mason had suggested them as a cautionary measure before she’d left the TARDIS. Yet even after managing to get the plugs jammed in her ears, Para felt the bunny extensions of her hairband quivering, the ends curling up. She dropped to the floor, letting out a whine. Alison hurried over to take her hand, which she squeezed back thankfully.

Truthfully, the sound didn’t last that long - it was the loudness, and the surprise factor that shook her up the most. Then, in the silence that fell after the bells were finished ringing, Alison pulled back. And then she vanished in a cloud of purple smoke. “Wh-What?” Para said, confused.

“Hands where I can see them!” came a voice from behind her. She spun on the ground to see a security guard standing in the doorway. A quick look at Mason showed him gradually raising his hands up into the air.

In some of the old cartoon shows, a character running off a cliff wouldn’t be an immediate problem - Wile E. Coyote being the usual example. The victim wouldn’t fall until they became aware of their predicament. Alison, by contrast, began to fall immediately. Granted, it could be argued that she’d known this would be the situation when she’d laterally teleported herself out of the Tower, to a position some 60 metres in the air.

The fall from that height would be fatal. Even a second teleport immediately before reaching the ground wouldn’t save her, as teleport would preserve relative velocity, causing irreparable damage almost wherever she went. And, for a fraction of a second, her brain seriously contemplated ending her life that way. Hey, it was a viable way out of this situation, right?

Then her survival instincts kicked in, and she executed part two of the fleeting idea she’d had, whereby she teleported down to a position about a metre above the Thames River. Now that she was outside, and could see it. More or less. It was still dark.

Thus Alison hit the water with the speed of someone falling only a few metres, rather than 60. It still hurt - just as she knew it would, having looked into the physics of such situations not long after gaining her abilities. Water was not soft and compressible. But she forced her body to relax, and to remain conscious as she plunged under. The water itself helped a bit with the latter, as it was cold.

She surfaced, gasped for air, and managed to tread water long enough to pick out a point up on the shoreline. Then, with another puff of smoke, she was standing, dripping wet, next to the Thames. She pitched a little to the left as she took a step, and righted herself. Perhaps she should sit down? “No, come on, Alison, MOVE,” she said aloud. “Your little adrenaline rush here is NOT going to last…"

With effort, she weaved her way back through an imaginary crowd towards Mason’s TARDIS, managing to re-enter the apparent taxicab and close the door again - before passing out on the floor.

Alison awoke to the sound of muffled voices. She pushed herself back up, shivering involuntarily in her wet clothing. She was alone in the room. The noises seemed to be coming from outside. Alison cocked her head to the side to listen; it sounded like someone complaining about the location of the taxi.

Perhaps, Alison reflected, she should simply walk out and give herself up to whoever was there. Honestly, her escape from Tower Security had been more of a paranoid reflex than anything else - and once she’d ended up 60 metres in the air, she’d been kind of committed to the actions which had followed. Or to her death. Though would death be preferable to being captured here, some ten years in the past?

“Hey, it’s not like anyone would miss you either way,” she found herself saying. “Singh can find someone else to organize his files, Marshall Biochemical can chase after some other powered human, the bank can take their property back… heck, Mason himself pointed out how you’re only here for him. That job’s been taken care of. So why not go throw yourself back into the Thames, Alison? That’ll solve everything.”

She stood. Some part of her brain reminded her that she was likely just entering a particularly depressive state of mind, which was not unexpected after everything that had recently occurred, and so she might want to take some of the medication she kept in her purse instead. She effectively ignored that thought, instead reaching out for the door. Which was when another part of her mind (or the same one?) questioned whether she really wanted to present herself to the law, or as a corpse, while wearing the same damp, black dress she’d been in all evening.

That thought was the one that annoyed her enough to make her turn around and head for the back room instead, the one where Mason had found the earplugs. There had been a wardrobe back there as well. She might as well see if there was anything better to wear. Of course, there wasn’t - unsurprisingly, the majority of it was men’s clothes - but there was also a mirror, and Alison found herself looking at her reflection. She posed briefly, attempting a flirtatious smile.

The image that met her gaze didn’t look flirty. It looked plain. Tired. Pathetic. So far from Para’s “sexy cute” that it wasn’t even funny. Not ugly, granted, but worse than average. Because inside, Alison knew was also a mess. A mess, who had brought her mess, and all that emotional baggage, down onto two others. Others, who had been forced to work with her. Against their will. They deserved better. Yet they had been captured, and needed her help.

Her brain jumped a track.

She WAS the only one of them currently free. Were they in trouble? Did they actually need rescuing? By someone other than her? Anyone other than her? “Shut up,” she whispered back to that doubting voice. Why? “You know you’re not as bad as you think you are. Not really.” Right, you’re worse. “Shut up. You’re all they’ve got now.” They can handle themselves. What can you do? “A lot. Now, do you want to let these ‘Hub’ people win? Or do you want to die knowing Mason and Bunny girl are still out there, ready to kick their asses?” Silence.

Alison strode back into the console room to find her purse. She dry swallowed a pill, then headed back to the wardrobe, peeling out of her dress and throwing on a button up shirt and slacks, tying them about her waist with the help of a belt. She looked at herself in the mirror again.

She still looked horrible. But simultaneously, she looked ready for action. “Okay,” she said, pursing her lips. “Let’s actually come up with a plan that works this time.”

Para looked uncertainly back at the security guard, finally raising her hands slowly to mimic Mason. She wondered what, if anything, she should say. Which is when there was a strange noise. A somewhat familiar strange noise. Like someone was trying to drive, except they kept pumping the brakes every three seconds.

“Excuse us for a moment,” Mason said to the guard, inching forwards and reaching down to take Para’s hand. “Our ride is here.” The guard for his part was now looking around, presumably trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Or whether they had any more accomplices. Where had Alison disappeared to?

Then Para saw the outline of the TARDIS control room forming around her. Mason helped to pull the blonde up to her feet, as a wall flickered in and out of existence between the two of them, and the guard. Para then clearly heard the guard mutter “a taxi?” right before the wall went solid. Mason grabbed onto the centre console with his free hand as Alison, clad in a shirt and pants, threw a switch and danced around the five sided shape.

“Laten we gaan!” the brunette exclaimed with a grin - Para later learned that was Dutch. Alison reached out to spin a dial, the noise continuing around them.

“How is it you’re flying my TARDIS so accurately?” Mason demanded.

“I’m beginning to think I can hack any computer system in existence,” Alison retorted with a smile.

“You HACKED my TARDIS?!” Mason’s tone made it difficult for Para to tell whether he was horrified or incredulous. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

“Well, only somewhat,” Alison yielded. “Bit of a blend of hardware and software here, and I’m more into the latter. Also, this thing seems to have a consciousness. But once I realized that, and was able to project my intentions, things progressed rather better.”

“What are you talking about, Alison?” Para asked, desperately trying to keep up. “How could you hack anything? You were gone less than a minute!”

“Nope. More than a day,” she retorted. “Speaking of, Mason, glad you have a washroom installed in your ship. Not as thrilled with the scarcity of food. When this is over, I’m going to want to stop for takeout.”

“So you traveled back in time to get us,” Mason reasoned. He released Para, tugging down on his suit jacket. “Using the tolling of Big Ben to pinpoint not only the time, but also the location. Clever.”

“Yep.” Alison stopped fiddling with the controls to stand back and put her hands on her hips. “So, you still think I’m not supposed to be here? Because I now think I’m the one who’s supposed to be leading this mission!”

The temporal connection finally clicked for Para. Yet there was one thing she still didn’t understand. “So why did you come back into the past for us?” she questioned. “Why not just track us down in what became your present?”

Alison frowned. “In short, I wasn’t sure I should leave you at the mercy of the locals. Because I’ve learned that this Earth… it’s not the Earth where I grew up.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS: [polldaddy poll=8364684]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE TUESDAY OCT 14 EDT

Next ->

NUMBERS GAME, PART FIVE: NO PLAN

“April 16th, 2005,” Mason noted. The lighting in his TARDIS switched from green back to standard yellow upon arrival. “Time, right after midnight. We can scan all day for temporal incursions… unless you have any other insights, Alison?”

The brunette sensed that his tone was a little testy, probably after her insistence on the date. But she was sure that this was right - it made sense somehow, this collision of reality and fantasy. “I was actually thinking of arriving during the actual airing of the “Doctor Who” episode when Big Ben gets destroyed,” Alison admitted. “But being early works too.”  She smiled.

“I’m still hesitant,” Para reiterated, shaking her head slowly, her bunny ears quivering. “I mean, linking the roman numerals plot to a specific fantasy show? I don’t think any people would exist at the intersection of those two wildly different things. Who would even read a news story like that?”

“That’s why Four I’s or Lissa Jous or whoever has done it that way,” Alison argued back. “Because no one would be interested. No one would see it coming! Even I’m not interested, yet I’m here!”

“About that,” Mason said slowly. He waited until both of them turned to him. “I’ve been wondering. Is it possible you’re not supposed to be here, Alison?”

Alison leaned in, hands on her hips. “Excuse me??”

Mason sighed. “You might recall the original message Para found read ‘I cannot directly interfere. But the two of you can.’ Now, I’m apparently here because of the time element, and how my history has a connection to this… TV show. While Para is here owing to her connections with mathematics and our adversary. So, Alison - how did you become the third of our twosome?”

Alison stared. Her eyes narrowed. “Mason, for the second time today, I don’t know whether to hug you, or smack you. I mean, props for thinking like me, but how dare you imply that I’m somehow here of my own free will?? Or are you implying I’m somehow associated with this Epsilon Project?!”

Para blinked. “I think he was merely implying you’re superfluous.”

“Not… really…” Mason began uncertainly, but Alison had already rounded on the blonde.

“Hey, I’m the only one who knew this was the right destination time, Bunny girl!” she reminded. “For that matter, I’m also the only human in this group! Maybe someone at the top level thought that would be valuable, hm?” She blinked, then scowled. “What am I saying? Now you’ve got me DEFENDING our abductors! The heck is up with THAT?!”

“Okay, look, calm down,” Mason sighed as Para shrank back under Alison’s increasingly aggressive stance. In fact, it looked like the blonde wanted to crawl behind the TARDIS’ centre console to hide. “What I actually meant,” he continued, “is if there IS a fantasy plot around us, why is Alison here? She’s grounded in reality.”

Alison made a face. “I teleport. Yeah, that’s so reality.”

“My hypothesis,” Mason charged on regardless. “Would be that she’s actually here for me. Owing to our previous encounter, someone may have thought Alison could draw me in, make me more amenable to temporal alterations, despite my preference for non-interference.”

“N-Non interference? W-Wait, are you now saying you don’t want to save the roman numerals any more??” Para said, her ears quivering and her blue eyes misting over slightly.

“It’s not that I think this situation should be ignored,” Mason assured her. “But I wonder… perhaps it should not be dealt with by us?”

Alison slapped her hand down on the edge of the console. “That’s WHAT I WAS SAYING! Back at Big Ben!” she reminded him huffily.

“Yes, and I’m finally agreeing with you,” Mason pointed out. “In particular, I noticed that this time trip to 2005 was a lot smoother than the one we took out of the Hub. Maybe that’s because we’re finally doing something they want us to do? It gives me pause.”

“Then is it too late to fail, or leave?”

“Stop! No one’s leaving!” Para’s nose crinkled cutely. “Though Mason, do you mean ‘They’ as in Alice and the Project who got us involved? Or ‘They’ as in Lissa and the Denominator who are behind the evil plot?”

Mason shrugged back at her. “The former?”

“Perhaps those two groups are actually one and the same,” Alison added suspiciously. “Maybe this is all some big testing ground! To see what we’re capable of. You really want to stick around for that, Bunny girl?”

The three individuals shared a series of uneasy glances.

“I… I can’t do nothing though,” Para said. “I just CAN’T! It’s NUMBERS, I have to help!”

Mason sighed. “And now that Alison has had me bring you here, I’ll feel responsible should anything happen to you while you’re helping.”

“Oh good! My fault again?!” This time Alison did reach out to smack Mason’s arm.

“More like you’re a catalyst,” Mason decided. “Which is good though - you seem to be speeding things up so that we finish this affair sooner.”

Alison eyed him uncertainly, trying to figure out if that was a compliment or not.

“D-Do we have a plan then?” Para asked. “For searching through the Clock Tower for temporal anomalies?”

“I guess we should come up with one,” Mason yielded.

Mason had again parked his TARDIS over in Jubilee Gardens, since the exterior still resembled a British cab, which would stand out inside the Tower itself. He began repairs on the chameleon circuit, as Para did some research on how best to gain access to Big Ben. After all, even though they were now back in the past, before the tours were restricted to only British Citizens - not to mention, to before the tower itself had even been renamed the ‘Elizabeth Tower’ - security was still tight.

“So why can’t you simply teleport us in, Alison?” Para asked as she read the monitor.

“I need to see the destination to get there,” Alison retorted, leaning back against the console next to the bunny girl, arms crossed. Her attention was on the corner where Mason was working. “Otherwise I can end up inside a wall. Which is why hacking into surveillance cameras has become a useful skill. Though in a pinch…” She stopped.

Para looked up. “In a pinch?”

Alison continued to stare into space for a moment, before turning to look back. “I hesitate to say. I’m not comfortable talking about what I can do, frankly - the only reason you know about my ability to start with, is due to it being tied to my arrival on that Hub.”

“Oh.” Para looked back down at the monitor. “You don’t trust me then. Okay.”

Alison let out a noise of exasperation. “Can you NOT look so adorable with, like, every other action you take?! It’s making me feel bad, now that I know you’re in a similar situation to me.”

“I’m sorry…"

“Don’t apologize, that’s worse!” Alison rolled her eyes skyward. “Fine. In a pinch, I’ve found I can teleport into the area shown by a freshly taken photograph. If no live stream is available. But it’s chancy, since the area in question must remain clear. It also hurts my head.”

“Oh.” Para paused. “In that case, Mason has that device that can photograph. And I now think that my ability to fly means I’ll be able to get tower access, up here, near the clock itself,” she said, pointing to an image on the monitor. “As long as I don’t try to do it right when the clock strikes.” She smiled. “Once I’m inside, I’ll send a picture image back here to you and Mason, and you can both join me.”

“That’s… plausible,” Alison yielded. “Except a flying bunny girl will attract attention.”

“Maybe we could arrange a distraction.”

A loud persistent ‘pinging’ noise began to come from the console. Alison quickly stepped away from it, holding up her hands. “Wasn’t me!”

Mason stopped his repairs, coming over to have a look. “No, not you,” he agreed. “I set up an auto-scan. There’s now residual temporal readings from the Clock Tower. Ones that are increasing in concentration, implying an echo coming back in time. Someone’s about to arrive.”

Alison smiled smugly. “Knew it. When, tonight?”

Mason shook his head. “In less than an hour.” Alison’s eyebrow went up as Mason looked to her. “So you’re a bit off, but as far as the date goes, it seems you were right after all.”

“Oh, and it’s still practically the middle of the night - I can fly now and no one will notice!” Para noted, clasping her hands. “If I hurry, I’m sure we can implement the only plan we’ve come up with!”

Alison grimaced, but an exchange of glances confirmed that none of them had an immediately viable alternative. Mason did make a point of grabbing something that he felt they would all need though.

Less than five minutes later, Para exited the TARDIS with Mason’s “swiss army” Bardiche, preset to camera mode. Once outside, she reached up to tug down on the strands of blonde hair that fell past her ears, concentrating on the effect she wanted. Her rabbit ears compressed down, soon looking nearly perpendicular to her head, indicative of a parabola with a very low stretch factor. The ears then started to spin, sending the blonde up into the air like a helicopter, and she sped off towards the tower in the dark.

“Rgglfrgll,” Alison grunted, releasing Mason in order to drop to her knees and press both of her palms to the sides of her head. “I HATE using photos!” The purple smoke around her gradually began to dissipate.

“Interesting,” was Mason’s only remark following the teleport. He briefly looked around the Clock Room, before holding out his hand towards Para, who immediately returned his Bardiche. Mason swiftly switched settings, trying to track the temporal signal he’d picked up before. “Aha. The closer we are to the flashpoint, the easier it’s becoming to track,” he reflected. “Follow me.”

Para waited long enough to help Alison back to her feet, supporting her a little as the two of them moved off, trying to keep the Time Lord in view. As it turned out, they almost walked right into him, as he had stopped partway down the stairs. “It’s right in front of us,” he remarked. “In 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… … 0… negative 1…"

A being popped into view. They immediately recognized him: Four I’s. His eyebrows went up, upon seeing the three of them standing there. “What?!” he mumbled, looking down at a device in his hand. It resembled a television remote control. “This can’t be right. I left you people outside… in the future!”

“What a strange coincidence. Now, give me that temporal displacer,” Mason said, holding out his hand.

The resolve of their adversary seemed to grow at the request. “No!” he fired back, drawing the device to his chest before reaching up to adjust his glasses. “This thing is not only my ticket back to the present, it’s also what’s needed to retroactively change this stupid Great Clock back into the right format!” he asserted. “No matter what, you cannot stop - the Denominator!!”

“Okay, to be clear, are you saying that YOU are also the Denominator?” Alison said. “Because for me, it’s a little vague. Also, Four I’s has a nicer ring to it. Don’t you think?” As she spoke, Para attempted to edge closer to the crazy British man along the wall, but he saw the movement and threw a glare back at the bunny girl.

“You can scoff all you like,” he retorted. “You’ll never catch me! Besides, even if you destroy this temporal device, Lissa has more!” With that, he ran right for them, pushing through the group and heading the rest of the way up the stairs.

“Oh bother,” Mason sighed. He glanced over at the two women.

“Our plan really hadn’t gone much beyond this point, had it,” Alison reflected.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS: [polldaddy poll=8352319]

VOTING WILL CLOSE EARLY TUESDAY OCT 7 EDT

Next ->

NUMBERS GAME, PART FOUR: IIII

The day was overcast. Mason elected to park his TARDIS, still in the form of a British cab, over in the Jubilee Gardens. He figured it would be out of the way. He then walked with Alison and Para over Westminster Bridge, and the three of them stood at the Elizabeth Tower, which housed Big Ben, for a good ten minutes. They spent the time alternately looking up at the clock, and at all of the people walking past. “Well, Big Ben is still there. Still a clock,” Alison said at last.

“Technically, Big Ben is the bell,” Mason observed. He’d done some cursory research in his ship’s databanks upon discovering their destination. “What we’re seeing is called The Great Clock.”

“But then what are we supposed to do now?” Para asked. “Join the tour?”

“We can’t,” Mason responded. “As of the year 2010, only British citizens are allowed through security to take the trip up, and even they have to apply months in advance.”

“Lovely. Then there was no point in us coming here,” Alison said, crossing her arms.

“Bah. Don’t you worry about not getting to see it up close,” came a new voice. Mason turned to regard the twenty something guy who had paused next to them to look up at the clock face as well. He had dark hair, large glasses, and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt which had a large DW on it. The guy shifted his gaze back to Alison. “That thing is a symbol of everything wrong with clockmaking.”

Mason raised an eyebrow. Something about this individual bothered him. “Good point,” he said slowly, despite not being sure what the guy was talking about. “But there’s a number of reasons for that, right? So what is it that stands out the most for you?”

The dark haired man turned to glare at him. “Seriously?” Mason glanced briefly towards Alison and Para before simply shrugging. The T-shirted guy sighed and pointed up. “We’re approaching 4pm. Look again! What hour is that?”

Everyone turned to look back up at The Great Clock. “It’s… sixteen hundred hours…?" Para ventured.

“It’s I-V,” the man retorted, growing angry. He adjusted his glasses. “That’s all WRONG for clocks. Proper timepieces do not follow the usual rules for Roman Numerals! They’re supposed to read IIII! And it’s about time someone dealt with this problem. I mean, have you seen the latest Doctor Who opening?! All those IV’s spiralling around the TARDIS… it’s wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!!”

Mason flinched at the reference, even as Alison followed up with, “Okay buddy, calm down… the clock, it’s a piece of history. Right? It’s not like we can do anything to change what it looks like now.”

“Not like YOU can do anything about it,” he sniped back. “But Lissa Jous has given me the ability to change things. I’ve already managed it for one Clock Tower! And once I get up there, you and the rest of the world will already have seen the error of your ways - and you will have bowed to my wisdom! The wisdom of the Denominator!” He immediately took off running.

The three individuals sent out by the Epsilon Project watched quietly for a moment. Then Para cleared her throat. “Do either of you get the impression that that’s the guy we were supposed to stop?”

“Yeah, I got that vibe,” Alison admitted. “But he’s not trying to steal Roman Numerals. Just change them. There has to be more to it than him - what if he’s a plant, designed to lure us out?”

Para cocked her head to the side. “Good point. He mentioned a Lissa Jous,” she agreed. Her bunny ears twitched. “Oh dear, why does that name sound familiar?”

“Maybe it’s familiar for the same reason that his mentioning a Doctor and a TARDIS struck a chord with me,” Mason said, deciding he had no choice but to invoke the name. “Because there’s someone of my race who goes by The Doctor, and like me, he’s quite caught up in things involving time.” He rubbed his chin. “But who would he be opening for?”

Alison looked back and forth between the other two. “Okay, so… should we run after ‘Four I’s’ there and interrogate him after all?”

Mason shook his head. “No, you’re right, Alison. It would show our hand. Plus, did you catch his use of tenses? He spoke as if he would already have succeeded. There’s a temporal element here. That must be why I was called in.”

“Oh no. Does that mean I was called in because of Lissa? I don’t remember her!” Para said, wringing her hands. “If only we could communicate back with the… oh! Mason, that picture they showed us on The Hub, I think you snapped a photo, maybe there’s another clue there??”

Mason nodded, reaching inside his suit pocket for his Bardiche. Pulling up the recall feature, he used it to display the image of the two people standing at the clock face. Para leaned in close. Then she pointed to the clock numbers. “Look! That must be the first Clock Tower this Denominator guy was referring to,” she decided.

“Call him ‘Four I’s’,” Alison suggested again.

“Moreover,” Para continued undaunted, “I’m reminded of Alice saying she wasn’t sure if this ‘Back to the Future’ thing existed in our realities. Maybe that’s because it USED to exist… but was erased from any reality that couldn’t tolerate the change to the Roman Numerals there!”

“Hmm. Time CAN have funny ways of dealing with incursions,” Mason reflected.

“Meaning Big Ben could be erased from our reality if that sort of alteration is attempted here?” Alison postulated. Para bobbed her head eagerly in response.

“By Big Ben, do you mean the bell, the clock, or the tower?” Mason asked, feeling like a little clarification was needed. Alison shot him a look.

“Maybe it’s even worse than that,” Para breathed. “The Great Clock is so iconic, maybe IT vanishing is what triggers the loss of ALL the Roman Numerals in the world!”

“Interesting.” Alison frowned, but nodded. “Yet okay, let’s buy that as a working theory. Good job, Bunny-girl. This means we have to stop whatever ‘Four I’s’ is going to do once he reaches the top of the clock.” She paused. “ALTHOUGH, if we succeed, this ‘Epsilon Project’ might keep recruiting us. Maybe we should fail instead. What do you think?” She looked to Mason. “You can return us home either way, right? With your ship?”

“In theory,” Mason said, feeling unusually uneasy at the question. He repocketed his Bardiche. “But in practice, the rides have been a little rough lately for no reason that I can fathom.”

Para was now looking at Alison with wide eyes. “You can’t be serious. Suggesting that we should FAIL? That we should let Roman Numerals disappear??”

The brunette turned back to her. “What?” She waved her hands out in front of herself. “Oooh, oh no, some old style analogue clocks will have blank faces and we can’t tell what year movies came out. Not a big deal.”

“Think of the numbers used in enumerating major sporting events,” Para shot back, becoming visibly upset. “Oxidation states in science. Names of people, popes, and royalty through history - some of them existing as names of plays today. Page numbers in book prefaces. Shall I go on?”

“Personified math would know her numbers,” Mason reflected with a half smile, secretly pleased to see Para standing up for something.

“Mmph. Right, fine,” Alison sighed, turning back to face the clock. “I was only kidding anyway.” And Mason wondered if that was really the truth. “But exactly how are we supposed to get up there?” she continued unfazed. “I can’t teleport without a visual frame of reference.”

“I can fly!” Para noted. She glanced around the busy bridge. “But that would attract a lot of attention.”

“And we can’t get on the tour,” Mason reiterated. “But maybe we’re coming at this the wrong way. This Denominator–“

“Four I’s.”

“–would have had to book the tour months ago. Despite that, his rant seemed very fresh.”

“So maybe Lissa picked him because he’d previously signed up for the tour?” Para hypothesized.

“Maybe,” Mason yielded. “But there’s also the fact that security is not going to let him up there with any suspicious equipment. And the fact that he said we would ALREADY have seen the error of our ways.”

“Then you’re thinking the equipment was planted earlier. In the past,” Alison reasoned. “Perhaps ‘Four I’s’ was even signed up for his visit back in the past. Meaning the only thing he’s going to be doing now is activating something.”

“Right,” Mason affirmed. “And I have a time machine. So if we travel back to when this was all set up…"

“But we don’t know when that was!” Para protested.

“Then we reason it out,” Alison decided. “But not here. Since even if we can’t, we’re not of much use standing about outside. Let’s get back to Mason’s ship.”

She began to stride away, Mason and Para turning to follow. They were stopped only momentarily when an individual moved closer to tap Para on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” she said timidly. “Could I get a picture of you in those cute bunny ears?”

Less than ten minutes later, the three of them were back on the TARDIS, Mason having synched his computer systems to pull up Wikipedia on his video monitor. It was hardly the sort of place you wanted to rely on, but he figured an eye towards present day data made for a good jumping off point. “There,” Mason suggested. “August 11th, 2007. A six week stoppage, bearings were replaced for the first time since installation. Someone could have slipped something into the mechanism.”

Para shook her head. “But look here. July 27th, 2012. The bell chimed 30 times for the Games of the XXX Olympiad. Someone had to engineer that, and it connects more directly to Roman Numerals.”

“You’re both wrong,” Alison asserted from her position behind them, eyeing the makeshift keyboard that seemed to control the web browsing. “I can find the date we need.”

Mason stroked his beard. “Three possible dates. Then what’s next? Put it to a vote?”

“No way. Because you’re both wrong,” the brunette repeated. She elbowed her way in closer and started typing. “Didn’t you notice HERE, where the page references an episode of that ‘Doctor Who’ the guy was ranting about? Apparently your Doctor friend is a television personality here, Mason. You’ve been browsing the wrong wiki.” A new page came up on the monitor as Alison navigated a search. “Aha! See? Right there, 2006, Big Ben gets partially destroyed. The episode itself aired…" More typing. “April 16th, 2005. That’s our date. Let’s get to it.” She stood back, smugly.

Mason found himself speechless for the first time in recent memory. Mostly due to seeing the evidence that pieces of his history existed in some sort of science fiction show.

“That’s a bit of a leap, Alison,” Para said hesitantly. “It would imply some sort of correlation between our reality and television fantasy.”

Alison lifted an eyebrow. “Look at the ship you’re in, and who you’re talking to, and say that again,” she challenged.

Without saying a word, Mason moved over to flick the requisite switches, before pulling on the lever to activate the temporal displacement.

WHAT’S NEXT?

OPTIONS: [polldaddy poll=8336528]

VOTING WILL CLOSE LATE WEDNESDAY OCT 1 EDT

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NUMBERS GAME, PART THREE: HER PAST

Alijda van Vliet had not had the easiest life. Going through high school in British Columbia, she’d often lacked focus, and showed little interest in social activities. Instead, Alijda’s time was spent daydreaming, or programming computers - or challenging societal norms, such as the time she’d been caught shoplifting. But it wasn’t until second year University, after her parents had moved away, that she finally decided that beneath it all, her real problem was one of depression.

That was when she’d first met Mason. Or rather, “Chief”.

“That place any good?” the dark-skinned man asked.

Alijda snapped her gaze over towards him, crumpling the page she was holding for the psychiatric retreat in her hand. She wasn’t sure why she bothered; he’d obviously already seen it. More to the point, why was there a man in a suit spying on people in this coffee shop? “Who wants to know?” she shot back.

“Me,” he responded with a half smile.

“And who might you be?”

He seemed to consider the question before responding. “My real name’s not easily pronounceable in English. I go by ‘Chief’. Mind if I join you?”

Alijda glanced around briefly, taking in the rest of the tables in the establishment. There were a number of other seats available. “Yes.”

Chief tilted his head slightly. “Why?”

“Because,” she sighed. “I’m bad news. Run off and save yourself.”

“Saving myself is why I decided to come to this part of the planet, actually. In fact, I think I’ll join you regardless what you’re expressing verbally.”

Alijda frowned, peering a little closer at Chief as he sat down. Upon closer examination, she realized he looked… tired. Perhaps even a little depressed himself. Did she look anything like that? Wait a moment, the clinic WAS only a couple of blocks away. “Are you a patient from this psychiatric place??” she challenged, slightly uncrumpling the paper in her hands and laying it back down on the table.

“Not yet,” Chief said. “How about yourself?”

“No!” She looked down at the page, then back up. “No,” she repeated, softer. “And I probably won’t be. Places like this, they want referrals. Worried friends. Family members staging an intervention. I don’t have any of that. Nobody cares, least of all me. Besides, I probably can’t afford to sign up anyway.”

Chief leaned forwards. “I don’t have any of those things either, yet I’ve decided to give it a try,” he remarked. “Maybe that’s why I was drawn to you.” He clasped his hands together on the table. “So, did you have a strategy for your initial approach? Because if you won’t use it, perhaps I can try it out instead.”

Alijda almost retorted that her plans were nobody’s business, but checked herself. No need to be such a downer if he was a depressive too. “I doubt you could,” she snorted instead. “Seeing as I figured I’d march in and say ‘Hi, I’m Alijda van Vliet, university dropout and computer hacker extraordinaire. I hate people, myself, and society in general. Kill me now.’ Not pretty, but it would doubtlessly provoke some sort of reaction. What do you think?”

He grinned. “I think I like your flair for the dramatic. Pity I’m not meeting you under better circumstances.” Something about his tone caught Alijda off guard - he was speaking soberly, not snarkily like her, but with the same aura of truth about his words. Who was this Chief?

There was a lengthy pause, as the two of them did nothing but silently regard each other. “I’m seeing three options here,” Mason continued at last. “First, we both go our separate ways, me to counselling, and you to wherever. Second, we both go and check ourselves into that establishment for tips on grief, depression, the works. Third… I take you to my spaceship, and we take a trip among the stars.”

Alidja’s heart sank. ‘Crud’, she realized, ‘This guy is a loon.’ “Spaceship?”

“I’m actually from another planet.”

“Riiight…” Alijda pressed her fingers to her forehead. ‘What did you expect, dummy? That you’d actually attract the attention of someone worthwhile?’ What particularly annoyed her was how, the way Chief spoke, some part of her still felt like his words retained an element of truth about them.

She slid her fingers back off her forehead, raking her hands back through her hair. Fine. If this ‘Chief’ was indeed some sort of madman, he needed help. And, as much as Alijda didn’t like to admit it, she also needed help. She had come this far. Why not see things all the way through, for “Chief”’s sake if nothing else. “Let’s take door number two then,” she stated.

Mason opened his mouth as if to protest, but then closed it again, nodding. “Right. That’s probably best,” he said after a moment. “I really need to start observing more, and doing fewer parlour tricks for the locals.”

“Uh huh.” Alijda downed the remainder of her (now cold) tea, and then rose. “Then let’s both get to it, before I change my mind again.”

At the time, the therapy had helped. As had the prescription medication. By the age of 24, Alijda had become more social, even to the point of getting a job as a typist/secretary for a local company. But through it all, she remained something of a computer hacker, which occasionally got her into trouble… and was the reason she discovered that the company she was with had become involved in some rather less than legitimate business practices. Of course. Who else would have hired someone like her, after all?

It made her question her life choices all over again. In fact, it made her question whether she even wanted to continue being the woman that she was, since she’d already been toying with a new online identity. As such, she made her decision. Within one week, Alijda had embezzled money away from the already corrupt company, and then disappeared.

Some time later, Alison van der Land turned up south of the border, in Seattle, along with a letter of reference from the private detective “Liam Doyle”. According to computer records, Alison had been his secretary in LA for the last few years. Not long after her arrival, she got another secretarial job, this time for a college Professor. In fact, after a couple more fairly positive years mood-wise, Alison decided to settle down, going so far as to buy herself a house.

If the accident hadn’t occurred, giving the brunette teleportation abilities, and making her a person of interest to Marshall Biochemical Engineering, her mild paranoia over her past catching up to her might have even faded away. Of course, if that accident hadn’t occurred, she might not have attracted the attention of the Epsilon Project.

The project that led to her meeting “Chief” once again.

“Seriously?” Alison shouted. “And you only mention the problem now??” Which was when the lighting in the TARDIS control room switched from green to emergency red. This was all becoming far too much for Alison to handle. She felt her fingers curling into fists. First, this ship was larger on the inside. Second, Mason apparently really was from another planet. Third, this ship was LARGER on the INSIDE. Fourth, Mason apparently REALLY WAS from another PLANET.

“Mason,” she continued with an edge on her voice, “do you have any idea what you’re making me feel like doing?”

“Hm?” he responded, apparently a bit more interested in something on one of his flashing display screens.

Alison flexed her hands. She pushed herself back up into a standing position. Then, in a puff of purple smoke, she teleported over so that she was standing right in front of the alien man. To his credit, he looked a bit surprised at that, even as she threw her hands around him in a hug. “This is for being honest with me all this time,” she breathed near his ear. “And for being smart enough not to talk about whatever this ship can do back where they were monitoring us.”

She pulled back, and then smacked him soundly across the face. “But THAT’S for not making me goddamn believe you back when we first met! To think I could have run off with you and avoided all of my… my… everything!” To her shock, she felt tears starting to roll down her cheeks. Great, now her depression meds were malfunctioning. “I mean do you have ANY idea how much better things would be now if I could have simply left my life back then before I… I… well, left my life?! But no, now I’m a new person, one with crazy abilities, who has been hijacked by a mysterious group, and we’re on a crashing spaceship, and I’m going to die with an alien and a rabbit aren’t I, oh GOD FINE just LET IT END ALREADY!!”

The TARDIS lurched again, and Alison didn’t even try to catch herself, collapsing onto the floor once more. She closed her eyes to try and stop the tears from coming, but they stubbornly continued to fall. She sobbed openly. Her whole life was a mess again.

A hand touched her shoulder.

It was Bunny-girl. Alison knew that without even opening her eyes - the hand was too small, the touch too tentative for it to be Mason. “I used to make cuts on my arms,” the girl said quietly.

The non-sequitur was enough for Alison to crack an eye open. Bunny-girl - Alison couldn’t quite bring herself to assign the cutesy name Para - was now sitting on the floor next to her, regarding her with sad eyes and a hopeful smile. “You?” Alison found herself answering. “Miss Sexy Cute? You think you know what I’m going through here?!?”

The blonde quickly shook her head. “Oh, no. No way. I’m not even human. What I DO know about is getting down on oneself. About believing that the world is out to get you. Because as a personified quadratic equation, I know there are a lot of people out to get me. Or who simply wish I’d never been created.” She paused. “I also have a conic clone, which gives me occasional inferiority issues. It’s complicated.”

“It’s always complicated.” Alison fished in her purse for a tissue, realizing that the bizarreness of the conversation had stopped her from crying. “Also, you’re a what? How does that even make sense??”

“How does any of what’s happening make sense?”

Alison supposed she had to grant the bunny at least that much. Which was when the lighting shifted from red back to green, and Mason let out a loud “HA!”. Alison looked over in time to see him collapse down a tool in his hand, and place what looked like a swiss army knife back inside his inner suit pocket. “No one’s going to die now! Or, not due to my TARDIS anyway.”

The ride smoothed, even as a background noise filtered in. Like someone was trying to drive, except they kept pumping the brakes every three seconds. The tube in the centre of the console now also seemed to be pulsing in time with the noise. Mason rubbed his chin. “I wonder if that’s why he does it that way,” he mused aloud.

“Who does what?” Alison asked. Next to her, Bunny-girl stood, offering a hand to help Alison up. After a momentarily hesitation, she accepted the blonde’s offer.

“Let’s not speak of him,” Mason decided. “Concentrate more on the fact that we’re landing.” He put his hands in his pockets, leaning back against the console. “But for the record, Alison, I wasn’t going to abduct you that first time we met. Just give you a little adventure. You might have ended up in your present situation either way. Or even worse off.”

“Oh yeah?” Alison mulled that over for a few seconds. “How comforting.” Though it really wasn’t.

“Where is this ship landing then?” Bunny-girl asked, seemingly looking to change the subject. “Do you know what’s at those coordinates ‘The Hub’ gave us?”

Mason turned to peer at a small monitor before looking back at them. “We would seem to be arriving on Earth. England. The Elizabeth Tower. Also known as the tower housing Big Ben.”

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NUMBERS GAME, PART TWO: THE HUB

Mason watched as Para looked uncertainly back and forth between him and Alison. “I… could show you what I’ve discovered here?” the blonde proposed.

“Yes, let’s do that,” Alison asserted. Mason decided to say nothing, merely gesturing that Para could precede them to the computer bank section of the room. After all, despite offering to take them to the coordinates, he wasn’t in a rush to leave. He simply wanted to deal with the situation in a way which would minimize his interaction with the locals, since he considered his role as a Time Lord to be that of an observer, not a meddler. At least, that’s how he felt about it lately.

Para - the one with the bunny ears hairband - led the two of them back to the wall of computer displays. “You see, after finding the note on the table about the numerals, I investigated here,“ she stated. “This display was running, and as you can see it wants us to input coordinates. That graphic below, implies the system is tied into that ring on the floor, which must be some sort of teleporting device. And I presume these watches sitting on the shelf here with the similar symbol would keep us safe for the trip.”

She stood back with a tentative smile. Alison glared at the five watches, slid that gaze to Para, then turned her full attention to the monitors, poking at them to see if they were touch screens. As such, Alison didn’t notice Para’s shoulders slump, and the blonde biting down lightly on her lower lip. Which is when Mason realized something.

Para wasn’t quite human.

She seemed to be becoming increasingly distressed by the way Alison was reacting to her, and her mannerisms suggested to him that she believed that SHE was the problem, rather than the situation they found themselves in. More to the point, Para seemed to be looking to Alison for nonverbal cues that she could mimic, as if she was trying to figure out how to fit in - and she either wasn’t finding those cues, or wasn’t able to duplicate them. Was Para actually a rabbit of some sort then? Or an artificial life form, designed to make them feel more at home here?

Regardless, being a Time Lord himself, Mason knew a little something about looking the same on the outside, yet being different inside. He moved up next to the blonde, as Alison continued her technological playing around.

“I have two hearts,” he remarked quietly, attempting nonchalance but rather hoping to get a reaction. “Beating inside my chest.” He was rewarded with a wide-eyed look. “Embrace who you are,” he continued with a smile. “Humans aren’t terrible role models - for the most part, anyway - but don’t feel you have to become one of them to fit in.”

“But I’m not popular! I’m personified math!” the blonde blurted back. Her cheeks gained a touch more colour at the admission.

Mason lifted an eyebrow, wondering as to his best response. He elected to go with, “I’m a Time Lord, nice to meet you.”

Para smiled tentatively once again, then glanced uncertainly down at her hand and back up to him. Mason reached out to take the hand. “Time Lords can also shake hands,” he assured her, doing so. Her tentative smile became one of relief.

“Okay! Here we go,” Alison remarked, now typing on some sort of virtual keyboard. “NOW we’ll find out what’s really going on!” She grinned a bit evilly. “I feel like I rolled high on this attempt, so to speak.”

Mason looked over as the display flashed briefly, and then changed from awaiting coordinate inputs to what looked like a graphic of a rotating wheel, with the central hub area in indicated in red. Mason nodded… a central hub, so signing “The Hub” at the bottom of that letter made some sense. “Okay, we’re on some sort of SPACE station,” Alison realized, her finger idly tracing through the air to mimic the spinning motion seen on the display. She looked down and began to type again. “But we’re not in orbit around a planet. We don’t even seem to be in normal space…"

The virtual keyboard vanished from beneath Alison’s fingers, and the video screen went blue. The brunette looked back up as the voice of a woman came from a set of nearby speakers. “Okay! Hacking, that’s a little rude,” the voice said. “If you need more information than what was outlined in the letter, ask politely.”

“What? Who are you?!” Alison demanded, seemingly looking around for a microphone to speak into.

“I’m… ooh, hm. Let’s call me Alice,” the voice answered her. “But rest assured that such a name does NOT relate to the Umbrella Corporation. Nor is the name “The Hub” referencing some splinter group off Agents of SHIELD. The Epsilon Project is it’s own little group. Don’t panic, as they say!”

“You realize saying that to someone like me will have the complete opposite effect?” Alison challenged. “Now, why have we been brought here??”

A pause. “You want context, is that it? Okay. Check out this image.” A picture flashed up on the monitor, replacing the blue screen. Mason took a step closer to get a better look. It seemed to picture two people in Western clothing standing on either side of a clock face. He reached into his inside suit pocket as the disembodied voice of Alice continued with, “Back to the Future. I forget if it exists in your realities, but this was our first sign of a serious Roman Numeral issue. You see the problem?”

Mason didn’t, actually. A glance at Para showed no immediate recognition either, whereas Alison simply seemed ever more agitated. So Mason finished pulling Bardiche out of his pocket - which was how he referred to his portable device. Granted, it resembled what humans called a “swiss army knife” more than it did a long poleaxe, but Mason figured a poleaxe might one day become one of the options available. Tapping at a couple buttons, a small camera extended from Bardiche’s interior mechanism. Mason used it to take a quick picture of the image on the monitor.

“I’m hoping your silence is agreement,” Alice continued. “Of course, too late to deal with that incident, those movies are now one six hour long saga. BUT our plan is to send you somewhere a bit more conspicuous, higher chance of success… though we’re not quite sure how it will all play out. Hence the limited data. Understand now?”

“No one is going ANYWHERE until you explain how I ended up here in the first place!” Alison challenged.

Another pause. “Okay, look, I can be down there in under ten minutes.” There was a click, as if the line had been shut off, and the display reverted back to the coordinate input screen.

Alison immediately spun to face Mason. “You said you could navigate us away on a TARDY or something? Let’s do that. Now.”

Para blinked. “But now someone’s coming! And you said no one was going–"

Alison turned back to the blonde. “I lied. Or maybe I’m lying now. They’re obviously listening to everything we say! We have to get out of here, it’s not safe to even talk!”

Mason stroked his beard, as he realized something else. “Alison, by any chance do you have mild paranoia as a character trait?”

She turned back to him. “By any chance do you have ‘show off elite psychoanalysis skills’ as your own trait? Now are we leaving or not??”

Mason repocketed his Bardiche, doing so with deliberate care to allow him a moment to contemplate Alison’s request. All things being equal, he would prefer to wait for that Alice to explain more. But things were not quite equal. After all, if he were to be transported via “The Hub”, he would likely be separated from his TARDIS, which was something he would prefer to avoid. Besides, he was interested in the reactions the two women would have upon seeing it.

“I’m still willing to check out the co-ordinates under my own power,” he decided. “Get in my taxi. Use the driver’s side door.”

Alison immediately marched over to the vehicle. Para remained standing near the computer banks, looking torn, glancing from Alison towards the watches they were leaving behind. “But… oh…" She wrung her hands.

“Sometimes being human means not doing what you’re told,” Mason remarked to her. “That said, you’re welcome to stay here and give our regrets.”

“Nngh…" The bunny girl did a cute little dance from one foot to the other. When Mason turned to go though, she quickly dashed ahead of him. “Following all the rules leaves a completed checklist,” Para said breathlessly. “Following your heart achieves a completed you! Ray Davis. Inspirational quote I picked up somewhere.”

“If you say so,” Mason chuckled. He followed - but was forced to pause at the TARDIS door, as both Alison and Para now stood in the way, gaping. Para was the first to move inside, allowing Mason to follow and look back at Alison’s expression. He was pleased to see that instead of the usual suspicion or annoyance, her expression had morphed into one of surprise - perhaps even admiration.

Mason took a moment to admire the control room for his ship too - he supposed it had become rather commonplace to him. This despite it being only moderately smaller than the room they had just exited, albeit in the shape of a pentagon. The door leading inside faced one of the five corners, the one which had two exits on either side, leading deeper into the ship. The wall design followed an irregular pentagonal tiling pattern, and the central control console was also five sided; some work by Mason had eliminated the need for a sixth operative.

“This is not a normal taxi,” Alison managed after a moment.

“I told you, I’m not human.”

“Mmm… larger on the inside,” Para agreed. “Extra dimension involved?”

“In a way. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. TARDIS,” Mason answered, now grinning broadly. “Close the door, please, Alison. Para, you have those coordinates?”

The blonde nodded, ceasing her own look around to hand him the letter. Mason began to throw some switches to input the information, and after Alison shut the door, he pulled down on the largest lever on the main console.

The lighting in the room changed from standard yellow to green as the ship departed. Mason then turned his attention towards fine tuning the route they were taking. Which is when there was a lurch, throwing all the occupants off balance. It was followed by a larger one. Mason looked to his stabilizer - it seemed to be functioning. So why the rough ride?

“Is that supposed to happen?” Para questioned, grabbing for a convenient railing next to him on the central console.

“Not exactly,” Mason admitted. “But come to think, I ran into this turbulence on the way into that Hub place too. Ah!” He snapped his fingers. “That’s probably what knocked out my chameleon circuit, reverted the TARDIS back into taxi form.” He smiled again, pleased at having made the deduction, only to have the biggest lurch of them all throw Alison down onto the floor.

“Seriously?” the brunette shouted. “And you only mention the problem now??” Which was when the lighting in the room switched from green to emergency red. “Mason,” Alison continued with an edge on her voice, “do you have any idea what you’re making me feel like doing?”

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NUMBERS GAME, PART ONE: THE GATHERING

The central control room for the station was big. Large enough, in fact, to allow a person to park a car on the floor in front of the main viewscreen. Which was fortunate, all things considered, seeing as that’s where the taxicab from 1950s London began to materialize. It flickered insubstantially a couple of times, the “For Hire” sign flashing on and off in a strobe effect, before the vehicle’s existence finally stabilized. Seconds passed in silence. Then the door opened, and a brown skinned gentleman in a tan suit stepped out, idly stroking his beard as he looked around the room. He paused as he caught sight of the car he had exited, and he slammed the door shut. “I thought I had that circuit fixed,” he said aloud, his tone one of mild irritation.

The gentleman frowned, now faced with a decision. Should he bother trying to repair his Model 47 TARDIS, so that it would appear more inconspicuous? Or should he simply investigate the place where he had rematerialized, having traced an inter-spatial call for assistance to this location? As it turned out, those questions swiftly became moot, as a woman drew his attention instead. It happened the moment she appeared less than five metres away, in a cloud of purple and black smoke, along with the faint aroma of sulphur.

Alison stumbled post-teleport, pulling a hand up to her head. “Whoa! That did NOT feel right…" Her voice trailed off as she realized that she was not in her house, and further that there was a guy in a suit standing before her. The first question she had, namely ‘Who the heck are you?’ died on her lips. Because the guy looked familiar. And he seemed to be having a similar reaction upon seeing her.

“I’ve seen you before,” he affirmed, looking her up and down.

The brunette steeled herself, brushing some of her long hair off of one shoulder. She was glad she had chosen to dress conservatively today, sporting a knee length dress in black, with a pair of equally black stockings and unheeled shoes. Surely she looked just like any of a dozen other women. “Oh yes?” Alison said, even as she began to riffle through her own memories to place her companion’s face. She hoped that doing so would help in explaining her presence here, even as she wondered if the identification she had in her purse would match whatever this well dressed man thought he knew.

“Lucy Chadwick?” he said after a moment. “Is it you?”

“Uh? Not even close,” Alison fired back, relaxing a little. But having heard him speak again, she was able to connect the dots. There was a memory there, one she was a little leery of recalling, but she elected to speak up regardless. “But you, you’re Chief.”

He grimaced. “Mason. I don’t use the Chief title any more. Not since…“ His eyebrow went up. “You’re Alijda. Alijda van Vliet.”

Alison immediately tensed up again. “I’m Alison. Alison van der Land.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I got it right that time,” Mason said, crossing his arms and nodding. “It was that psychiatric unit on Earth, we both checked ourselves in on the same day.”

“Regardless, call me Alison,” the brunette countered. “That’s my name now. I can prove it.” She reached for her purse.

Mason waved her off. “I don’t care what your ID card says. If I’m right about you, you had a way with computers, while I probably have some psychic paper stored away somewhere. What’s written down is irrelevant.” He grinned. “If it makes you feel more comfortable though, I’ll call you Alison - so long as you call me Mason.”

“Mason? Like freemasonry?”

He seemed to consider the reference. “More like a reasonable approximation of my name in your English.”

Alison pursed her lips. “You still going on about being from another planet then?”

“I still am from another planet.”

“Riiight… that’s why you decided to visit an Earth psych ward.“

“It was nice and out of the way. Incidentally, did your issues with depression manage to sort themselves out?”

Alison purposefully ignored the question, deciding that it was high time to take in the rest of the scene around her. The room was big. Really big. Well, okay, not Roman amphitheatre big, but likely big enough to accommodate over a hundred people, even before you considered the high ceilings. School cafeteria style big, Alison decided. Yet the room itself wasn’t rectangular. It was shaped more like a cylinder.

One portion of the large curved wall seemed to be dedicated to a large viewscreen - a direction which Alison decided to denote as “North”. Opposite to it (“South”) was a large wall of computer banks and technical displays. Off to her left (“West”) was a small circular table, along with maybe a dozen chairs with wheels on their legs. A number of them were placed haphazardly, as there were too many to fit around the single table’s perimeter. And to the “East”, cutting across the circle like a chord, was a straight dividing wall. There was a door within it, slightly ajar, which allowed Alison to see what looked like an unlit area for storage. And, for just a moment, Alison fancied she saw movement in the darkness of that other room. She frowned.

It looked like the only way to get out of this cylindrical room, other than through that East door, was through a large ring device in the floor. At least, Alison assumed it was an exit - it looked functional, not decorative. Situated in the very centre of the room, it seemed to have been closed off with an iris, almost like an airlock. The ring device also had nine chevrons spaced at equal intervals around it’s perimeter, to what end Alison couldn’t fathom. Looking up at the ceiling, Alison noticed a similar device there, minus the chevrons. But there was no obvious ladder with which to reach the ceiling. How did they change the lightbulbs?

There was also an old British taxi parked in the room. Alison supposed that the ring on the floor was large enough to accommodate the vehicle, but why bring it in here? The whole place was very foreign, vaguely science fiction, and definitely not where Alison had intended to teleport. If she hadn’t recognized Mason as being someone familiar from her past, she might have been more creeped out by the whole setup. Though perhaps she should be creeped out anyway. Had Marshall Biochemical Engineering somehow stepped up their game? Was Chief, or rather Mason, now working for them? “So, have you abducted me?” she challenged.

“No,” Mason responded, leaning idly back against the taxicab. He now seemed to be watching her with curiosity, and a hint of amusement. “I gather you didn’t send the call for assistance that brought me here either.”

“No,” Alison fired back. It was tempting to try and teleport away, to simply return home, but that felt foolhardy until she knew why she’d ended up here in the first place.

“I didn’t do it either.”

Alison nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning to face the blonde who had spoken. The teenager - or perhaps early twenty-something woman - had seemingly emerged from the storage area; Alison shouldn’t have turned her back on it. This time, Alison’s knee-jerk accusation of ‘Who the heck are you?’ morphed as it hit her lips, becoming, “You’ve got bunny ears!”

The approaching blonde reached up to touch the fuzzy ears pointing straight up above her head. No, Alison corrected herself - not straight up, they were curved outwards slightly. In a parabolic manner. “Yeah - hi! I’m Para,” the blonde said, smiling hesitantly. As the bunny-girl reached them, Alison finally noticed that the long ears were on some sort of hairband. The woman had perfectly normal ears too, partly hidden by her long hair. Alison’s fears of this being a genetic engineering facility now briefly allayed, she eyed the newcomer a bit closer.

Para’s outfit consisted of a deep pink, almost purple dress. But unlike Alison’s more conservative choice in black, Para’s dress seemed designed to accentuate the blonde’s reasonably impressive curves. The fabric scooped down low, albeit not so low as to emphasize her cleavage, while the skirt portion rode high on her thighs, yet not so high as to risk flashing anyone. Her matching shoes had heels that helped to elevate the blonde to almost Alison’s height. In addition, Para’s hair was much longer, trailing all the way down her back, and then as if to play up the “bunny” look, Para had chosen to accessorize with a pink bow tied around her neck. Cute. Sexy cute.

Alison wasn’t sure they’d get along.

“Do you at least know what the problem is?” Mason was now asking Para.

“Maybe!” the bunny-girl responded. She held up a piece of stationary. “This was on the table over there when I arrived.”

Alison leaned forwards to look at the page, as did Mason next to her. The first thing that struck her was the letterhead. It didn’t read “Marshall Biochemical” or even “MBE”, rather it read “The Epsilon Project”. With the tagline, “The last, best place for hope”. Some new organization out to get her? Frowning, Alison scanned down further.

’Someone is stealing all the Roman Numerals of the world.’ (the letter read) ‘I cannot directly interfere. But the two of you can. Having determined where and when the next theft will occur, I have summoned you both here in the hope that you can intercede on my behalf. The consequences of inactivity could be disastrous. The coordinates for your trip are as follows:’ Which was followed by a sequence of numbers. The letter was simply signed ‘The Hub’.

“Did you write this?” Alison challenged the newcomer.

Bunny-girl shook her head. “No, I swear, I only found it on the table! I got here maybe five minutes before Mason. When I walked through the doorway to Maud’s bar, POOF, here I was instead. I was exploring that storage area over there when I heard the rest of you arrive.” Alison bristled, as she realized that this meant Para had heard all of her earlier personal information as well.

“Interesting,” Mason remarked casually. “Yet the letter says ‘the two of you’, while there’s three of us here.”

The blonde shrugged helplessly. “Yeah, weird! Maybe someone’s bad at math. I guess that’s all the more reason for me to help out!”

Alison made a face. “This is HARDLY comforting. If ‘The epsilon project’ is truly the ‘The last, best place for hope’… and it’s partially failed!”

“Failure is a part of learning - perhaps it will become something greater,” Para asserted.

Mason shrugged. “Well, there might be more information at those coordinates that were provided. Let’s get on board my TARDIS, I can attempt to navigate us there.”

Para blinked. “Oh, but The Hub here is all set to teleport us!” she assured. “I’ve figured out that much.”

Alison frowned. ”I think I want to know more about this place BEFORE we simply engage in whatever mission ‘they’ might have in mind.” She made a point of giving Para a very suspicious look.

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