‘What the hell did you do to me?’
Sameera was staring at her watch. ‘No,’ she was saying. ‘No, it’s out of sync. It’s…’ She pressed something else. The ghosts of Sameera and Amy flickered, then disappeared.
‘Do you know karate or something? Because I just saw…’ asked Amy, rubbing the back of her head where she’d come down hard on the floor. She’d landed next to the phone. It was off the hook, beeping, and its display was flashing the time: 1.36 p.m.
There was a ghost phone falling down over it, tumbling slowly across the room towards where it was sitting now. Amy put her fingers up and touched the ghost phone. Her hand went through it. It carried on falling.
‘Six years of judo,’ said Sameera distractedly. ‘Black
belt. Just a hobby. No, it can’t be broken…’ She shook the device on her wrist, and stared at the display. ‘It’s saying I took double credit? And paid it back asynchronously?
Oh no it must mean… it must be because.
She pulled Amy roughly to her feet, held on to her tightly with her left hand and pressed three buttons on the watch with her right hand, then turned one of the dials back a quarter turn.
Amy felt a slight rushing sensation, a sort of lightness.
And the telephone clock on the floor read: 1.21 p.m.
‘That’s better,’ said Sameera. ‘Back in sync.’ And then, to herself: ‘Both of those are on my account, I see.’
She smiled bleakly and raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, enjoy your fifteen minutes. On the house.’
‘You’re a time traveller,’ said Amy.
Sameera sighed. ‘Just for work,’ she said at last. ‘How did you work it out?’
‘I am too,’ said Amy. ‘Just a hobby.’
Sameera wasn’t in any mood to call security any more.
In fact, she seemed to be glad of someone to talk to.
She unlocked her bottom drawer which, to Amy’s annoyance, was just where she kept her sandwiches and biscuits and offered Amy half of her chicken-and-rocket-salad-wrap.
‘No thanks,’ said Amy.
‘Don’t you find,’ said Sameera, taking a bite and talking through her munches, ‘that eating lunch is a real problem? I mean, when to fit it in? I lose track of how many hours I’ve spent, and what I’ve already eaten, it all gets out of sync with everyone else. I spend a fortune on sandwiches.’
Amy shook her head. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’
Sameera took another bite of her sandwich. ‘I thought you said you were a time traveller too?’
Amy shrugged. ‘I think we use a different method.
But how does your… what is that on your wrist, a time-travel watch? How does that work? The Doctor’s um, well anyway, I’ve heard about a thing like a time space-hopper… Is it like that?’
Sameera, visibly relaxed around Amy now that she could talk freely, showed her the watch.
‘It’s really simple,’ she said. ‘You just turn this dial here to get more time. Like we just did. Turn it back a quarter of an hour, we’re back a quarter of an hour. It’s like… Oh, you know when the clocks change? It gets to 2 a.m. and everyone puts their clocks back and suddenly it’s 1 a.m. again? It’s like that, except it’s just for you.’
‘And do you always see ghost versions of yourself when you do that?’
Sameera shook her head and opened up a pot of yoghurt. ‘That was just because you knocked it. Usually you’re very slightly time phased so you can’t see yourself.
It’s always embarrassing, bumping into yourself. That’s what they say, anyway.’
‘They?’
Sameera ignored the question. ‘I suppose I ought to cut back really,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘But there’s so much to get done - you know the Chancellor’s giving some speech here tomorrow? We’ve all had to dear our diaries for that, which has meant triple-meetings today.
Plus it’s been hard enough to keep up with work as it is. There’s this bloke, Andrew Brown - we’re up for the
same promotion - he’s all right, Andrew, nice really, but I want that job, you know?’
Amy nodded.
‘Yeah, so for a while I felt like I was definitely going to get it, totally certain but these last few weeks he’s been getting ahead of me. I bet he’s got one too.’
‘One of the… time-travelling watches?’ asked Amy.
‘Look,’ Sameera said through a mouthful of yoghurt, ‘if you’re a time traveller too, how come you don’t know all this? Who do you borrow your time from?’
‘Borrow?’ said Amy.
Which was the point at which, several floors below her, Rory, locked in a storeroom, decided to call for help.
‘Amy,’ Rory hissed, ‘you’ve got to get down here right now. I’m in Storeroom F. Come quickly. Help me.’
‘But I - ‘
‘I’m locked in,’ he hissed, ‘help me.’
And then he was gone.
‘I have to go,’ she said to Sameera. ‘My husband’s in trouble.’
Her phone started ringing again.
‘Pond!’ said the Doctor. ‘You have to get up here right now!’
‘Doctor, I can’t, I just promised Rory that I’d go down and… Is it urgent, Doctor?’
‘Yes, of course it’s urgent, why would I call you if it wasn’t urgent? Come up to the tenth floor right now!’
The Doctor hung up the phone.
Amy stared at her mobile, a worried frown on her forehead.
Sameera watched her placidly.
‘Tenth floor,’ Amy said. ‘Got to be the Doctor. I mean, if he needs me for something really urgent then… But then, if it were that urgent, would he have had time to phone? And the Doctor will be fine by himself, but Rory sounds like he’s in danger or locked in at least…’
Sameera finished her yoghurt, threw the pot into the bin and put her feet up on the desk.
‘Sounds to me,’ she said, ‘as if you could do with borrowing some time.’
From travelling with the Doctor, Amy was very well aware of the prohibition on going back endless times to revisit the same moment in history trying to angle for a different outcome. Apart from the inherent paradoxes, there are too many beings, entities and sundry monsters interested in the kind of weak spot that generates. But surely, she thought to herself, that kind of thing only applies to travel in the TARDIS? A little watch seemed, well, pretty much harmless.
‘Totally harmless,’ said Mr Symington.
‘We have very reliable safeguards,’ said Mr Blenkinsop. ‘We’d hate to lose a customer after all!’
Mr Symington and Mr Blenkinsop laughed in unison.
They’d arrived, surprisingly quickly, in answer to a summons from Sameera’s watch. And they were thrilled, delighted, eager - as they constantly told her - to give her a watch too. There was something a bit weird about the way they looked. Not just that they were fuzzy at the edges, but each of them had a strange lump on his back, under his jacket. Amy kept trying to get a good look at
it, but both resolutely faced towards her, turning as she turned. And besides, they were much more eager to get her using a watch.
‘So, how does this work again?’ asked Amy, still a little suspicious.
‘It’s very simple,’ said Mr Symington.
‘Ludicrously so,’ said Mr Blenkinsop.
‘A woman of your expertise and intellect will have no trouble grasping it. We simply lend you time. You put the watch on like so -‘ Mr Symington fastened it round her wrist. It was colder than she’d expected, and heavier. ‘And move this dial back to borrow time. And of course press this button to pay it back.’
‘Pay it back?’
‘Well, of course,’ Mr Blenkinsop grinned warmly.
‘We can’t give our time away, after all! Yes, just press here to pay us back, plus what we think you’ll agree is a very reasonable interest charge, just five minutes per hour.’
‘Per hour,’ agreed Mr Symington.
‘The tim
e comes off your lifespan, but after all,’ Mr Blenkinsop chuckled, ‘are you really going to miss an extra five minutes?’
‘It’s the sort of time you might spend watching advertisements,’ said Mr Symington.
‘Blowing your nose.’
‘Staring into space.’
Amy hesitated. This definitely felt like the kind of decision she should consult the Doctor about. But if she went up to talk to the Doctor, she wouldn’t be able to go and help Rory. And she was late for both of them already. But if she used the watch…
A message came up as if projected by light on the watch’s glass face. It was a long message in very tiny print, with big print just at the end saying ‘IF YOU
ACCEPT THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, CLICK
OK.’
‘So just press your thumb here and you’re all set,’
said Mr Blenkinsop.
‘Away you go,’ said Mr Symington.
‘But what does all this…?’ Amy began.
‘Oh just do it,’ said Sameera. ‘No one reads terms and conditions, do they?’
Amy’s phone started to ring again. There were two calls coming in at once, the Doctor and Rory.
‘Oh all right then!’ she said, and pressed OK.
Chapter
7
Amy had to admit, it was exciting.
She didn’t feel any different, that was the thing. And it was true, she didn’t see any ghost versions of herself, and there were no weird monsters creeping in the cracks in time and space. She just… had more time.
She wound the watch back an hour or so. She was still in Sameera’s office. Symington and Blenkinsop were still with her, although Sameera had gone. The clock read 1 p.m.
‘Miss Jenkins isn’t here yet,’ said Mr Blenkinsop.
‘It’s 1 p.m., Miss Pond - lunch hour is just beginning, and it’s yours - all yours.’
Amy frowned at them, still suspicious. ‘And you say when I want to pay it back it’s just an extra five minutes’
interest? Five minutes per hour?’
‘Per hour,’ echoed Mr Symington, ‘that’s correct.’
‘Just check the terms and conditions if you’re uncertain,’ said Mr Blenkinsop.
‘Now we must be off,’ said Mr Symington.
They walked out of the office. Amy followed them but by the time she looked out into the corridor they were gone.
Ts it a crime,’ said Amy airily, ‘to surprise my husband with a little lunch?’
‘No, no,’ said Rory, blinking nervously. ‘It’s just that I, um, I haven’t done anything, have I? This isn’t the prelude to you telling me that I’m not travelling in the TARDIS any more is it? Oh god, has the Doctor decided I’m useless, well I am useless, but maybe I’m useless in that useful sort of way? Bait, maybe? Decoy? Attracting attention in the wrong direction? Oh god, I’m not going to have to stay at Lexington Bank for ever, tell me I’m not?’
Amy, unable to think of any other way to stop Rory’s hysteria, leaned over and kissed him. For a little while he twitched nervously under her lips, but slowly he relaxed. She sat back.
‘I, um,’ he said, and fell silent.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘I brought you a sandwich.’
They were sitting in a little courtyard with a fountain, screened from the road by a small garden. Amy had gone to find it, bought the sandwiches, then turned the watch back again so that she could come and get Rory barely ten minutes after he phoned her and only just after he’d realised he could let himself out of Storeroom F after all.
‘Ham and cheese! My favourite!’
Amy smiled. This was good. She’d had time to do something nice for him. It wasn’t a lot, remembering his favourite sandwich - after all those hundreds of years
he’d looked after her in the Pandorica. She found she still remembered that - her memories overlaid on the happier, more real memories. Like a terrible dream, but one she knew hadn’t been a dream at all but another kind of truth. In another kind of life, this Rory - happily munching his sandwich, exclaiming with delight at finding a pear at the bottom of the bag because pears are his favourite too, and they’re so hard to find in a sandwich shop - in another kind of life, this Rory would have waited and kept guard for her for two thousand years.
She hugged his arm and kissed him on the side of his head as he ate.
‘It’s because I love you, silly,’ she said.
At the end of lunch, Amy dropped Rory back at the mailroom. She thought about suggesting they just leave then. After all, the mystery was basically solved, wasn’t it? The reason Rory had seen Andrew Brown in the mailroom at the same time as he was on the phone was because he was using the watch. And Brian Edelman?
Well, she hadn’t quite worked that out yet - he’d have had to borrow a lot of time for five extra minutes per hour to kill him - but maybe it was just like Vanessa had said: overwork.
Well, she’d go and talk to the Doctor now - that is, an hour ago - find out what was so urgent, show him the watch, which would probably clear everything up, and then they could leave this stupid bank and find somewhere more exciting to explore.
She stood in the Bank’s lobby and turned her watch back to 1 p.m. Every time she did it, it was a little thrill.
Almost everything stayed the same. A few people
changed position, that was all, but it wasn’t jerky or frightening, just a slow delicious fade-through as some people faded out and others faded back in. She wondered what it’d look like to wind it back a really long way - twenty or thirty years - and see buildings change. But that’d mean borrowing twenty or thirty years and paying five minutes for each hour and… well, she couldn’t quite do the maths, but she was sure she didn’t want to end up paying that much interest.
Still, one extra hour couldn’t hurt. She turned the watch back again. Again there was the gorgeous melting effect as the people from 1 p.m. transformed into the people from midday. It felt nice physically too - sort of tingly and energising - like she could feel that extra hour of time being put back into her body all in one go.
It was like getting an extra hour of sleep, maybe, but all in one second so you could really feel the benefit.
Without really thinking, she did it again. Whoosh! It was 11 a.m., just a bit after the time they’d have landed the TARDIS in the basement. If she got in the lift now, she could get to the top floor before whatever the Doctor had been calling her about had even happened. How impressive would that be?
It was only as she stood in the lift that she started to wonder if the Doctor would actually be that impressed.
She stared at herself in the lift’s mirrored walls and frowned. There’d probably be a lecture. She could hear it now. ‘Messing about with time travel, Amy.’ ‘Meddling with things that you don’t understand, Pond.’ ‘Do you even know how this watch works?’ She rolled her eyes at herself. The Doctor was such a big geek - he didn’t understand that not everyone wants to take the back off
their computer to find out how it works, most people just want to use it.
She looked at her reflection. When had her hair got that long? When had she even last had a haircut? It was so hard to keep track of these things. And her nails… she usually did them herself but here in the City there must be one of those posh nail bars. And she did deserve a treat… She hit the ‘doors open’ button and walked back out into the lobby.
She’d meant to go out, get her hair cut and a manicure, and then come right back to the Bank. She really had meant to do that, she reminded herself. The Doctor was waiting for her. That call had sounded really urgent.
Except, there’d been a queue at the nail bar. And the hairdresser had given her a head massage which was so gorgeous she’d completely forgotten the time. And when she was all done, she’d checked the time and somehow it was already 1.30 p.m. And she was late to see the Doctor, again.
She reminded herself it was OK. She could just turn the watch back another hour, and she’d be back to the Bank in loads of ti
me. She turned it back. The street outside the hairdresser shimmered in that beautiful way.
The time came back into her body. She felt incredibly alive, excited. And that was when she’d had her big idea.
She wasn’t stupid. She added up the number of hours she’d borrowed already. She reckoned it was about five hours. So she’d owe Symington and Blenkinsop about twenty-five minutes off her lifespan. That was no big deal. In fact, what would be a big deal to her? Not an
hour. Maybe not even a day. A week. She wouldn’t like to end up owing them more than a week. What was she going to do with a week when she was an old granny anyway?
So, how many five minutes in a week? She rooted around in the pockets of her jacket and found an old envelope and a stub of pencil. The envelope wasn’t hers - it was addressed ‘To the Sontaran Ambassador’ - she shrugged. The jacket wasn’t hers anyway. She leaned against the wall and did her sums.
So, she’d owe five minutes per hour she borrowed.
How many five minutes were there in a week? There were twelve in an hour. So, 12 x 24 hours in a day x 7
days in a week: 2,016. That was how many five-minute periods she’d be happy to end up paying them. And so that was how many hours she’d be happy to borrow: 2,016 hours. Eighty-four days. Nearly three months.
That was… exciting.
Of course, she decided, she wouldn’t use it all. But there were so many things she could do with the time!
She checked the time: 1 p.m. again. She was late to see the Doctor, again. But it was OK. She’d never be late for anything any more, not really.
She turned the dial on the watch back twenty-four hours. That was a rush. As she watched, the street melted glassily into dawn, across the night, backwards, as the stars rushed across the sky in the wrong direction and then sunset yesterday, and then yesterday evening and then yesterday afternoon. The change was smooth and even, like the day was being poured back. Like time was being poured back into her. And the way it made her feel! She hadn’t realised how much energy a whole
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