We’d been three floors down in the Under Gallery, and McGillop was being a bit thing, but I’d managed not to say anything about it. Not that he was grateful, of course, which was typical. I’d made a point of hiding my feelings ALL DAY but he kept not noticing anything.
The Doctor had told us to analyse the stone dust rock powder sand deposits, but the trouble was that the stone dust rock powder sand deposits really weren’t very interesting, and McGillop kept going on about it. ‘It’s sand. Just sand. What does sand matter?’
Oh, I thought, look who’s crossest pony in the paddock! But I decided to keep that sort of language to myself, because sometimes he’s quite handsome (except short). The rest of the team had arrived, and there was equipment everywhere now, and cables straggling (is that a word?) all over the place. I think they were probably working away, but I wasn’t sure because I couldn’t remember most of their names and had to keep avoiding eye contact. Sometimes they stood right in front of me, which meant I had to shut my eyes. I don’t think anyone noticed, but it’s hard to tell when you can’t see.
‘What does the sand matter, Oz, got a theory?’ asked McGillop, in his usual way, because he’s Irish (which is fine).
‘Why would I know?’ I asked.
‘Because one of us is pretty, and one of us is a genius, and, unfortunately for me, they’re both you.’
He was probably being sarcastic in some clever way, but I couldn’t work it out, so I decided I’d get cross about it later.
‘I do actually mean that,’ he said, with a nice smile (suspicious).
I decided to completely ignore him. And then I didn’t. ‘The composition is interesting,’ I told him, running some of the stone dust rock powder sand deposit through my fingers. ‘Marble, granite—lots of different stone, but none of it from the fabric of the building.’
‘Okay. So?’
‘So where did it come from? It’s not from the walls or ceiling. These are secure premises, and we know all this sand wasn’t here before. So how did it arrive?’
‘Maybe something got broken?’
‘Like what? Like what got broken? A great pile of different kinds of rock got broken, and then got distributed evenly over every floor in the Under Gallery? Even if there had been a pile of rocks here, which there wasn’t, who smashed them up and who distributed the sand?’ He was all frowny now, so I smiled at him prettily.
‘Maybe whatever came out of the paintings,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t make any sense. I know we’re supposed to keep an open mind, but what lives in Elizabethan oil paintings that wants to break out and smash up rocks?’
It was then I started having thoughts. There weren’t any rocks here that could have been broken up, but if you thought about it, there was an awful lot of stone.
‘Can I pour you some tea?’ asked McGillop.
‘I’m not pouring you tea!’ I snapped.
‘No, you’re not, I’m pouring you tea, because that’s my job when you’re thinking, and I can see you’ve started up the engines.’
I could hear him pouring, but I didn’t look because my brain was going all fast. Now he was standing in front of me, offering me a cup. He held it with the handle towards me so I wouldn’t burn myself when I took it, which probably meant he was burning his own hand as he stood there. I realised that was probably kind, but was it also patronising? I decided I’d make up my mind about that later, and send him emails. ‘Thanks. Sorry. I’m just doing sums.’ Then I took the cup from him, because I thought he might start crying.
‘Do you want me to get your laptop?’ he asked.
It didn’t take long to run the numbers. I calculated the total floor area of the Under Gallery, estimated the average depth of the sand, and with a good idea of the cubic volume now present in the Under Gallery, modelled it into different shapes. I ran several possible distribution patterns, before realising there was enough sand in the gallery to make approximately fifty man-sized piles. I cross-referenced this with my file on the Under Gallery, and noted there were exactly fifty-two statues here. All of which were covered. Nine of which were surrounding us, in this corridor, right now.
‘I said,’ McGillop was saying, ‘do you want me to get your laptop?’
I looked at the cup in my hand. The surface of the tea was quivering, like that bit in Jurassic Park when there’s a dinosaur stomping about. It wasn’t a dinosaur though, it was me, shaking. I looked at the sheeted statues lining the walls of corridor. I checked for exits. There was only one, twenty feet away, and you’d have to jump over all the cables and packing cases we’d brought in.
‘Oz? Are you all right?’ McGillop was looking at me, but I found I couldn’t look at him, because I’d suddenly forgotten how to use my neck muscles. I concentrated on speaking.
‘We have to go,’ I said. ‘Right now, this minute.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘The things from the paintings. I know why they smashed the statues.’ My voice was a bit shaky, and I was already thinking I shouldn’t be saying this out loud.
‘Why?’ asked McGillop.
‘Because they needed somewhere to hide,’ I blurted said.
Nothing happened for a moment—then all the statues under their sheets just seemed to relax and straighten up, like children at the end of a game of hide and seek. And then, slowly, all the covered heads turned towards us.
I was running before I even thought about it. ‘Run first,’ the Doctor always said, ‘make time, think hard!’ I jumped over the packing cases and raced up the stairs. All around me, sheets were falling from statues, and strange lumpy hands were reaching out of the dark. I ran and ran and never screamed once. I crashed into a cabinet, and suddenly the floor was all rats, skittering and scrabbling about, but still I didn’t scream.
Now I was staring at a wall. ‘Eventually,’ the Doctor had said once, ‘everyone runs out of corridor.’
I could hear it behind me. I turned.
It was about seven feet tall, and red, and wet-looking. Its skin was covered in suckers, and it had a huge baby head, and tiny, bright eyes. It looked like it was grinning, but I think it was just the shape of its teeth.
At the back of my mind a file opened. Zygons, Loch Ness, shape-shifters.
It came to a halt a few feet away, and just stared at me. At first I thought nothing was going to happen, then a droplet of yellow goo ran down between its eyes, leaving a track of slime, and with a loud crack the whole face started to split apart. As it opened, the flesh stretched like pizza cheese between the slowly separating halves. I didn’t scream but the wall was suddenly pressing very hard against my back. The whole head had now flowered open, falling apart into segments, like a peeled orange, and with a horrible, sucking, gurgling noise a new head started to grow in the middle of the neck stump. At first it was the size of a fist, featureless with just a round mouth. Then it wriggled and grew, and a pair of little human eyes popped open and looked right at me. Features were now forming round the eyes, and in a few seconds I realised whose face I was looking at. ‘Hello Petronella,’ squeaked a rapidly growing replica of my own mouth, ‘I’m Petronella.’
I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to see the next bit. When I opened them again, a perfect duplicate of me was standing there. There was even a green chemical stain on the left sleeve of my lab coat, which was never going to come out. (Shut up, Mum!) I reached for my inhaler, then realised it was already in my mouth.
The other Osgood smiled, and held out her hand. ‘Could I borrow the inhaler, please. I don’t seem to have copied that. Rush job, sorry.’ She gave the little wheezy cough that I knew so well. ‘Oh, I do hate it when I get one with a defect.’
For a moment it felt as if I was in both our heads, looking out of both pairs of eyes. She was still live-linked with my mind, I realised, and probably still downloading me. She was stealing every last private little thing that was mine. Just pulling it out of my brain and taking it for herself. All my stupid secrets, all the things that m
ade me ashamed. It was the first time I really wanted to scream.
The next bit was quite confusing. There was suddenly this terrible noise everywhere, and it took me a moment to realise that it was coming from the other me. She was screaming and screaming—not like she was scared, like she was furious. And then there was this mad look in her eye, and she lunged at me. I threw myself back against the wall, convinced I was about to die—but all she did was push right past me and run, still screaming, down the corridor.
For a moment, I thought I should follow, but then I found myself leaning against the wall, and a moment later, sliding down it. I sat there, huddled and shaking, and I wondered what I could possibly have done to frighten a Zygon away. Were my memories really that horrid? Was I so embarrassing? I had to be sensible, though—there might be something to be learned from this, and the Doctor would want to know. But I hoped it wasn’t that incident with my sister and the dead turtles.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but it was only McGillop who found me, thank God! ‘The statues are all Zygons,’ I told him, as he helped me to my feet. ‘They’re shape-shifters, they’ve copied me!’
‘Yeah,’ said McGillop. ‘They copied me too.’
‘What happened to your duplicate? Where is it now?’
McGillop gave me the sad smile that I’d always quite liked (but not really, just as a friend). ‘Standing in front of you, I’m afraid. I’m the duplicate.’
Oh! This was pretty bad, I thought. And then I was a bit angry, and I was thinking that they’d better not have hurt McGillop in any way at all (because he is a valued colleague, like lots and lots of other people, including women).
‘Okay,’ I said, and fixed him in the eye, just like the Doctor would. ‘Well, I’ve scared off one of you Zygon duplicates already, I can do it again.’
‘No, I’m afraid you didn’t.’
‘Yeah, I did, it ran straight down that corridor. Screaming.’
He was still giving me the sad smile. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That was Osgood.’
I had the biggest Gosh! moment ever. Of course! Oh, of course! I wasn’t Petronella Osgood at all—I was the Zygon!
It was tricky, sometimes, downloading all those memories through one little psychic link. Sometimes the donor mind could overwhelm you, especially if strong emotions were involved. Also, this mind was huge, I realised. Quite the largest mind I’d ever ingested. There were millions of random thoughts, bounding around all over the place, like a stampede of cartoon ponies. It was as much as I could do not to duck.
‘We’d probably better kill Osgood super quickly,’ I said. ‘She’s awfully, awfully clever, and there’s hardly any room for me in here. Also, she took my inhaler.’
‘It will be a pleasure,’ said McGillop. ‘But we have new orders—we have to join the Commander. The Black Archive has been penetrated, but the Doctor’s associate, Clara Oswald, has gone missing from inside it.’
I was barely listening. The size of this mind, it went on and on. An intelligence like this couldn’t just be switched off. ‘No, wait, don’t!’ I said.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Find Osgood, but don’t kill her. As long as she’s alive, I’ll have a feed of her memories and abilities. And she’s mega-tastic brillo-clever.’
‘She talks like a moron,’ said McGillop rudely.
‘You don’t have to tell me, Mr Grumpy Sausage! But, seriously. She’s so smart she’s officially listed as UNIT’s number one tactical asset.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. Well,’ I added, with a shrug, ‘in the absence of the Doctor.’
EXCERPT ENDS
LOG 46667300++6D
EXCERPT ONLY
STATUS: VERIFIED
CONTENT: RESTRICTED
AUTHOR: PO1
EXCERPT BEGINS
For a moment it felt as if I was in both our heads, looking out of both pairs of eyes. She was still live-linked with my mind, I realised, and probably still downloading me. She was stealing every last private little thing that was mine. Just pulling it out of my brain and taking it for herself. All my stupid secrets, all the things that made me ashamed. It was the first time I really wanted to scream.
So I did. I screamed, right in her stupid face. She looked kind of shocked for a moment—and that was when I had the idea. If she was still linked with me, maybe she was feeling all the same fear I was feeling. Which you might think would make us equal, but that’s wrong. Fear is only a disadvantage if you want to attack—it’s brilliant if all you want to do is run away.
So I just sort of lunged at her. And I was right. She stumbled out of my way, looking all frightened, and I ran for it. And I made sure I kept on screaming and screaming.
‘Scream when you’re running away, and keep it going,’ Sarah Jane Smith once told me (she was one of the Doctor’s companions and easily my equal-second-favourite). ‘That way they’ll know exactly how far away you are.’
‘Why’s that good?’ I asked.
‘Because then you stop screaming and double back the way you came. A few minutes later, you’ll see them dashing past your hiding place—they never bother looking properly if they think you’re further away.’ Then she said: ‘Head down, dear, I think the eyes are hatching!’—but that’s another story.
Sarah Jane was super-awesome—I’d grown up wanting to be her—and she was also right. A little while later I heard Other Me and Other McGillop walking right past the cabinet where I was hiding.
‘Why the Black Archive?’ I heard myself saying.
‘Check your memories. That’s where they store all the alien weapon tech—best arms dump on the planet.’
‘Therefore the first place the Doctor will attempt to defend.’
Good point, other me!
‘The Black Archive is TARDIS-proof, he can’t get in there.’
Oh McGillop, I thought. Tell the Doctor there’s a wall he can’t climb over and he’ll meet you on the other side.
‘Oh McGillop,’ Other Me was saying. ‘Tell the Doctor there’s a wall he can’t climb over and he’ll meet you on the other side.’
Oh, she’s a clever one. ‘Why are you calling me McGillop?’ asked Other McGillop as their voices faded down the corridor.
I scrambled out of the cabinet. I knew exactly where I had to go now, because I had a theory, and I had to see if I was right. A little while earlier, I’d found Kate replacing the covering on one of the statues. She’d told me she’d seen nothing of interest under the sheet—but, logically, she should have seen a Zygon under there and I’m pretty sure Kate would have remembered seeing something like that (though she’s always losing her phone, and vouchers). So, theory: that was a Zygon copy of Kate. Question: what was under the covering I’d seen her replace?
It took me a few minutes to find the right statue. I pulled off the sheet. And oh my goodness, there was Kate!
She was bound up in horrid, red, rubbery stuff (like string, made of Zygon) and at first I thought she was dead. Then she moaned and I started yanking away at the stringy stuff.
‘Kate! Oh my goodness, you’re not actually dead,’ I reassured her. ‘That really is tremendously good news,’ I said, to keep the positive feedback flowing.
‘… Petronella?’ Kate said, so weak. She only called me Petronella when she was stressed.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Petronella. The Real Petronella, just like you’re the real Kate.’ The red stringy things were snapping quite easily, but I had to be careful because they were holding her up, and I didn’t want her to fall on top of me and cause inappropriate sexual tension in the workplace (which I’m against). ‘Those creatures, they’re Zygons, they can turn themselves into copies of people. But I think they have to keep the original alive, so they can refresh the image, so to speak.’
‘Where did … where did they go?’ she mumbled. She was spitting red stuff out of her mouth, which was a bit disgusting.
‘Tower Base. The Black Archive.’
&nbs
p; ‘What did you say? That’s not possible!’ Her head was almost complete free of all the yucky stuff, and she was trying to focus on me.
‘It is possible, I’m afraid. They don’t just steal your faces, they take your memories—bit embarrassing when you think about it—so anything you know, she knows. She can access the Archive.’ I broke the last of the stringy things, and Kate collapsed forward. Fortunately I got out of the way, and she was able to hit the floor, uncompromised.
‘That’s right, you have a little rest down there,’ I said as she scrambled to her feet and started dashing along the corridor. She really is tremendously ace at times. Basically, I’ve always wanted to be Kate. But then some days I just want to be anyone else except me, which is a bit sad when you think about it, so I don’t (except now, accidentally).
‘If those creatures have got access to the Black Archive,’ she was shouting, ‘we may just have lost control of the planet!’
‘Probably best keep your voice down,’ I said, mostly into my inhaler. ‘This place is crawling with them.’
‘No it isn’t,’ she snapped. ‘They’ve been stuck in here for hundreds of years and they’ve just disposed of an armed UNIT response team. They’re not going to hang around and play canasta! They’ll already be at UNIT HQ, taking over.’
Kate is really very clever about all the military stuff, although she is mainly a science person (and gardening) and she was right (though I would have to look up canasta). The whole place was deserted. By the time we’d got to the top, Kate had called one of her special numbers, and a car came whizzing up, and me and Kate and McGillop all piled inside. (I forgot to mention I went and looked for McGillop when Kate was making the call, but only in case we needed any extra help. I found him under one of the statue sheets, on only my fourth attempt. He was all shivery and his eyes were really wide, but he was unhurt and Kate was basically fine about the tiny delay, and I probably shouldn’t have shouted.)
‘What are they?’ McGillop kept asking, in the back of the car. ‘What are those things?’ I had my arm round him, but only because I thought he might be about to cry (Irish).
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