The Time of Change

Doppelgänger

"The Doctor will be trying to send us a message," Kate tells whoever is on the other end of her phone call as I struggle to keep up with her swift pace. "We're looking for a string of numerals from around 1550, approximately. Priority One. I'm going to need access to the Black Archive."

We arrive at a long, darkly-lit hallway at the end of which is a giant metal door and a lone man sitting in a foldout chair. He looks to be in his fifties or sixties. "The Black Archive," breathes Kate. "Highest security rating on the planet. The entire staff have their memories wiped at the end of every shift. Automated memory filters in the ceiling."

I glance up to see little metallic orbs at even intervals along the ceiling tiles. I shiver. The idea of having no recollection of any day of work is unsettling. I wonder how these people explain it to their families.

"Access, please," Kate says, holding out a card for the elderly man to see. He stands readily. "Ma'am," he greets. She hands him a key, and he takes it, turning to open the door. "It's Atkins, isn't it?" she asks him politely.

"Yes ma'am," he replies. His tone implies he's flattered she knew. I hear a small click, signifying the door has been unlocked. He gives the key back. "First day here." Kate nods at him appreciatively, and I smile as we pass him. He sits back in his chair, looking pleased with himself.

"Been here ten years," Kate informs me.

With ice in my veins, I glance back at him as the doors slide shut.

We enter a vast room guarded only by a single grated door. Inside is an expansive collection of alien devices ranging from scientific instruments to parts of spacecrafts. "Lock and key?" I inquire. "Bit basic, isn't it?"

She doesn't look back at me or stop as she answers. "Can't afford electronic security down here. Gotta keep the Doctor out. The whole of the Tower is TARDIS-proofed. He really wouldn't approve of the collection."

"But you let me in."

"You have a top-level security rating from your last visit."

I almost walk face-first into a shelf of vials and mechanical gizmos. "Sorry, my what?" I say.

Kate half-glances at me. There's a sort of understanding sympathy in her gaze. "Apologies," she replies sincerely. "This happened in your—and his—previous life. It was a different version of you, but we erased the memory anyway. It's just precaution. We have to screen all his known associates, even ones he trusts as much as you. We can't have information about the Doctor and the TARDIS falling into the wrong hands. The consequences could be disastrous."

We stride past something that looks like a detective's board filled with photographs, and I recognize a great deal of the people depicted in them: Sarah Jane Smith and her teenage son, Mickey Smith, Martha Jones, Donna Noble. All of them bring a warm feeling to my chest, but I stumble slightly at the sight of my own face in one of the pictures. I appear to be walking rather quickly behind a uniformed man with a large gun. I don't look afraid.

Kate leads me to a glass-encased room standing alone in the middle of the Archive. Inside is a watch-like object sitting on a pedestal with red light shining on it. "What is that?" I ask, both curious and hesitant.

"Time-travel," she tells me simply. "A vortex manipulator bequeathed to the UNIT archive by Captain Jack Harkness on the occasion of his death—well, one of his deaths. No one can know we have this, not even our allies." She puts her identification card up to a scanner by the door, and it beeps, the light on its security panel changing from red to neon green. She steps in with me on her heels.

The name Jack Harkness rings far too many bells in my head for it to be a mere coincidence. Dimly I recall the Doctor mentioning a nameless Captain to me before Christmas Eve, then claiming I didn't know him. But I remember Jack. He was extremely handsome, and he knew it, but he also had a good and chivalrous heart. The thing I remember most is one of the last things he said to me. I can still hear his voice, surprisingly timid as he said it: "Y'know, you're the only girl I have ever actually fallen in love with. But..." It was here that he glanced at the Doctor, the last Doctor before the current one. "I know somebody else already has your heart. And it's okay. I hope he realizes what a lucky guy he is."

That is how I remember Captain Jack: not as a man who flirted with anything and everything that moved—though that is also an accurate way to describe him—, but as a kind person who was just lost in life with nowhere to go. My heart aches dully with the remembrance that he's dead now because the universe lost a remarkable man.

"Why not?" I ask in response to Kate saying those on our side can't know of the vortex manipulator.

She looks at me, shutting the door as I cross to the other side of the tiny glass room. "Think about it," she says. "Americans with the ability to rewrite history? You've seen their movies."

I can't really argue with that one, so I just say, "Okay, so this is how we're going to rescue the Doctor?"

"I'm not sure there's enough power for a two-way trip," sighs Kate. "And in any event, we don't have the activation code. The Doctor knows we have this, so he's always kept the code from us. Let's hope he changes his mind."

Almost as if on cue, her cellphone rings. She fishes around in her jacket pocket for it and presses it against her cheek. "Yes?" Pause. "Well if you've found it, photograph it and send it to my phone!" She holds the cell away from her face as she speaks, like for emphasis. I furrow my eyebrows as she slams it down on the pedestal upon which the vortex manipulator wristwatch sits. Out of nervous habit, I cast my eyes around the Archive outside this transparent cubicle. My heart drops before I can even register what I see.

"Um, Kate," I say, staring at Osgood and McGillop as they approach. "Should they be here? Why've they followed us?"

She follows my gaze and shrugs indifferently. "Oh, they've probably just finished disposing of the humans a bit early."

"The humans," I breathily laugh, the air catching in my throat. I stare at her as she begins to chuckle lowly.

"Dear me," she quips, holding a hand on her chest where her heart would be. "I really do get into character, don't I?" Her facial expression morphs into one of contempt, and she spits out yellow liquid. I dodge it narrowly; it splats onto the glass behind me and starts sizzling. Acid? When I look back at Kate, she has begun transforming into an alien with red, rubbery skin.

"The Under Gallery is secured," says Osgood from the threshold.

I back up closer to the wall behind me, but there's no way out from this end. Osgood and McGillop block the door with whom I thought had been Kate glaring at me evilly. I feel as if I've been submerged in ice-water. It's quite difficult to move.

In my peripheral vision, I notice the phone light up as a new notification comes in. I tilt my head to the right so I can get a better look at the message, which is a picture of what looks like a wall with numbers carved on it. I try to memorize them. 3-6-2-8-6-7.

The creature that had been Kate turns its head for a brief moment to look at Osgood and McGillop, and the three of them are distracted long enough for me to snatch the vortex manipulator off the pedestal, latch it onto my wrist, and punch the numbers into the keypad on it.

"Prepare to dispose of one more human," says the alien that was Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. "We have acquired the device."

"But no activation code, right?" I ask breathlessly as I sweep my dark brown curls away from my face. The creatures look at me as I disappear, warping through time.