‘Some people are so touchy.’
Parasol under her arm, Missy hitched up her skirts and ran through the stygian gloom of the Jesalorian jungle.
Behind her, the Skarasens roared. Three of them. Talk about an overreaction. Trees splintered like twigs as the monsters crashed after her, carving a path through the forest as they followed her scent.
Missy liked Skarasens. She’d even owned one once, a lovely little thing by the name of Flipper. She’d lost count of the number of unsuspecting allies she’d plunged into Flipper’s tank over the centuries. How the console room had echoed to the sound of anguished screams and crunching bones.
Happy days.
Missy scrambled down a muddy slope, her parasol now gripped firmly in her hand. The descent was hardly dignified, but flair and panache could wait until she was safe. She didn’t even have time to impale the three-eyed toad that watched her lazily from a nearby log. What a day!
A shallow lake lay ahead, the foul water bubbling with countless unknown dangers that roiled beneath its scum-covered surface. An island rose at the centre of the lagoon, home to a single, solitary tree. Its great trunk was twisted, smothered in greasy purple lichen, but Missy knew that no birds ever found shelter in its leafy branches, or insects crawled between the deep crags of its faintly vibrating bark.
This tree was different. This tree was home.
She did not look back as the Skarasens appeared at the brow of the incline behind her, nostrils flaring and eyes burning with bloodlust. Calmly, she unfurled her parasol above her head, the anti-gravity generators in the umbrella’s ribs activating with the buzz of an angry wasp. Holding on to the handle, she rose into the air, floating across to the tree. Beneath her, fish leapt from the water, desperate to sink their fangs into her boots, as the Skarasens blundered down the slope behind, taking most of the soil with them. Soon they’d be in the water, but Missy would be gone long before they reached the island.
She drifted down to land beside the tree, her parasol closing as her feet touched the ground. Sensing her presence, doors opened where they had no place to be, splitting the tree in two. Light spilled out, illuminating Missy as she turned on her heels to blow a kiss to her monstrous pursuers before backing quickly into the opening.
The doors snapped shut around her.
Safe inside her TARDIS, Missy’s heels clacked as she deposited her parasol in the umbrella stand beside the doors and marched towards the console that dominated the high-vaulted control room. Like the walls that surrounded her, the console was as black as a brigand’s heart, its obsidian panels filled with a breathtaking array of switches and levers.
With a sigh, Missy leant against the console and closed her eyes for a second. This time she’d come so close. So close. If it wasn’t for that pathetic cry-baby of a Zygon Queen, the Sizradian Hypersphere would have been where it belonged, in her hands.
Yes, Missy had double-crossed the suckered sovereign, and, yes, boiling the royal hatchlings in acid may have been inappropriate at a feast in the Queen’s honour, but was that any reason for Brillana to set a pack of Skarasens on her trail?
The control room shuddered as the creatures threw themselves at the TARDIS, coiling their bodies around the counterfeit tree.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Missy said, as she carefully removed her hat and rested it on the console’s telepathic circuits. ‘I haven’t forgotten about you lot. You can knock as much as you like, but you’re not coming in …’ Her hands danced across the controls as she spoke. ‘Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.’
Jabbing a large red button with an exquisitely manicured nail, Missy allowed herself a smile as the Skarasens howled in pain. ‘Sorry boys,’ she said, ‘but if you try to snack on a TARDIS, you’ll get a mouthful of electrified plasmic shell.’ Her stomach rumbled. The smell of charred flesh from outside made her mouth water. It had been years since she’d had barbecued Skarasen.
Poor old Flipper.
But now was not the time for a jaunt down memory lane, no matter how delicious the organic portions of her former pet had been. Missy had places to go and people to subjugate. The Hypersphere may have been lost, but there were other sources of unlimited cosmic power. Reaching into a jacket pocket, she pulled out a small leather-bound notebook, flipping through its yellowed pages until she found a list written in blood. Briefly, she wondered whose it was.
‘The Cardium Heart? Too primitive. The Slarvian Astral-Core? Too volatile.’ She stopped, tapping a finger against the penultimate entry. ‘The Sun-Stealer of Tavos … Now, that’s a possibility, but the Tavosian Union will fight to the death to protect it. Do I really have time to commit genocide?’ A grin spread across her face and she snapped the book shut. ‘What am I talking about? I’ll make time.’
Entering the coordinates for Tavos, she pulled at the dematerialisation lever, and … nothing happened.
Missy stared at the controls in confusion. Where was the thunder of the TARDIS engines? Why weren’t they moving?
She entered the sequence again, pumping the lever in frustration, but still the TARDIS didn’t respond. She checked the fault locators. Everything was functioning as it should be: the helmic regulator, temporal accelerators; and the Eye of Harmony …
The breath caught in her throat.
The Eye of Harmony, the energy source of this and every TARDIS, raged constantly with the power of a trapped sun. Now it was cold and lifeless, shut down remotely.
That could only mean one thing.
The thump of boots behind her gave the first indication that Missy wasn’t alone in the control room. She turned slowly to find a staser pointing at her head. The woman who held it was one of her own kind; she looked young, maybe only 200, or 250 at the most. Her dark skin was smooth, her eyes almost black, blonde hair cropped short. She was taller than Missy, the body beneath the tight leather jacket and combat pants taut and lean, like an athlete. Or a hunter. Her grip on the gun looked equally strong, a golden band on her ring finger, her knuckles scarred from past fights.
The two women stared at each other, as still as Weeping Angels.
Missy wanted to rip her spine from her back, but knew she would be dead before the blood had soaked into the deck plates. They would see to that, from wherever they were watching.
The woman broke the silence at last. ‘You’re shorter than I expected.’ Her eyes flicked down to Missy’s boots. ‘Explains the heels. Short Prydon syndrome. Seen it all before.’
Missy didn’t move. She didn’t frown or smile, but stood, hands clasped before her, as immobile as the TARDIS.
To her credit, the woman stood her ground. Her aim didn’t waver, her hand didn’t shake, although there was no mistaking the bead of sweat that blossomed on her brow to run down her cheek.
‘Aren’t you going to say something?’
Missy didn’t respond.
The woman wetted her full lips. ‘I heard you never shut up.’
Missy took a sharp breath through her nose, taking in the woman’s scent. ‘Arcalian,’ she concluded, enjoying the muscle in the woman’s eye that twitched in response. ‘From the House of Stillhaven. Still in your first incarnation, but, ohhh …’ Missy’s own eyes lit up, glistening with interest. ‘You suffer from Abridgement Syndrome.’ She pulled a face, pushing out her bottom lip. ‘No regenerations for you, poor baby. Still that’ll make you easier to kill.’
The woman snorted, betraying her nerves. ‘You really think that’s going to happen?’
‘Oh yes,’ Missy said, brightly. ‘You violate my TARDIS and point a gun at me. I’ve eviscerated people for forgetting to tie their shoelaces. Do you really think I’ll let you live?’
A light flashed on the woman’s ring. A communication signal. The trespasser’s expression soured ever so slightly, but her voice remained professional and neutral when she spoke.
‘Activate holo-link.’
A figure shimmered into being, a flickering hologram of a man wearing ceremonial armour and a haughty expression. His domed scalp was largely devoid of hair, his impressive nose held high and his grey eyes keen. It was a face Missy hadn’t seen for a very long time.
‘General,’ she purred. ‘What an unexpected pleasure. Would you like me to curtsey or bow?’
‘I’d like you to shut up and listen for once,’ the hologram replied, the clipped voice projected from Gallifrey, half an eternity away. Missy wondered if the General was standing in the Panopticon, or the War Room. No, definitely not the latter. She’d blown that up, hadn’t she, before escaping Gomer’s Asylum? It was so hard to remember sometimes.
‘I assume this is your handiwork?’ she commented, indicating the incapacitated console.
‘The High Council has frozen your connection to the Eye of Harmony.’
‘The High Council? Are they still around? I thought Rassilon ruled the roost these days.’ The General’s expression tightened at her mention of the Lord President. ‘How is the old goat? Still choking on the White Point Stars I shoved down his throat? I hope his regeneration was nice and painful.’
‘They say he screamed all the way through,’ the woman told her. ‘Ohila had to mix him a special draft.’
‘Yayani,’ warned the General, and Missy chuckled; not only had she learned the woman’s name, she’d also heard the smirk in Yayani’s voice as she’d described Rassilon’s torment. Interesting.
The General’s attention turned back to Missy. ‘Control of your TARDIS will be returned in due course—’
‘So long as I dance to whatever twisted tune Rassilon is playing this time. I know how this works. Been there, baldy, bought the T-shirt.’
The General ignored the jibe. ‘We have a mission for you.’
‘Then you’ve got the wrong renegade. Isn’t goodie-goodie-two-shoes your usual puppet? What’s the matter? Lost his number?’ Missy snatched up the cross-time telephone from its cradle on the communication panel. ‘Hang on, I have him on speed dial …’
‘The Doctor is … unavailable.’ The General raised his holographic arm, a globe appearing in front of his gauntleted hand. ‘This is the Kyme Institute.’
Missy took a step nearer the image. There was a speck hovering above the planet’s equator. She reached forward, prodding the dot with a finger. It expanded to show a space station shaped like a gigantic wheel.
Yayani’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Should she be able to do that?’
‘No,’ Missy said, rotating the holographic image on its axis, ‘but I never let that stop me.’ She glanced up at the General. ‘So, why’s this place got the High Council’s knickers in a twist? Looks booooooring to me. What is it? Twenty-seventh century?’
‘Twenty-eighth,’ the General confirmed. ‘According to the Lord Prognosticator, a team of scientists are conducting a series of time experiments that may have catastrophic consequences for established history.’
‘Sound like my kind of people.’
‘Which is why we need them stopped.’
‘And you can’t be seen to interfere.’
‘Gallifrey’s existence must be kept secret. If our enemies were to discover that we’d survived the Time War …’
‘The Universe would be ripped asunder, planets would bleed and stars would shatter.’ Missy winked at Yayani. ‘Just another Sunday morning for me …’
The General’s eyes bore into her. ‘Do you remember how I found you in the Siege of the Chronotide? Your screams for mercy as the Multiform closed in?’
For the first time since her TARDIS was boarded, anger contorted Missy’s face into a mask of pure hatred. It was an expression that had struck fear into the hearts of supernovas and sent warlords and demigods running for their mothers, and yet the General regarded her with something approaching boredom.
‘I’m not the Doctor,’ Missy snarled, her nose millimetres from the hologram’s imperious face. ‘I can’t be bullied or shamed. Those who try end up very dead. Try it again, and I’ll rip out your hearts.’
The pompous idiot smiled, actually smiled. ‘Without a TARDIS? I’d like to see you try. You can refuse our request, of course …’
‘Then, I refuse.’
‘… and spend the rest of your days marooned on this insignificant mud-ball.’
Missy looked down her nose at Yayani. ‘Why not get your lapdog to shoot me?’
‘And deny the Skarasens the thrill of the hunt?’
‘Sorry to disappoint, but they’ve gone bye-byes, permanently.’
The General raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’
A deafening bellow rattled the control room doors, followed by another, and another.
Yayani had the decency to look surprised as the resurrected monsters renewed their attack, the walls of the TARDIS shaking beneath the onslaught. ‘That’s breaking the Laws of Time.’
‘They make the rules, they break ’em.’ Missy threw out her arms in surrender. ‘Oh, what the hell. Let’s do this. Perhaps a mission is just what I need to blow the cobwebs away.’ She turned back to the console, sweeping up her hat which she secured with a long onyx pin. ‘Give me the coordinates and I’ll be off before you can say lickety-split.’
‘No need,’ the General told her, as the Eye of Harmony roared back into life, the dematerialisation circuit activating remotely.
With Missy’s back to him, the General couldn’t see her lips thin into a single line, before she forced herself to smile and wheeled around to face him.
‘You really have thought of everything.’ She snapped her heels together and delivered an extravagant salute. ‘Orders delivered and understood, sah! Will do your dirty work like a good little soldier, and be back in time for kit inspection, sah, yes, sah!’
The General gave her a look that would wither Krynoids. ‘Just get it done, and we’ll release your TARDIS back to your control.’
‘And never bother me again?’ she asked, fluttering her eyelids, knowing exactly what the answer would be.
‘Until next time, yes.’
Missy’s hands curled into fists by her side, but she covered her frustration by planting them on her hips and turning to Yayani. ‘And I suppose I’m stuck with you, too.’
Yayani nodded. ‘I’m the High Council’s insurance policy.’
Missy rolled her eyes. ‘To ensure I carry out my mission like a good little girl.’
‘Without any tricks,’ the General confirmed.
Missy clasped a hand to her chest in mock outrage.
‘Tricks? Moi? Perish the thought.’
‘Think of her as your companion.’
‘A companion who’s ready to shoot me at a moment’s notice?’
‘Exactly.’
Missy’s mouth twitched into a smile. ‘The best kind. Well, don’t let us girls keep you. I’m sure you have boots to polish and squares to bash.’ She wiggled her fingers at the hologram in farewell. ‘Bye-bye, baldy. Say hi to Rassipoos for me.’
Without another word, the hologram vanished. Missy turned, inspecting the instruments on the navigational panel. ‘Are you going to point that thing at me all the time?’ she asked, not looking up.
‘Will I have to?’ Yayani asked, expertly tracking Missy’s movements with the staser.
‘Probably, but if we’re going to be pals, you might as well pop it away. I imagine you’re quick on the draw. One false move, and I’m toast.’
‘Flattery won’t stop me from doing my duty,’ Yayani told her, holstering her staser all the same. ‘So, what next?’
Wiping a speck of non-existent dust from the console, Missy turned and walked towards the far wall. ‘Next, we do what we’re told.’ She ran a finger around a circular locker set into the wall and it opened. Missy reached in, retrieving a leather cuff that she fastened around her wrist.
‘A Vortex Manipulator?’ Yayani frowned. ‘Who in their right minds uses those any more?’
‘Haven’t you heard, silly? I’ve not been in my right mind since, well, forever.’
Snapping the roundel shut with a satisfying click, Missy strolled to the umbrella stand to choose a parasol from her extensive collection. ‘Are you coming, or what?’
Behind Yayani, the central column fell still as they reached their destination. With one final resounding thud, the engines powered down and the eonic anchor deployed. They had landed. On cue, the doors slid open.
Missy’s eyes sparkled as she stepped aside to allow Yayani to disembark. ‘After you.’
‘Don’t you want to go first?’
‘Why bring an expendable and get cut down in a hail of plasma bolts yourself?’
But there was no laser fire as they stepped out into a corridor; no running guards, not even an alarm. Slightly disappointed, Missy pulled the TARDIS door shut, savouring the tingle of chameleon shielding beneath her fingers. The time machine had disguised itself as a food dispenser, containing tasty snacks and treats for the institute’s staff. Missy smiled in appreciation when she noticed that each of the brightly coloured packs was at least three decades past their use-by dates. ‘Good girl,’ she whispered, patting the glass window.
‘It’s quiet,’ Yayani said, keeping her voice down.
‘Oooh, do you think?’ boomed Missy. She checked her Vortex Manipulator, Gallifreyan text swirling across its tiny display. ‘The General has deposited us slap bang in the middle of the graveyard shift. Most of the boffins will be tucked up in bed, dreaming of particle accelerators. Pity.’
‘Why?’
Missy gave her the look she usually reserved for simpletons and UNIT personnel. ‘Because there’ll be fewer to kill if they’re all asleep.’
‘Deaths are to be kept to a minimum,’ Yayani told her.
‘The General said that, did he? He actually said those words, in that order.’
Yayani nodded.
Missy blew air from her cheeks. ‘Then, there’s no point in me sticking around. You’re on your own.’
She jabbed at the Vortex Manipulator, and then was forced to jab at it again when it stubbornly refused to operate.
Yayani crossed her arms and regarded Missy with infuriating amusement. ‘Going somewhere?’
‘Obviously not. The sneaky slaphead has fritzed this too, hasn’t he?’ Missy leaned in to Yayani conspiratorially. ‘He hates it when people call him that, by the way.’
The ghost of a smile played on Yayani’s lips. ‘Duly noted.’
Missy cocked an eyebrow. Maybe there was something about this girl, after all. A light winked on the Manipulator’s display, breaking the moment.
‘Oh look, a map.’ The Vortex Manipulator beeped and Missy looked up, peering down the corridor. ‘We’re on level six. The research facility is twelve storeys up.’
‘And that’s where we’ll find the experiment?’
‘You mean the General doesn’t know?’
‘That’s why he’s sent us.’
Missy rolled her eyes and strode over to a computer console set into the wall. Raising her parasol, she activated the screen with a blast of sonic energy from its tip.
‘You have a sonic umbrella,’ Yayani said, the scorn in her voice all too obvious.
‘And I’ll gut you like a gumblejack if you use that tone again,’ Missy retorted, tapping the display. She fell silent for a moment, opening and closing information files at an alarming rate before she spoke again. ‘I’m surprised they’re still doing the tattoos.’
Beside her, Yayani shifted uncomfortably. ‘Tattoos?’
Missy didn’t look up. ‘The Time Lords. Branding prisoners with biodata tags. Like the one on your wrist.’
The young woman’s hand went to her forearm.
‘So where did they put you? Shada? Capetrious?’
‘They didn’t put me anywhere.’ Yayani nodded purposely at the screen. ‘Well?’
Missy pouted. ‘Awww, I thought we were going to share secrets and braid each other’s hair and everything. Suit yourself.’ She turned back to the terminal. ‘This thing’s useless, anyway. All the juicy data is locked behind a firewall. You need a biometric key.’ She waved her fingers in the air. ‘A handprint.’
‘Well,’ Yayani said, glancing down at Missy’s parasol. ‘Blitz it.’
Missy looked innocently at the umbrella. ‘Blitz it? With this?’
Yayani gave her an exasperated look.
‘Nah,’ Missy concluded. ‘Too easy.’ Whirling around, she thrust the tip of the parasol into the air. There was a squeal of sonic interference followed by a klaxon that blared throughout the station.
‘What did you do that for?’ Yayani spluttered, drawing her staser.
‘Because it’s fun!’ Missy shouted back, struggling to make herself heard over the alarm. ‘Stand by for action!’
Armoured guards came running from every direction, pulse-rifles primed and ready to fire. Yayani cursed beneath her breath, her aim switching from one guard to another, until Missy reached over and slapped her hand down as if she was a naughty child.
‘Oh, put that away, will you? We’re hopelessly out-gunned, and you know it.’ She turned towards the armed men and shook her head as if they were in on the joke. ‘You’ll have to forgive my friend. She’s new to the whole being caught red-handed thing. But don’t worry, it’s a fair cop.’ Missy raised her gloved hands. ‘We’ll come quietly.’
‘We will?’ Yayani hissed.
‘Drop your weapon,’ snapped a gruff voice. A tall man with a fierce expression on his rugged feature took a step towards them. Unlike the other guards, he wasn’t wearing a helmet, but the unwavering gun in his hand looked just as deadly as every other blaster pointing in their direction.
A compact laser deluxe too. A tasty bit of kit.
‘I’d do as he says,’ Missy told Yayani. ‘I reckon he’s the boss.’ She peered at the name tag on the man’s tunic. ‘And I’m right. Chief Mitchell. Pleased to meet you, Chiefy.’
‘You never stop talking, do you?’ Yayani asked, bending to place her staser carefully on the floor.
‘Not if I can help it. Now, kick it over to him.’
Yayani reluctantly obliged, Mitchell stopping the skidding gun with his foot. Satisfied, he took another step forward, his own laser outstretched.
‘Identify yourself,’ he growled.
‘And what if we don’t?’ Missy asked.
‘Then we shoot.’
‘You could have done that already.’
‘They want to know how we got on board,’ Yayani realised.
Missy beamed at her. ‘See? Not as stupid as you look.’
‘I said, identify yourselves,’ Mitchell repeated, his gun arm now fully extended.
‘No, shan’t,’ Missy barked, slapping the computer terminal. Blast doors dropped from the ceiling to either side of them, slicing neatly through Mitchell’s outstretched arm, rending his hand at the wrist. They could hear the chief screaming as the hand dropped to the floor, the laser deluxe still gripped in its twitching digits.
‘What was that?’ Yayani said as Missy scooped up the severed extremity with the tip of her brolly.
‘I told you … fun.’ She prised the Chief’s gun from the dead fingers and passed it to Yayani. ‘Yes, we could have sonicked the information from the computer, but then I wouldn’t have been able to do this.’ Missy pressed Mitchell’s rapidly cooling palm against the computer screen, unlocking the security system.
‘Look,’ she said, checking the logs. ‘Research suite 1804 has chronometric screening.’
Yayani nodded slowly. ‘So that must be where the time experiments are taking place.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Missy said, slipping Mitchell’s hand into a pocket in her skirts. ‘To the eighteenth floor it is.’
To each side of them, the blast doors started to rise, before jolting to a halt, inches from the floor. Yayani pointed the laser deluxe at the gap.
‘We’ll have to get past the rest of the guards first.’
‘Obviously.’ Hooking her parasol over her arm, Missy tapped her Vortex Manipulator. ‘Now let’s see … General Slaphead has fused the temporal-shift actuator, but the teleport …’
She pressed a button. Missy and Yayani vanished in a blaze of light just as the guards finally forced open the blast doors and crowded through.
Twelve storeys up, Missy and Yayani materialised in a laboratory filled with gleaming equipment.
The sole occupant of the room – a pot-bellied alien with purple skin and numerous arms – swung round to face them in shock. He was wearing a white lab coat and held a datapad in his six-fingered hand.
‘Who are you?’ he squeaked as Missy tossed her parasol towards him.
‘Here, catch.’
The scientist did as he was told, his fingers closing around the umbrella’s shaft. Immediately, he froze, unable to move.
‘Oops, sorry,’ Missy apologised, pulling the datapad from his grasp. ‘I forgot to mention the muscle-retention field that activates whenever someone else grabs my brolly. You won’t be able to move until I prise it out of your useless fingers, but don’t worry. You can still breathe, more or less.’
Missy strolled over to the door and used the datapad to reprogram the lock with a new passcode. ‘That should keep security busy.’
‘But will it keep them out?’ Yayani asked, holstering the laser deluxe.
‘Unless they can guess all thirty-two letters of my real name, I should think so,’ Missy replied, smashing the datapad against a nearby table before walking back to the petrified scientist. ‘Now, just what have you been up to, you naughty little beetroot?’
She scanned the contents of the work benches and computer screens.
‘All pretty innocuous, not to mention du-ull. So dull, that I might have to knit myself a tea-cosy with your central nervous system just to alleviate the boredom.’ Missy peered into the alien’s troubled face. ‘Unless, we can find the main event.’
Never taking her eyes from him, she licked the end of her finger before holding it up as if testing for wind.
‘Ah, yes – time distortion. That’s what we’re looking for, Mr …’
She glanced down at the scientist’s name tag.
‘… Doctor Kalub.’ She gave the alien’s cheek a sharp slap. ‘The General will be pleased. He may even buy me an ice cream.’ She brushed past Kalub, dancing up to a doorway at the far end of the laboratory. ‘Do you like ice cream, Yayani?’ she called back, swishing her skirts from left to right. ‘Perhaps when this is all over I should take you to Rome, treat you to a choc ice.’
‘I’ll be heading straight back to Gallifrey,’ Yayani told her, following close behind, ‘same as always.’
‘Well, we’ll see about …’
Missy opened the door, stepping across the threshold only to stop in her tracks.
Yayani tried to peer past her. ‘What is it?’ Her mouth dropped open at the sight.
The creature was roughly humanoid. Trapped within a bubble of swirling energy, it writhed like it was drowning in water, its arms and legs kicking out into the air. No, more than that: the limbs were phasing in and out of existence, stretching back and forth through the lines of perception; solid one moment, like smoke the next. Its entire body was shifting, as were both its age and gender. It was old and it was young, a bone-white skeleton and a cluster of cells, man, woman, child, corpse, in constant flux and eternal agony.
Yayani swallowed, swaying on her feet, and Missy caught her arm to steady her. The younger woman grabbed Missy’s hand, squeezing it, trying not to swoon.
‘Chronographic containment field,’ Missy said quietly. ‘Don’t worry, the dizziness will pass.’
‘It’s horrible,’ Yayani said, trying to break Missy’s grip. The renegade wouldn’t let go, holding her tight.
‘Why did they arrest you? The Time Lords. What did you do?’
Yayani looked surprised at the question. ‘This isn’t the time.’
‘This is exactly the time.’
Yayani turned on her, her eyes flashing with anger. ‘I tried to assassinate the Lord President. There, are you happy now?’
Missy turned back to the creature in the bubble. ‘I assume you weren’t successful.’
‘What do you think?’
‘But you’re still with us,’ Missy said. ‘Still alive and kicking. Presidential assassins, even the rubbish ones, rarely escape the dispersal chamber. Trust me, I know.’
‘They gave me a choice …’
Missy watched the creature twist and turn, becoming a swarm of particles before coalescing back into matter. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.
‘I could be scattered across the Vortex,’ Yayani went on, ‘or serve the man I tried to kill.’
‘On special missions. Secret missions. Hence the time ring. Pretty.’
Yayani snorted, playing with the band on her finger. ‘Hardly. It’s grafted to my body. A permanent reminder of my shame.’
‘You could chop off your hand’ Missy patted the bulge in her skirt pocket. ‘Like poor old Chiefy.’
‘And activate the explosive nanites they implanted into my hearts? No regenerations, remember.’ Yayani swallowed. ‘Turns out I’m a coward.’
‘Survival isn’t cowardice.’ Missy took a step closer to the creature and reached out to touch its protective bubble, snatching her fingers back as the energy cocoon crackled and sparked. ‘We’re going to have to deactivate the containment field if we’re going to put this thing out of its misery.’ She turned to address Doctor Kalub, who was still standing motionless in the other room. ‘How do you activate it? The interface?’ She huffed when no answer came. ‘Of course, you can’t talk, can you? Never mind. I’ll do it myself. I mean, I might hit the wrong button and blow up the entire station, but that’s the risk we’re going to have to take.’
She clicked her fingers and a cluster of holographic slabs appeared around her. She started working them like a concert pianist, cycling through Kalub’s notes and methodology.
Yayani peered over her shoulder and frowned. The text on the virtual screens was indecipherable, a meaningless scrawl of random letters and symbols.
‘Why isn’t your TARDIS translating?’
‘Because this isn’t a language, not one stored in the TARDIS databanks anyway. It’s an alphabet of Doctor Kalub’s devising, complete gobbledegook to anyone but him.’
‘Then, how are you reading it?’
‘Because I’m exceptional in every way. Why did you try to kill Rassilon?’
Once again, the abrupt change in conversation put Yayani on the back foot, just as it was supposed to. A shadow passed over her face. ‘I was alone.’
‘No one to talk to and nothing to do, so you kill the Lord President of Gallifrey to pass the time? And you from the noble House of Stillhaven. What would your Patriarch say?’
‘That’s just it. I didn’t have a patriarch. Stillhaven was silent, every hall empty.’
That made Missy pause. ‘Every hall? Stillhaven is one of the largest families on Gallifrey.’
‘Not any more. Not since the War. We voted against Rassilon on the Final Sanction.’
Missy’s hearts skipped a beat. A memory flashed across her mind’s eye, a memory from another time, another body. Rassilon standing victorious, staff in hand, flanked by two Time Lords, a man and the woman, forced to hide their faces in shame. She knew the woman of course, but the man she hadn’t recognised until now – the Patriarch of Stillhaven.
‘Rassilon used the rest of the House as test subjects in a series of experiments,’ Yayani continued, her voice catching. ‘Guinea pigs, isn’t that what the humans say?’
‘What kind of experiments?’
Yayani shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t even know they were gone. He must have wiped my memories. If I hadn’t found the recall cube that my brother used to play with as a child …’
‘You would never have remembered at all.’ Missy’s voice was softer than even she expected, as she shut down the bubble’s safety relays one by one. ‘I wonder why he left you behind?’
‘I suppose he made a mistake.’
‘Not in his nature.’ From the corner of her eye, Missy followed the tear that ran down Yayani’s cheek. ‘Anyway. Doctor Kalub!’ she called across the lab, as she reached the end of the scientist’s notes. ‘Still with us? You know, you’re really quite clever. Genetically engineering a creature with a biological time-and-space-travel capability, and then imprisoning it in a stasis field. The creature tries to escape, emitting energies that are harvested as a perpetual source of power. Of course, it means never-ending pain for your poor little guinea pig.’
Beside her Yayani stiffened. Missy had chosen her words well.
‘So, yes. Quite clever. But you’re not perfect, not by a long shot. The dampeners are failing bit by bit. Before long, the creature will be free. That’s what the Lord Prognosticator foresaw. It will escape, and the real magic will happen.’
She pointed at one of the holographic slabs, showing Yayani an X-ray of the creature.
Yayani leaned closer, eyebrows raising. ‘It’s pregnant.’
‘Engineered that way,’ Missy confirmed, ‘so it has a reason to escape. It’s not fighting for its own life, but that of its family.’
Mitchell’s laser deluxe was back in Yayani’s hand. She had turned, pointing it through the arch to the back of Kalub’s head. This time the aim wasn’t true. This time, Yayani was shaking, consumed by fury.
‘Monster.’
‘Just to be clear, she’s talking about you, dear, not your creation.’ Missy smiled as she finally managed to access the containment field’s control matrix. ‘I suspect she’s going to kill you.’ She broke off from the controls and sidled up to Yayani. ‘Although a shot to the head? That’s a swift death, almost merciful. Did you show this creature any mercy, doctor? Did you worry about its pain?’
Yayani didn’t say a word. Her jaw was clenched, that muscle in the corner of her eye beating a fierce tempo.
Missy started playing with her Vortex Manipulator, sending commands from the tiny screen to the parasol in Kalub’s hand. ‘So, no shot to the head, that’s out. I know! How about using the muscle-retention field? That would be nasty; and messy too, thinking about it. Every bone in your body cracked from within, your vital organs crushed into paste. Oooh, if it were down to me, I’d make it voice-activated …’
The Manipulator gave a beep.
‘It’s a good job I’ve just switched control to Yayani. She’d never put you through that all, even though you experimented on a living soul without care or conscience. She’d never contract the field, crushing you where you stood … and all by saying a single word …’
‘What’s the word?’ Yayani asked, glowering at the helpless scientist.
Missy smiled, showing her teeth. ‘The one thing we all fight for, in the end.’
She returned to the containment matrix, trying to lose herself in her work as the research suite lapsed into silence. She didn’t even look up as Yayani barked a single word:
‘Family.’
There was a faint buzz, followed by a strangled grunt and the delicious sound of bones popping, one after another. Missy didn’t recognise Doctor Kalub’s species and therefore had no way of knowing how many bones made up his skeleton, but she’d counted at least 200 separate fractures before the scientist collapsed into a heap of quivering jelly.
Yayani turned back to her, her face a blank mask. ‘Are we done here?’
Missy acted as if nothing had just happened. ‘Almost. You can see why Rassilon is worried. Natural time travellers running loose, multiplying like rabbits? Soon, the whole Vortex will be swarming with the things.’
‘Why should the President care? There are plenty of time-shifters in the universe.’
‘Like the Tharils?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Rassilon had them sterilised in the first year of the Time War.’ Missy didn’t look up; she didn’t need to. She could imagine the look on Yayani’s face. ‘Then there were the Porfue and the Krajonnu … No one can be allowed to threaten the Time Lords’ supremacy. Not any more.’
‘So, we have to kill it.’ Yayani’s words were a statement, not a question, devoid of emotion.
‘Oh yes, that can’t be helped. Poor darling. And that’s the real reason they had to recruit me. The Doctor wouldn’t have the stomach for this, not with those bleeding hearts.’ She finished, the holo-slabs switching off.
‘What have you done?’
Missy picked fluff from her sleeve. ‘The containment field is shutting down. I reckon we’ll have at least three milliseconds before she disappears into the Vortex.’
Yayani held out the laser so she could take it.
Missy tutted. ‘Oh, I think we can do better than that …’
Retreating back to the door, Missy pulled the onyx hat pin from her hair. It was long and slender, ending in a bulbous black orb. Gripping the needle, Missy held it out in front of her, like a gun. The orb split into four, peeling back like the petals of a perverse metal flower, revealing another glowing sphere inside.
‘What is that?’
Missy lips curled at the question. ‘A TCE – Tissue Compression Eliminator. Haven’t used one in donkey’s years.’
‘Then what are you waiting for?’ Yayani urged her. ‘Do it.’
Missy’s expression hardened. ‘Say something nice.’
The creature in the bubble howled, and the TCE fired.
In his chambers on Gallifrey, the General looked up from his desk at a familiar sound. He turned, looking to where Yayani usually materialised when returning from a mission.
His eyes narrowed. The girl wasn’t in her customary place.
But surely that had been the sound of her time ring? It was unmistakable.
Putting down the data-scroll, he stood, walking over to the window. Where was she?
He stopped, spotting something at his feet. He looked down, and felt his stomach tighten.
A figure lay on the floor, no bigger than a doll. Its skin was dark, its hair blond. It wore a leather jacket, a perfectly crafted gun belt slung across its hips, and, glinting in the light of Gallifrey’s suns, he could make out a band of gold on the ring finger of its right hand. The General swallowed, fully aware that if he examined the miniaturised body he would find a tattoo on its … on her wrist. A bisected cross, containing the biodata of one of his best agents.
He took a step back, noticing for the first time a scrap of paper beneath the figure. His armour creaked as he crouched down, carefully pulling the note free. He stayed there, on his haunches as he turned the paper over.
The handwriting was familiar, and the message clear. Three words, written in fresh green ink:
Not your puppet.
Missy’s TARDIS slipped through the Vortex, heading to who knew where. The leather-bound notebook lay on the floor at the foot of the console, discarded, the list of power sources within no longer required.
Missy stood at the controls, checking the power readout.
Jettisoning the Eye of Harmony, that had been tricky, but not as problematic as trapping its replacement. She looked up to the scanner, watching Kalub’s creature writhe in its new containment field, one that would never fracture, nor fail. Not that the creature would ever stop trying to escape. Missy was counting on that. It would rant and rail and scream and struggle, providing more than enough energy to fuel a Type 45 TARDIS. She was no longer dependent on Gallifrey, or the black hole trapped deep beneath the Panopticon. Best of all, there was nothing the General, the High Council, or even Rassilon could do about it. To think, she’d wasted all that energy tracking down a replacement for the Eye, knowing all too well that it was only a matter of time before the High Council came a-calling … and then Rassilon had dropped the solution straight into her lap.
She thought of Yayani, of the look on her face when the TCE beam had struck. Poor, stupid Yayani. As if she’d found that recall cube by accident, or that Rassilon had simply forgotten she’d existed when he dissolved the House of Stillhaven. He thought he’d got what he’d wanted, yet again.
Not this time.
Missy walked over to the locker in the wall, depositing her Vortex Manipulator through the open door, before pulling a compact laser deluxe from her pocket and placing it beside the leather cuff.
She was truly free, for the first time in years, and she wasn’t the only one.
‘You’re welcome, dear,’ Missy said aloud, her fingers lingering on the laser gun before she sealed the roundel and strode from the control room.