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Alex Missingham didn’t know who she was.
That was true enough.
Her life wasn’t like anyone else’s. She knew that for a fact, although she had no frame of reference for it. No media she’d ever seen showed someone waking up, checking their phone, taking a horse and cart to school, and then taking notes on quantum physics on a telepathic screen. None of her friends at school knew anyone from home, and vice versa. She didn’t know why this was. At school they taught her home life as history. Her class would ask stupid questions. “Why did everyone keep using these mobile phones if they were destroying their eyes?”. Because they’re addictive, shitlips. She knew. The concept of history was stupid. One second history was the past, and then she was in it, and then history was the future. What was the point? Just look! But nobody else did.
She didn’t know if that was because everyone else was stupid, or bone idle, or just too single-minded to see it. But god, did she want it. To live solidly in one, singular place. One time. Where history was always behind, and the future was always ahead, and the present was always right now. But it never was. She lived in flux, and it pissed her off royally.
And suddenly, without any warning, on a completely normal Tuesday, she got what she wanted.
She woke up. It was 2023. That’s when she would always wake up. She got up, got dressed, had breakfast. Walked out of the door, and took a deep breath as she prepared for the time shift that would take her to something her parents called the Victorian era. It was just a second home for her, and it made a convenient through-way to work.
She passed the point.
Nothing happened.
The house was still there. The cart was distinctly not there. Her phone was in her pocket.
“The hell?” She wondered aloud.
Alex walked out into the road. Maybe the transition point moved. But even as she got to the other side, she remained firmly in place. The 4th of April, 2023. She didn’t budge a single month in time.
She took off running to work. She didn’t even know what the streets looked like. She’d only ever seen them in 1846.
Just a few metres away, a solitary phone box, its windows uncharacteristically foggy and opaque, lay in a field. It hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.
The door swung inwards, producing a cloud of thick smoke, and out stepped a woman, who coughed violently. She was tall, with mid-length straight ginger hair. Her outfit was comprised of a bright red skirt, almost perfectly matching the phone box she’d stepped out of, a pink shirt with deep purple stripes, and a denim jacket. As the door of the phone box slammed shut behind her, with the light inside turning bright red, before a low, angry hum began pulsing in and out of the box, the woman brushed soot and dust from her clothes.
She drew herself up straight, inhaling the clean, crisp air. She closed her eyes in reverence, before, with an air of gravitas, she finally said; “Bloody hell.”
She turned back to the phone box, and immediately put her head in her hands.
“Oh, for god’s sakes. I’m the Doctor! How can I be the Doctor if I can’t fly the bloody TARDIS?”
She suddenly looked straight ahead of her.
“I’m not the Doctor, am I? No, no, I’m… I’m… Rose. Rose Tyler. No, that’s not… That’s not right either. Emily? Emily Wells. Yeah. Wait. No. That’s not right either.”
She paused.
“God damnit.”
Alex was running. She had some vague memory of this place. She didn’t know how, as far as she knew she’d never been able to come here without shifting time periods. But now that was gone and she was dashing down the road.
Her office came into view. It looked far more weather-beaten than she remembered it.
The doors slid aside as she walked towards it.
Alex cautiously stepped in. The exposed wooden floors were gone, with polished marble in their place. Sat at a curved desk, typing on a computer, was a young woman, who looked up and gave Alex a customer service smile.
“Good morning. Are you here for a meeting, or about the open position?” She wheedled.
“What? No, I work here.” Alex gave a small smile, trying to look reassuring.
“Well, I don’t recognise you. New here, then?” She clicked her mouse a few times. “Name?”
“Alex Missingham.” Alex answered.
“Alright, and how do you spell that?”
“M-I-S-S-I-N-G-H-A-M.” Alex was beginning to lose her patience.
“Well, you’re not in our system. The only Alex Missingham we have was employed in 1846. We keep an extensive database.”
“Okay. So, how do I get there then?” Alex asked.
“Get to where, ma’am?”
“...1846?”
“Well, you’d need a time machine for that, ma’am.” The receptionist chuckled half-heartedly.
“What d’you mean? Where’s the nearest transitional point?” Alex pinched her temple.
“The nearest what, ma’am?” The receptionist looked extremely confounded by this point.
Alex lost her patience. “Transitional point!” She shouted. “You know! You step through one, and it moves you in time! For god’s sake, it’s not exactly a difficult concept to grasp!”
A frosty silence descended upon the room as she stopped shouting. The receptionist’s eyes were wide in shock and fear.
“I- I’m sorry. I just- I’m having a bad-” Alex tried to recover the conversation desperately.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, ma’am. If you refuse to leave I will have you removed.” The receptionist’s hand was going towards her phone.
“No, it’s alright. I’ll see myself out.” Blushing hard, Alex hurried out of the building.
The ginger woman – as she had come to think of herself – jumped over a stile and began walking down a street. She didn’t know what street it was, although from cursory information, wind speed, humidity, and local pollution, she could tell she was somewhere in northern England.
“At least I’m close to home…” She muttered to herself.
And then stopped dead.
“Home…”
She remembered every detail. The burning. The people she loved falling down and dying in the street. The hideous lump of metal coming to destroy her whole life without even knowing what it meant to her. Or anyone. The blue box. The leather-jacketed man and blonde girl inside who brought her into that cavernous control room. The wheezing, grinding noise as the gantry shook.
She remembered being the man, too. The Doctor. Although she hadn’t been him. She hadn’t been Emily, either. Or Rose. She was all of them and none of them. All at once.
Who was she?
The ginger woman shook her head, and began walking again. A faint whiff of coffee caught her nostrils. She chalked this up to her new Time Lord biology and began following it.
Alex knew only one place to go. Her local cafe. It was about the one place she knew in the 21st century. She shut the door behind her, letting the warmth of the cafe envelop her body, soothing her.
“Hiya, Alex.” Mary, the barista and owner, barely looked up from the coffee machine. “I’ll do you your regular, yeah?”
“Mm-hmm. I’ve had a hell of a morning.” Alex leaned on the counter as Mary began to twiddle with knobs on the coffee machine.
“Oh? What’s happened?” Mary didn’t look away from the machine as it spat and burbled. “Oh, this – this bloody machine!”
“Don’t even ask. I don’t want to get into it.” Truthfully, Alex really wanted to get into it. Unfortunately, when she’d tried to tell her best friend at 12 years old, he had run away screaming and never spoken to her again. She’d generally regarded it to be a pointless exercise since then.
The bell jingled as the door opened, and a tall figure stepped indoors in Alex’s peripheral vision.
“Well, if you ever want to talk, I’m here.” Mary pushed a few buttons on the coffee machine, to no avail.
“It’s no good on the coffee, I’m afraid.” Mary called out to the room at large. “The machine’s broken.”
The tall figure came up next to Alex, and she moved aside. It was a ginger woman, in a very unusual outfit. “Let me have a look at it.”
“You can fix it?” Mary asked.
The ginger woman held out a small, tattered scrap of paper. “Does this convince you?”
“It says ‘Please trust me, I promise I’m trying to help”, in all lowercase with no punctuation. And please is spelt P-L-S.”
The ginger woman frowned. “Eh? I-” She turned the paper towards herself. “Oh, so it does. Sorry. Psychic paper, a bit of a work in progress. Anyway, should I take that as a yes? I have fixed stuff like this before.” It was a white lie. The Doctor had done it, and she sort of remembered being the Doctor.
“Well, it’s out of warranty, so you might as well try.” Mary sighed resignedly.
“Coolio!” The ginger woman leapt over the counter, barely avoiding sending ingredients flying everywhere. She then began hitting the coffee machine repeatedly.
“Hey! Hey, what’re you doing? That’s my bloody coffee machine!” Mary began grabbing at the ginger woman as she punched the machine over and over.
“Hold on, this town’s built on a temporal fault line. I can feel it. If I can whack it right…” The woman gave the machine a final punch, and a burst of white light filled the room. When it faded, the coffee machine was gleaming.
“How the hell did you do that?” Alex’s eyes were wide.
“This town’s built on a temporal fault line. That’s why my ship crashed here, to refuel. I needed to punch it perfectly into a rift, so that its physical body was in this point in time but its mechanisms are permanently brand-new. Try it now.” She gestured towards the coffee machine.
Mary, one eyebrow raised, walked towards the machine and turned it on. It began pouring out coffee completely noiselessly. She then sipped tentatively. “That’s actually quite good. How’d you manage to make it silent?”
The ginger woman hurdled back to the other side of the counter. “The mechanism’s permanently brand new because it’s permanently time locked, right? All the sound stays where the mechanism is, i.e…” She ran her finger down the length of a nozzle, and then licked it. “Six years ago.”
“They had that sonic blast at a tech manufacturer about six years ago, didn’t they?” Mary’s eyes widened.
The ginger woman was silent for a few seconds.
“Whoopsie.”
“Whoopsie? It almost killed everyone in a 20 metre radius!” Mary exploded.
“Keyword! Almost! Meaning nobody actually died!” the ginger woman grinned, before taking the coffee out of Mary’s hands and sitting at a table.
“Hey! You’ve got to pay for that!” Mary exclaimed.
“I just fixed your coffee machine, and I don’t plan on asking for payment. May I please have one free coffee in return?” the ginger woman was still grinning madly.
“You know what? Fine. I’m too tired for this.” Mary then fell silent, and went about re-organising the coffee syrups.
Alex sat down at the table with the ginger woman.
“Hiya.” The ginger woman mumbled as she raised the cup to her lips. She took a sip, grimaced, and then completely failed to mask her spitting it back out. “Do you want this?”
Alex looked at the cup, now frothy with spit. “I’m alright.”
“Ah well.” The ginger woman pushed the cup aside. “Do you have a name? I don’t.”
“Alex. Alex Missingham. And what do you mean you don’t have a name?”
“I’ve had a very busy day. Technically I was born about 5 hours ago.”
Alex blinked twice, trying to comprehend what she could possibly mean. Ultimately she failed. “You mentioned a temporal fault line. Is that a time travel thing?” Alex asked.
“Yeah. Truthfully it’s only a guess. Something’s wrong with time around here, that’s why my ship came to this town.” The ginger woman lowered her voice, so Alex could only barely hear her.
“Your ship?” Alex asked.
“Yeah. I think it’s mine now, anyway. Only had it for a few minutes and immediately crashed it. She locked onto here to refuel. The ship – it’s a TARDIS, a time machine. It’s fuelled off temporal energy, and fault lines and rifts just pour it out like a pressure hose.”
“A time machine?” Alex whispered. “You’ve got a time machine?”
“Maybe. I’m not too good at flying her yet. It’s something to do with the human-Time Lord DNA balance. Although if I was just 50-50 on the ratio, I’d die. That extra human element must be balancing it out, negotiating…” The ginger woman suddenly stopped, leaning back in her chair.
“Look, this time travel stuff, it’s important to me. I think I’ve time travelled before.” Alex put her hands on the table in front of her.
“Oh? How?” the ginger woman’s eyes sparkled.
“Is it normal… I mean, does the average person, is the average person capable of moving between timezones?”
“In a plane, yeah.” the ginger woman seemed visibly perplexed.
“No, I mean… Okay. Here’s how my day normally goes. I wake up in 2023. I go outside my front door. I fly to work in a hovercar, in 4483, and then I work in a bank in 1846 until it’s time to go home. Is that, that arrangement, is that normal or not?” Alex was running short of breath at the end of her sentence.
“No. The average person, without outside intervention, stays in the same time zone for their entire day. Obviously time still passes, y’know, second by second, but nobody has ever spontaneously jumped centuries in time every single day. That should kill you.”
“I’m still alive.” Alex pointed out.
The ginger woman composed herself for a second. “When did this start?”
Alex thought for a few moments. “I don’t know. At a guess, the first time it happened was when I was about eight? I remember running out in the road, I heard a car engine, and then it was 4466.”
“So, you almost got hit by a car, and then you got out of it by time travelling?”
“Yeah, maybe. And it hasn’t happened to me at all today. I don’t know why.”
The ginger woman grinned madly again. “Sounds weird. And mysterious. And I want to solve a weird mystery. So. Alex. Whereabouts did this happen?”
“Near the army base, on the edge of town.”
“Alrighty then!” The ginger woman stood up from the table, and put her hand out to Alex. “Fancy coming with?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Alex matched the ginger woman’s grin, jumping up from her seat.
“Right! Let’s get down to that base.”
On the other side of town, Major Stevens entered the science office at the army base.
“Professor.”
“Major.” A wiry, balding, grey-haired man with a hunchback rose from his chair.
“The Chronoscope is reporting no activity. It needs to be calibrated.”
“No activity? That’s impossible. The A-” The Professor’s words were cut off as Major Stevens clamped his hand across his mouth.
“Walls have ears, Professor Johnson.” He released his hand.
“Yes. Ahem. Of course. Apologies, et cetera. The project should cause constant activity on the Chronoscope. No amount of damage to the Chronoscope, short of it being completely obliterated from reality, should cause a reading of true zero.”
“Well, it is. And there’s something else to note.” The Major plugged a USB drive into the Professor’s computer, before opening the one file stored on it.
The file was a CCTV video, clearly taken in the early hours of the morning. An empty field, which then, inexplicably, with a slow pulsing and a constant wheezing, grinding sound, a telephone box appeared, from which a woman stepped out.
“My God.” Johnson was stunned. “Surely not?”
“Indeed. It’s her.” The Major replied coldly.
Alex ran, the ginger woman following behind. They slowed as they got closer to the base.
“Hold on.” Alex wheezed, breathless. “How do we get in?”
A Jeep drove past.
“I’ve got an idea.” the ginger woman jumped onto the Jeep, holding on to the tailgate and balancing on the bumper.
Alex jumped after her, before dangling off the tailgate. She pulled her legs up to avoid ripping her skin off, and then held on for dear life as the Jeep drove through the gate.
The two women jumped off the back of the Jeep as it drove towards an air hangar.
“I can feel something here. Like time’s just… Off, here. I just need to triangulate.” The ginger woman began spinning around, pointing her finger out in front of her.
She spun faster and faster, before eventually slowing down, stopping, and falling over.
Alex looked down over her. “You got anything?”
The ginger woman pointed towards a small concrete building. “Thataway.”
“D’you want to get up first?” Alex extended her hand.
The woman grabbed onto her arm, and brought herself to her feet. “Thanks.” She suddenly went green, and retched. “I’m fine. Just a bit. A bit dizzy, that’s all.”
“Right.”
The women approached the concrete shelter, and Alex stood back as the ginger woman fiddled with the lock.
“Hmm. Tough lock.”
A clicking sound rang out.
“Ah!” The woman gave the door a push. It didn’t move.
“That wasn’t the door.”
Those were the last words Alex heard before the world went dark.
“She’s coming around.” A harsh voice echoed through the woman’s head.
“Eh? Shuddup. Five more minutes.” She slurred.
“Wake up!” A man in military uniform smashed his fists into the desk.
“Okay! Okay, I’m awake. Jeez.”
“Name?”
“I don’t know.”
A harsh jolt of pain flooded through her system.
“Name!” The officer shouted.
“I don’t know!”
The woman saw a bright purple fluid push through an IV tube in her arm, before an even greater burst of pain shot through her.
“Give me your name! Now!” The officer was bright red.
“I! Don’t! Fucking! Know! Knobhead!” The woman spat in the officer’s face.
She doubled over in pain as he kicked her in the chest. “You like that?! You like that pain?! If you fucking like that, then keep fucking playing with me! I could do this all fucking day!”
“Oh, this is just typical, isn’t it? Sad little man-child joins the army to beat up random people. This is one of the few countries on Earth with free healthcare and you choose to join the army to make up for your issues?” The woman stared into his eyes in defiance as she said this, just barely able to raise her head to meet his.
“Oh, you’re far from a random person… Epsilon.” The officer – his tag read Lieutenant Green – put particular venom into that last word.
“Who’s Epsilon?” The woman asked. “I don’t know who that is! You’re torturing me even though I’m not the person you say I am! Although I don’t suppose I should expect anything else from the Army.”
Green raised a pistol. He placed it to her head.
“If you don’t admit to me, right now, that you are Epsilon, I’ll pull the trigger. And that’s it. You’re done. The ever-lasting plague to our work is gone.” He whispered, cocking the gun.
“I am not Epsilon.” The woman repeated, closing her eyes. So this is how it all ends.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
A booming thud rang out through the room.
“Lieutenant! What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting information, Major Stevens sir. As you ordered.” Green immediately broke into a salute.
“I don’t recall asking you to murder the intruder, Lieutenant. Dismissed. I will deal with you later.” Major Stevens directed him out of the room.
With a final, derisive glare at the ginger woman, Lieutenant Green left the room.
Stevens sat at the table opposite the ginger woman, pushing the door shut with his foot.
“I apologise for the behaviour of my officer.” Stevens’ words were diplomatic, formal. “The only form of torture we are permitted to use is the nerve agent. Now. Are you, or are you not, Epsilon?”
“I don’t know who Epsilon is!” The ginger woman yelled. “I have no clue who you’re talking about!”
“Epsilon – that’s you – is a wanted criminal. Wanted on counts of stealing military secrets, terrorism, and vigilante justice.” Stevens insisted.
“I have never heard of Epsilon in my life.” The woman repeated, before blinding pain shot through her system. When her vision became clear once more, she saw photographs of herself laid out across the table. Her, the TARDIS, and…
“Alex…”
“Now, we know that you are a time traveller, Epsilon. Where is your time machine?” Stevens continued.
“Epsilon is not my name.”
“Then what is?”
“I don’t have a name. Not properly. I’ve only just… started. I don’t know if I am really a time traveller. I don’t know if I’m really Epsilon. Maybe Epsilon’s like a clone, or a parallel universe version of me. If she’s my future… What am I like?”
“A terrorist. You strike fear into the hearts of anyone who chances upon you. You bring death in your wake. You are not the Doctor. He at least brings hope. You bring only pain.”
“No.”
“Stop lying to me, Epsilon.”
“I’m not lying.”
“So, you’re saying you haven’t done anything yet? You’re not truly Epsilon yet?” Stevens’ voice held a poisonous note.
“No.” The woman continued.
“Well. If I kill you, you can’t do any harm in the future then.” Stevens raised his gun.
“W-w-wait! Hold on! Two questions.” The woman suddenly realised something. Something she should have noticed earlier.
“Alright. It’s not like you can do anything with what I tell you.”
“Okay. Question one, does that door lock automatically?” She stared directly into Stevens’ eyes, unabashedly.
“...No.”
“Is there anyone outside to manually lock it?”
“No?”
“Thanks.” Saying this, the woman pushed up from the chair, swinging her legs into Stevens’ groin. He doubled over in pain, firing his gun. He missed, his bullet lodging in the ceiling. The woman then ripped the IV tube from her arm and took off running down the corridor.
She ran through what seemed like miles of concrete tunnels, passing door after door, until she finally came to a giant shutter door. She pulled off the panel embedded in the wall, before ripping out the wiring inside. The door immediately rose up into the ceiling, revealing an enormous concrete chamber, its walls and floor covered in filing cabinets, all labelled with letters.
S, got to find S. The woman continued running into the room. The S category was too large to filter.
Okay, sub categories. They’ve never gotten their hands on a screwdriver, but maybe… S-M…
In a filing cabinet near the ceiling, Epsilon found an enormous blue-tipped tube. Inside was a document that read “Sonic Modulator. Confiscated by UNIT, 2005, from Inmate Toshiko Sato. Transferred to the British Army by K. Lethbridge-Stewart, 2012.”
Perfect. Now…
The woman jumped from the top of the cabinets, landing safely on her knee.
Christ, that hurts.
She placed the sonic modulator on the floor, and then began jumping around again. S-R, for Sonic Regulator. S-C, for Sonic Crystal. C-S, for Carbon Steel, R-L, Reinforced Leather…
I wonder if the TARDIS has somewhere like this?
She finally took a toolbox from the back wall, and began to hurriedly work, combining all of the elements. Hammering, twisting, squeezing, cutting, soldering…
At the end of it all, she was holding something in her hands. Something she’d already known that she would need for hours.
She rose to her feet, and held it in the air. Her sonic screwdriver. A sleek construction of red carbon steel and a handle of leather, with a shimmering polished gem for an emitter.
“Oh, you beauty.”
She threw the scraps left behind in the nearest locker, and pushed the toolbox to the side.
“Right. Point and think.” She brought herself to the nearest screen, and buzzed the sonic once, bringing up a map of the base.
She buzzed the sonic again, showing the fastest route to the cells.
Finally, she turned off the screen, erased the last two commands, and once again ran.
Alex Missingham began to think she would never see the outside world again, until she heard the cell guard groan in agony. The face of the ginger woman showed up in the viewing window.
“Oi! Ginge!” Alex called out as the woman walked into the corridor. She held a long, buzzing device to the lock on her cell, before it clicked open.
“Y’alright?” The woman grinned again.
“What is that thing? Have you just had that this entire time?” Alex asked. She’d never seen anything like it before, not even in the 4400s.
“Sonic screwdriver. Neat little tool, eh? Amazing what these military types just ignore.” The woman responded.
“Are you enjoying this?” Alex said, incredulous.
“Are you not?” The madwoman’s grin became even wider.
“You scare me, girl.”
The two women ran up a staircase at the end of the corridors, finally emerging next to one of the aircraft hangars.
“Oh, fresh air. How I missed you.” Alex sighed.
“There’s the shelter we were going to before.” The woman pointed across the runway.
“Can we make it?” Alex asked. The runway was quite wide.
“Who’s gonna stop us?” The woman winked.
Hand in hand, the women began running across the runway.
Stevens finally stumbled out of the tunnels behind them, clutching his groin. “After them!” He yelled, pointing towards the pair.
A small group of soldiers ceased to idly chat outside one of the hangars and took aim.
“What are you waiting for? Fire at will!” Stevens repeated.
Gunshots rang out behind the pair, a bullet ripping Alex’s jacket open in the left sleeve. The woman put her arm over her shoulder and the two began strafing left and right, bullets creating sparks just centimetres behind them.
Finally, the woman twisted the base of the sonic screwdriver, making the crystal rise from its stand. She then activated the sonic, pointing it at the soldiers, whose guns sparked in their hands and fell to the floor.
They ran for another minute uninterrupted until the irritated rev of a speeding Jeep came up behind them, Stevens at the wheel.
It was headed directly for them.
Time seemed to slow to a standstill as the Major prepared to murder them. In cold blood, in broad daylight.
The woman turned to Alex.
“Trust me?”
“What else can I do?”
“Copy me.”
The woman jumped, twisting around to face the Jeep. She tucked her legs beneath her, entering the foetal position. Alex tried to copy her.
The car grew closer.
The Major laughed madly, eyes bulging from his skull.
Time grew exponentially slower…
And then got back up to speed as the two women landed on the bonnet of the Jeep, rolling across the metal surface and smashing through the windscreen. The Major’s nose gave a resounding crunch as the solid sole of the ginger woman’s trainer smashed into it at full speed.
He slammed the brakes on as soon as he could, making the Jeep lurch to a sudden halt.
Alex clambered out of the broken windscreen, grabbing the woman by her leg, dragging her across the bonnet. She dropped down to the tarmac, and finally the woman jumped after her.
They were right outside the concrete shelter.
“Should have gone carjacking before this.” The woman said, as she turned back to the ruins of the Jeep. “Would’ve made that whole mad dash a bit less stressful.”
Alex strolled over to the door. “Still locked.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” The woman flashed the sonic towards her.
“You… You will surrender… In the name ob de Briddish Army…” The Major had also climbed from the car, once again pointing the revolver towards the two women.
“I am getting really, really sick of you.” The woman sighed. She disarmed the Major in a single swift motion and bashed him in the chin with the handle of his gun, knocking him out and making him fall to the floor.
“Is he…?” Alex asked.
“He’ll live. Might not be winning any beauty contests, but I don’t think that was a likely prospect before all this anyway. Now, are we gonna get this door open or not?”
The woman buzzed the sonic against the door, and swung it open to reveal a concrete staircase. The two proceeded down through it, into what seemed to be an empty chamber.
Greetings. I have awaited your arrival for some time, Alex.
The voice did not come from anywhere. It simply arrived, forcing its way into the women’s heads.
“Hello, I suppose?”
The room appeared to be empty, but in the centre, something was obviously… there. Looking towards the centre filled Alex’s mind with hope, joy, fear, dread, desperation, all at once. The only way she could perceive this being was through emotion.
I assume my non-corporeal being confuses you. I apologise. Let me show myself.
In the centre of the room, inside a metal railing, a great light appeared. It was every colour, every possible shape, and none of them all at once.
I am the Anachron. I am a guardian of what you exist in. The limiting concept of time. I, much like you, Epsilon, am the only one of my species in all the universe.
“Again! Again with Epsilon! I’m not Epsilon! I don’t know who I am, but I am not Epsilon! How many times do I need to say this?”
But yet you are. You must be. If this universe is to stand resolute in the face of absolute destruction, you must become Epsilon.
“The Major – I know he’s perhaps not the most reliable source of information – but he told me I become fear. Terror. That my name, that Epsilon – strikes people with absolute dread.”
Does the name of the Doctor not make Daleks fear?
“And why can’t the Doctor do all this?”
Is it truly the Doctor’s duty to defend this universe alone?
“Show me Epsilon, then. Show me Epsilon bringing joy.”
Images began to form within the Anachron’s glowing body. Her face, hand outstretched. Reaching for someone, someone just out of view. Fires blazed around the phone box she was stood in, and she stood resolute, holding out her hand.
The TARDIS, its red paint shining, flying through space, pulling a meteor away from a planet.
And twelve people, only one face visible. Her own.
You are not necessarily going to become the tyrant they say you will become. You are Epsilon. Your name brings hope to the hopeless that the Doctor manages to miss.
“I’m Epsilon, then? That’s my name?”
Yes.
“Alright.”
And Alex. I have been protecting you all these years. Getting you the best education I could give with the restrictions these pitiful humans gave me. Giving you a peaceful job, and a home in your intended timeline.
“I wanted a normal life, Anachron. I’m sorry. I appreciate you. I assume it was you, you who saved my life all those years ago. But I always wanted normality.”
And now she has given it to you?
“How has – How has Epsilon given me normality?”
It is her TARDIS that has drawn away the energy from the rift, her TARDIS that has prevented me from moving you in time today. How do you feel now you have temporal stability?
“A little more safe. But not at all safe. I’m living a normal life, and I feel… Strange.”
Do you want me to move you in time once more?
“No. I think I’ll be alright.”
Very well.
“How are you being kept here?” Epsilon asked. “I mean, if you’re this all powerful time being, how are you stuck?”
The humans, although somewhat… primitive… are clever. They know about the time rift, and they used alien technology they have stolen to combine with the rift, and trap me here. Now the rift is being drained, all that needs to be done is for the equipment to be disabled.
“Alright.” Epsilon smiled. “Freedom.”
She pointed her sonic towards the monitor at the back of the room, and the lights all shut off, before the monitors, and finally, the seal on the ceiling released, sliding open to reveal the lighting of the sunset.
Ah. Freedom, finally. After all this time.
The Anachron began to ascend from the bunker, into the darkening skies.
Thank you, Epsilon. Alex. I am in your debt.
The Anachron swirled into a ball of shimmering energy, before vanishing from sight, all the emotions that came from viewing it fading from the women’s minds.
The women emerged into the blackness covering the army base.
“There’s no spotlights on.” Alex noted.
“Yeah, I had to perform a full power-down.” Epsilon stated bluntly. “Still, makes the escape easier, eh?”
Alex’s street finally came into her view once again.
“So, this is it, then?” Alex asked.
“What is?” Epsilon responded.
“You leave in your TARDIS thing, and I go and live a normal life. A regular human life.” Alex sounded morose.
“I thought that’s what you wanted?”
“Well, it was! But then… I mean, if I could be in control of my time travel, I’d go in a heartbeat.” Alex sighed. “But I don’t suppose that’s really your style, is it?”
“Do you want to find out?” Epsilon smiled. “I’m just starting out! These are the first steps I’m taking, and I don’t know who I am yet. Maybe I’m a loner, maybe I prefer being all solitary and mysterious. Or maybe I want to take people with me. Show them the universe, as best I can.”
“Please tell me you’re asking what I think you are.” Alex was as giddy as a child at Christmas.
“Alex Missingham, would you do me the astounding honour of accompanying me in the TARDIS, to see the universe?” Epsilon asked.
“Oh, God yes.”
“Alright! Follow me, then!”
There was a phone box in the field, the only beacon in the pitch black night.
Epsilon pulled a metal door key out of her pocket.
“Last time I was in here, I managed to set the console room on fire.” Epsilon turned to face Alex before she twisted the key in the lock. “Just to warn you, it might be a little bit scorched.”
She turned the key, and swung the door open. “After you.”
“Wow.” Alex’s mouth said. Her brain couldn’t quite process what she was seeing.”
“Woah.” Epsilon sounded equally as surprised.
“It’s…” The two women said together.
“Bigger on the inside…” Finished Alex.
“Fucking beautiful!” Exclaimed Epsilon, rushing up the polished marble floor towards the walnut console with its gilded borders. She twisted knobs, pulled levers, pumped unidentifiable devices up and down.
“You ready?” Epsilon beamed.
“I’ve been doing this all my life.” Alex answered. She walked up to the console, putting her hand next to Epsilon’s on the same lever she was holding.
“Here we go.” They said in unison.
The two pulled the lever down to its maximum limit. The giant column of the time rotor, filled with a shining, pearlescent fluid in which were suspended several coloured globes, like upscaled versions of instruments within a barometer. The globes flashed and bobbed up and down, while a giant ring of oil began rising up the central column, before splitting into four parts and sinking back downwards through four smaller tubes connected to the outside of the main rotor, as a great wheezing, groaning noise started to screech out almost loud enough to hurt, as the TARDIS moved into flight.
“Onwards!” Epsilon shouted over the deafening racket, as the floor lurched beneath them.
The End.
For now.