The Story of the Ancestors: Chapter 7 (Relationships)

1995




‘You can’t leave us!’ pleaded Jayne.

Donald Turner grabbed his coat and rucksack and turned back to face the rest of them in the crypt. ‘Why not? We’ve lost nearly everything. I’m so tired, Jayne.’

‘We’re all tired,’ said Jayne, ‘but that doesn’t mean we can just give up.’

‘I’m not giving up,’ said Don, almost as if he’d said this for the millionth time. ‘I’m going to find my own way to rescue Lilly. She’s been gone for too long.’

‘But how? You have no idea what you could be messing with.’

Donald walked up to Jayne and stared her right in the eyes. ‘We lost Thomas and Rebecca just because they wanted to get on with their lives, and then we lost April. Why? Because she made a mistake. You sent her into god knows where.’

‘It was a necessity.’

‘Was it?’ said Don, turning around and walking towards the crypt door. ‘Was it really a necessity? What are you turning into Jayne?’

‘You can’t leave!’ shouted Jayne again.

‘Try and stop me. I’m gonna get Lilly back at any cost.’

With a slam of the door, he was gone.

Jayne felt her heart racing. She still had a fairly big group, but the main members of her team were starting to drop away. Was she really losing it? She stumbled and headed out of the room.

Margot followed her into the next chamber.

Jayne stood there, hands on the wall, watching the faint glow coming from them.

‘You alright?’ asked Margot.

‘I don’t know, Margot. How long before you and Ben leave me as well?’

‘We won’t,’ said Margot. ‘I know you’re only trying to help.’ Margot thought for a moment. She didn’t want to breach the subject, but she felt she had to. ‘Why not get the Doctor involved?’

They all knew of the Doctor from the Torchwood files. Jayne shook her head. ‘No. Not yet. If he finds out about them he’ll just try and destroy them.’

‘That’s not the Doctor’s way,’ said Margot.

‘But it might be the only way for him to help them. To put them out of their misery. I want them back. Brandon, Lilly, Penny, Father Ainslie…I want them all back.’

Margot nodded and then turned to leave. But then she stopped herself at the doorway, turning back. ‘There’ll come a time when we have to let him help us. It’s only a matter of time before he stumbles across this little accident.’

‘I know. I know.’

Jayne watched Margot leave and then she fell to her knees. She sobbed as she keeled over and rolled herself into a foetal position. She stayed there for a long, long time, crying herself to sleep.




1997




Donald flicked the switch on the radio. They were out there. He had heard them. He was sure of it. He wasn’t entirely convinced, but he was certain he had heard Lilly, somewhere beyond the static, singing to him. Singing for him to come and find her.

But there were the other voices as well. The crazy sounding voices of Brandon and the ones who had slowly become almost lunatics. The ones who would stop at nothing to hurt people. But if that was the way forward…

Don shook his head and screwed his eyes up. They were his friends! What else could he do? His wife was trapped in that dimension. She needed to be saved. He needed to save the rest of them.

And then, just by chance as he was flicking through the static on the radio bandwidth, he happened to come across the sounds of Town FM. An illegal, pirate radio station.

And the idea began to formulate in his head.




May, 1998




Newspaper excerpt, taken from the Thornsby Evening Telegraphy, dated Monday May 11th 1998.




RADIO STATION HORROR




“Police were continuing investigations today linking the illegal running of pirate radio station Town FM and the deaths of a number of people at Gulliver’s Nightclub on late Friday night.

As reported in Saturday’s edition, fourteen people were found dead at the popular nightclub. At first it is thought that the use of a highly dangerous drug may have caused the deaths, but police have since dismissed the idea.

Now police are considering the possibility that the Gulliver’s incident and the damage caused at a local primary school on Saturday afternoon may be connected. Police arrived after locals reported a loud explosion from the caretakers office. Upon arrival they discovered the body of a man in his late 40’s - as yet unidentified - and another man, Lee Green, 22, who is currently helping police with investigates.

A local resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, reported seeing the police escorting Green from the damaged building under a blanket, but that he looked shaky and was mumbling incoherently.

A police spoke person was unable to comment.

Although it is believed that others were involved with the illegal running of Town FM, they have since gone to ground. It is, however, unlikely that anybody else will be arrested as Lee Green has been cited as the main instigator behind the radio station.




In tomorrow’s Telegraph, reporter Sadie Jessop will be running an article on the possibility of Town FM also being responsible for the other random deaths that have occurred just lately around Thornsby and Yarathorpe.”




Jayne put the paper down on the table and sighed.

“Can you believe it?” said Margot.

Jayne glared at the rest of the team. “How did we not even know any of this? How did Don slip past us?”

“To be fair,” said Ben nervously, “they haven’t tried anything like this before.”

“We do not let things slip under the radar,” scolded Jayne. “People have died because of us.”

Margot thumbed back to a stocky, bearded man leant against the crypt wall. “Kev here’s just done a scout around the area. He says the Doctor was there. From the future.”

“Yes,” said Jayne. “I felt he was here.”

“He didn’t stop it though,” said Kev, sniffing and scratching his nose. “It was Thomas’s kid.”

“Caroline? The one who’s been living with the Parkers?”

“That’s the one.”

“A future version though,” said Margot quickly

Ben groaned. “Time travel really screws up your mind.”

“We should bring the kid in now,” said Margot.

“No,” said Jayne. “We can’t risk the timeline. Not now. If Brandon goes for her then we’ll help her, but for now we’re just gonna have to watch her until she finally goes off with the Doctor.”

“And what about the Doctor?” asked Margot.

Jayne tapped her fingers on the desk and then looked at the team. “Okay, next time we have an incident, we let him deal with it. God knows we could do with some good luck right now.”

The rest of the team nodded.

Jayne turned to go and then looked back at her team. “Don made a mistake. Let’s make sure nobody else makes the same mistake.”




July, 1998




Caroline and Danny were sat under the pier. It had been a long, long hot day. The sand was still warm, but in an hour or so it’d cool down. A piece of driftwood had served as a comfortable enough seat. It was getting late and the sun was setting. A little way back towards the road, the night time revellers had arrived and were already busy getting drunk.

Danny turned to Caroline and smiled. “Happy Birthday you old cow,” he said.

“Hey,” said Caroline, punching him in the arm.

“Oh come on, we’re both 16 now. It’s all down hill from here.”

Caroline laughed. “I need to get back home.”

“Why?”

“My parents, Danny,” she sighed. “These are the same people who banned you from visiting me for…no reason!”

“Just tell them you’re staying at Kate’s house tonight.”

“They’ll check up.”

“Well just sod ‘em then,” said Danny. “Come on, Caz! We’ve left school now. We’re adults at last. We can start planning for the future.”

Caroline looked down at her hand. She still wore the ring he had given her at Christmas.

“Hey,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean settle down like that.”

She laughed and then scooped up sand, flicking it in his face.

Danny reached into a rucksack he had brought with him, gave a furtive glance around to make sure he wasn’t being watched, and then pulled out a bottle of Hooch.

“I can’t believe Gina got that for us,” said Caroline.

“And there’s another five bottles in there too.”

“Looks like I’m not going home tonight,” said Caroline. “How would I ever explain being drunk?”

Danny laughed. And then he noticed the glint of silver around Caroline’s neck. “You got the necklace?”

Caroline’s hand instinctively went to the cross around her neck. “Yeah, finally. Grandma used to say it’d protect me from evil. Well, let’s hope it protects me.”

Danny looked at her as he took a swig from the bottle of Hooch. “How long do you reckon we’ll be together?”

Caroline looked a little unsure. “Do we have to discuss that?”

“I just wondered,” said Danny, passing her the bottle.

Caroline took a swig of it. “All I know is what matters right here and right now.”

Danny smiled. “Live for the moment, yeah?”

“Yeah,” smiled Caroline. “Live for the moment.”

They spent the next few hours lying back on the beach, their heads propped up on the driftwood, watching the revellers in the distance as they danced among the glowing lights of the arcades and night clubs. Soon it was dark and there was only one bottle of Hooch left.

Caroline looked longingly at the cloudy liquid. “I feel drunk.”

“You’re definitely staying at Kate’s tonight.”

“Hey,” said Caroline, “fancy a swim?”

“Don’t be daft,” said Danny. “We’re bloody drunk. Terrible statistics and all that.”

“Only in the shallow end,” said Caroline. “Come on, I’ve been sweating to death all day!”

“You first then,” said Danny.

“Okay,” said Caroline. She got to her feet, a little unsteadily, and then ran off to the water. She took her trainers and socks off and then stepped into the water. It felt cool and she smiled.

Danny had run up to join her and was now standing in the shallow water.

“Race you to the end of the pier,” said Caroline.

“As in swim to the end of the pier?” said Danny. “You can’t race when you’re swimming.”

“Then what’s a swimming race?” laughed Caroline.

“Daft sod,” said Danny. “And anyway, I’m not getting this shirt wet for anyone. You look so beautiful,” he said, as he put his arms around her waist and pulled her in tighter.

“I love you, you know?” said Caroline.

“I love you too,” said Danny.

“Then race me!”




August, 1998




Caroline sat in the ruined remains of the old, caretakers house. The paint seemed to have peeled away even more than when they were last here, but the paint was the last thing on her mind.

Danny and her were sat, crossed-legged, looking right into each others eyes. But neither of them looked particularly happy. Caroline’s eyes were red and Danny’s were just blank.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” asked Danny.

Caroline screwed her eyes tight and then opened them again. “What I want and what I need are two separate things,” she said.

“You have to do what your heart tells you.”

“But it’s my heart that’s telling me two different things.”

“I thought after we-”

“What happened that night was…amazing. It was the best night of my life, but in the morning I realised that something felt…wrong.”

Danny looked crestfallen.

“A right wrong,” said Caroline, realising she was digging herself into an even bigger hole. “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship. And it is a relationship. This is moving fast and it’s gonna get serious.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Caroline, “because I don’t want serious right now. And I also want to keep my best friend. I don’t want to lose you. And that’s why it has to end right here and right now.”

Danny looked away from her.

Caroline got up and then looked down at him. “I’ll always love you, but right now, it can’t be anything more than friends.”

She quickly slipped the golden ring off her finger and then crouched to place it next to Danny on the dusty, wooden floorboards. For a second their eyes met and Caroline felt a sudden regret, but then she looked away. She had to get a grip on her life, and she definitely knew that she wasn’t ready for what Danny and her could have together.

Next: Caroline walks out and Adrian disappears. Coming Monday 21st October.

The Story of the Ancestors: Chapter 6 (Lies & Deceit)

June, 1987




Jayne was the first to arrive on the scene. She grabbed April Nivere and escorted her out of the crypt and into the dark night air. The late night revellers had almost gone home and things were silent.

Nivere was almost crying.

‘Please, Jayne,’ she said, ‘try and see reason.’

‘Have I not been fair? Have I not allowed us all to live proper lives?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘But nothing, April. It’s our own stupid fault that we’re in this situation. The least you can do is act with some responsibility.’

‘I’m sorry. Give me another chance.’

‘How many chances do you want?’ scolded Jayne. ‘Thomas and Rebecca knew the consequences when they had their little…encounter, and so do you. You do not use your powers for your own gain.’

‘Please…’

‘No. From here on our your powers are relinquished from you.’

Nivere collapsed to the floor, crying and begging at Jayne’s feet. ‘But where shall I go? I can’t live here in this primitive time.’

‘I’ll send you to the future,’ said Jayne. ‘Maybe you’ll learn your lesson and stop misusing power given to you.’

Nivere’s hands were pulsating with orange light. Her eyes kept flickering white and then to dark again. She was trembling.

‘You’re going to explode.’

‘It’s only money!’ said Nivere.

‘Exactly!’ said Jayne. ‘It’s only money. How could you do it?’

‘What did she do?’ asked Margot, emerging from the church door.

‘She put up posters, advertising herself. She wanted to make money from using her powers.’

‘No, no,’ said Nivere. ‘I wanted us to raise some cash to help fund the project. To help get us back on track.’

‘It’s too late,’ said Jayne.

Margot looked at Jayne and frowned. ‘What are you gonna do?’

Jayne narrowed her eyes. Nivere had tried to operate her own powers. She tried to control what she was doing, but it had backfired and now her powers were becoming uncontrollable

‘I’m going to take away her powers and send her to the future.’

‘You can’t do that!’ said Margot. ‘It’ll damage yourself.’

‘I can’t let her carry on like this,’ said Jayne. ‘They’ll still be hidden deep inside her, but they’ll be blocked. She’ll not be able to access them again.’

Nivere fell to the floor, her eyes streaming with tears. All she had ever wanted was to be an explorer, and now all she had was this nightmare world.




The following day had come. Nivere was standing between four, glowing red pylons. Since the departure of Rebecca and Thomas some time ago, the crew was notably becoming less and less. Nivere was standing, resolute and making sure she didn’t let her emotions show through this time.

‘Jayne, are you sure this is going to work?’ asked Margot, as Don checked connections from the bank of computers to the team nearby.

‘The pylons channel the time vortex from the TARDIS. Anything in the middle of them is caught in a time corridor. The opening of which opens…well, anywhere.’

‘So essentially you could be sending April to her death?’ said Margot.

Jayne looked at Margot and then back to Nivere. ‘You can’t mess with what has happened to us.’

‘And how will the energy in her be stopped?’

‘It won’t. Not totally. It’ll always be in there, but she won’t be able to access it. Don put a chip in her head. It stops her from accessing it.’

‘What?!’ said Margot. ‘You mean you operated on her?’

Jayne nodded. ‘She has no recollection of it. We used a good dose of Retcon on her to make her forget.’ Jayne turned to look at Margot who was giving her a horrified look. ‘What?’

‘What’s happening to you, Jayne? And if we have this way of blocking the powers then why don’t we use it on ourselves?’

‘Because we will grow old, age and die. And then who will take care of this situation?’ She turned to Margot and looked down at her. ‘And don’t bother asking about the time corridor. If we used that for ourselves we’d have no idea where we’d end up. We can’t risk it.’

‘But you can risk April?’

‘Deal with it, Margot. We all need to be pulling in the same direction.’

Margot shook her head. ‘You’ve changed. You’ve become cold.’

‘You have to be cold, Margot. You know that. I lost everything. My entire childhood came back to haunt me and in the process I lost my brother.’

‘So that should make you not care?’

‘No. But I can’t relax until this is sorted.’

Margot sighed and crossed over to Nivere. She touched the woman on her arm and smiled sadly at her. ‘I’m sorry, April. I hope you find some kind of peace.’

Nivere looked down at her nose at Margot. ‘And I hope you burn in hell for this.’




The mist cleared. April was lying on the ground. It was wet and muddy and she coughed and spluttered. The air was foul and got up her nostrils. The time corridor had knocked her for six. She had never felt so sick. She heard someone squelching through the mud towards her.

She looked up. She was on a barren, mud-strewn land. A tall, gleaming skyscraper reached up through the grey clouds. She could see the moon. At least she was on Earth.

She looked towards the sound of the footsteps. A man with dark hair and a kindly face was coming towards her. He extended his hand.

‘What-?’ said Nivere, confused.

‘What are you doing in the battlefields?’ asked the man. He had a kind sound to his voice.

‘I…I don’t know. I’m lost. Who are you?’ She could feel the power had left her. She felt so alone and so lost.

‘My name’s Mark. Mark Dennington.’

Nivere took his hand and shook it, still confused. ‘Nice to meet you, Mark.’




December, 1987




“Police are calling this the worse winter for some years, as the search continues for the missing coach of people from Manchester. And it’s not set to improve. The snow has frozen over and is here to stay for some time to come.”




Tony Parker switched off the TV news report and then returned to his armchair, unfolding the paper and burying his face behind it.

Sat on the floor, playing with a small, wooden train was the little, dark-haired Caroline, now 5 years old and completely oblivious to what power she held within her.

‘What happened to the TV?’ asked Cath, walking in with two mugs of tea.

‘Daddy turned it off,’ said Caroline, looking at her adopted mum.

‘I wanted to watch Neighbours.’

‘All they’re going on about is special reports on the bloody snow out there.’

‘Tony!’ scolded Cath, carefully checking that Caroline didn’t hear him swear.

‘I know, I know,’ he said.

‘Mummy,’ said Caroline, getting up and sitting by her mother on the sofa.

‘Yes, sweetheart,’ said Cath, sitting back and putting an arm around the girl.

‘I had a strange dream last night.’

Cath glanced up at Tony. He looked over his glasses and rolled his eyes, returning them back to his paper. ‘What was it about, sweetheart?’

‘There were strange men in long cloaks. They were hiding their faces. They were scary.’

Cath pulled her in a little closer to her. ‘It was just a bad dream, baby.’

‘I know,’ said Caroline, ‘but I was scared. I stayed awake for ages.’

‘If you ever get scared again,’ said Cath, ‘just come in to mummy and daddy and we’ll keep you safe.’

‘Last time I did that,’ said Caroline, ‘Daddy was mad with me for waking him up.’

‘I wasn’t mad with you, Caroline,’ said Tony, exasperated, ‘but we’d had a tough day.’

Cathy thought back. They had had a tough day. It was back in the summer. They’d been on holiday in Filey when another one of the government health care people had turned up, pressuring them into getting all the necessary checks done on Caroline. She had threatened to take legal action, but so far they had managed to fend them off. All they had to do was keep fighting them off into Caroline was old enough to make her own decisions and then it’d be over.

‘Me and Daddy are never mad at you,’ said Cathy. ‘We’ll always be there for you.’

‘And Danny,’ said Caroline.

‘Who? Not that nasty little boy who kicked sand in your face a few weeks ago.’

‘Yeah that’s him,’ said Caroline, jumping off the sofa and returning to her toy train. ‘He’s my best friend now.’

‘Listen, Caroline, sweetheart,’ said Cath. ‘Please be careful with the type of friends you make.’

‘Danny’s okay,’ said Caroline. ‘He wants to marry me.’

‘What?’ said Tony, peering over the paper.

Cath shook her head quickly in Tony’s direction.

‘It’s just a game though,’ said Caroline. ‘When I get married it’ll be to a prince.’

Cath laughed nervously. ‘That’s a long time in the future, though, isn’t it sweetheart?’

Caroline turned and smiled at her mum. ‘Oh yes, a long, long time in the future.’

Next: Caroline and Danny - drunken adventures on a beach. Coming Friday October 18th.

The Story of the Ancestors: Chapter 5 (Birth)

October, 1981




Jayne slammed her fist down on the table.

‘How could you be so stupid?!’

‘Take it easy, boss,’ said Thomas. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Accidents are what got us here in the first place,’ said Jayne, eyes burning. ‘We can’t afford anymore to happen.’

‘I don’t know what you want us to say,’ said Rebecca, ‘other than we’re sorry.’

Jayne groaned and put her head down. She was sat at a desk set up in another little room off of the main crypt. It was quiet and silent in here and she could think for herself away from the hubbub from the operations area.

‘We’re not getting rid of it,’ said Thomas quickly.

‘No,’ so Jayne. ‘No of course not. And I’ve never ask you to do anything like that. But bringing a baby into this life that we lead…it’s madness.’ She got up from the desk and put her hand on Thomas and Rebecca’s shoulders. ‘You have my blessing, but this is one hell of a mess you’ve gotten yourselves into.’

‘Then we’ll leave,’ said Thomas. ‘You’re right that we can’t bring a baby into this world.’

‘And where will you go? You’ve got all of those powers inside of you.’

‘Has Don found anyway to take them out?’

‘There is a way,’ said Jayne, ‘but unfortunately it involves somebody else absorbing them, and I’m not willing to take that risk yet. Who knows what it could do. To either person.’

‘Then we’ll just manage.’

‘Listen to you two,’ said Jayne. ‘It’s a hostile world out there.’

‘It’s only 1981. We’ve lived through worse times than this. We all remember what happened when that butterfly bomb fell on us, yeah?’

Jayne nodded. She didn’t want them to go. Over the centuries that they’d all been trapped here they had become a close knit group. Losing Thomas and Rebecca would be like losing a younger brother and sister. Like losing Brandon all over again, but somehow more painful.

‘You’ve got to keep those powers under control,’ said Jayne. ‘And I don’t even know what will happen to your baby.’

‘The baby may have the same powers, yeah?’ said Thomas, looking worried.

‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ She looked towards the door and then back at the Farrington’s. ‘I can’t predict what Brandon and the rest of them will do. If he finds out someone’s out there, beyond Thornsby, he may go after you. Brandon will not see reason now. His mind us gone. All he cares about is finding more people to convert.’

Thomas and Rebecca nodded. ‘We’ll make sure the baby’s safe. No matter the cost to us.’

Jayne sighed and nodded. ‘God bless the both of you.’




It had been only a week since Thomas and Rebecca had left the relative safety of the Ancestors. They had travelled up and down the country in an old battered car that Thomas had been able to purchase before they had left Thornsby. Rebecca was only three months pregnant, but already the toll of carrying a baby was beginning to wear on her.

They were travelling down the east coast when the car broke down just outside a caravan park.

‘Bloody hell!’ said Thomas, parking up and getting out. He popped open the bonnet and looked inside.

‘What’s up with it?’ asked Rebecca.

‘The engine’s completely busted,’ he said with a growl. ‘I don’t think I’m gonna get this going for a bit.’

There was a rumble of thunder. Rebecca leaned to look out of the window above her. The huge, black thunder clouds they had seen earlier on had now reached them and the rain was starting to come down heavily. Thomas stood there, hands on his hips, looking dejected and getting soaked, his fringe plastered down over his forehead.

‘Come inside, Tom,’ said Rebecca.

With a snort he slammed the bonnet down.

‘It’s no use getting mad at it,’ said Rebecca. ‘Think of all the rest of the stuff we’ve been through.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Thomas, resigned to the fact that they’d have to find some way of getting the heap of junk moving again.

As Thomas was getting back into the drivers seat a slightly nicer car pulled up beside them, a huge caravan in tow.

A man with a mop of wavy hair and a handle-bar moustache leaned out of the window. ‘Having problems?’ he asked.

‘Just a bit,’ said Rebecca.

‘The engine’s completely gone,’ said Thomas, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know enough about them.’

‘Neither do I, mate,’ said the man.

‘Come on, Tony…’ said a woman with long dark hair sat in the passenger seat.

Tony frowned and her and then looked back at Thomas and Rebecca. ‘I might not know anything about cars, but there’s plenty of room in this caravan if you fancy a cuppa while you wait for the AA to come.’

Thomas hadn’t even thought of that. He wasn’t even insured. He’d never owned a car back in his own time and he’d never owned one in all the years they’d been around for. It had just never appealed to him.

The woman could see Thomas and Rebecca looking suspicious.

‘What’s up?’ asked Tony.

Rebecca sighed. ‘No insurance.’

Tony rolled his eyes. ‘Come on. Hop in the back and we’ll put the kettle on for you just as soon as we’ve set up in the park.’

As Thomas and Rebecca quickly scrambled out of the car, through the rain and into the back of the other couple’s car, the woman noticed Rebecca with her hand over her tummy.

‘When it due?’ she asked.

Rebecca stopped, looked down at her tummy and then back at the woman. ‘About 6 months,’ she said, almost forgetting why they had left the Ancestor’s in the first place.

The woman smiled, but almost looked sad.




Thomas and Rebecca never got their car going again. Tony and Thomas had travelled to the nearest town to get a mechanic to look at it, but he had said the engine was completely useless and it’d never run again. Thomas had no option but to have the thing towed away for scrap.

But Thomas and Rebecca, and Tony and Catherine Parker became good friends. They spent a week together in Primrose Valley caravan park. Tony and Catherine explained that they were on a break from their respective jobs. They had always wanted to travel to different campsites, and that’s exactly what they had done.

When it was time for Tony and Cath to pack up and go, they decided to invite the Farrington’s along. It was almost out of pity for them. Well, that’s what Rebecca had always thought. She almost felt like they pitied them somewhat due to their circumstance.

Thomas and Rebecca had kept quiet about their background for fear of losing their new found friends, but it was only when they had a near miss with an oil tanker one day, on route to Butlins in Skegness, that the Parkers discover exactly what the Farrington’s were made of.

Rebecca was now 7 months pregnant. The Farrington’s had assumed their usual position in the back of the Parker’s car and the road ahead was frosty with the January ice. They had the radio on and where listening to the latest offering from Paul McCartney, but the road ahead was foggy. They didn’t see the oil tanker coming at them until it was too late.

Tony put on the breaks and the car skidded and screeched across the road. It hit the divider on the motorway, flipped up and went careering through the air.

And then everything froze…

In the car Rebecca, Thomas, Tony and Cath sat, mid-scream, not quite sure about what was happening.

Thomas looked at Rebecca. ‘Rebecca…’

‘I daren’t move,’ she said, her voice trembling.

‘What the hell…?’ said Tony, nervously glancing out of the window and realising the land outside was upside down. Or rather they were upside down.

‘Everybody stay absolutely still,’ said Thomas. ‘Rebecca, you just concentrate, sweetheart. Don’t let anything distract you.’

‘What are you doing?’ asked Cath, as Thomas gingerly opened the back passenger door.

They were only a few feet away from the ground. Any longer and they would have all been dead.

Thomas stepped down onto the slippery road. The fog was thick and Thomas found himself coughing in the almost-liquid-like substance. He glanced back. The tanker was okay. It had merely skidded, but had managed to stay on it’s wheels.

Thomas looked up at Rebecca. ‘Come on.’

‘No,’ said Rebecca, not daring to move an inch. ‘Get Tony and Cath out first. If you move me it’ll break my concentration.’

‘Rebecca, you’re pregnant..’ pleaded Thomas.

‘I said no. Get them out now!’

Thomas reluctantly motioned for Tony to open his door. He did so and slowly him and Cath stepped out and lowered themselves down to the pavement.

Once they were out of the way, Thomas reached up to Rebecca.

‘I’m scared,’ said Rebecca. ‘You know what Jayne said. We have to concentrate. If we break our concentration-’

‘I know,’ said Thomas, ‘I was there when the train crashed, remember?’

Rebecca gulped. ‘The minute I step out-’

‘Just give me your hand,’ said Thomas.

Rebecca was breathing heavily. She reached out her hand and felt for Thomas’s. It was cold and clammy, but she knew she could feel safe with his touch.

He gripped her hand tightly. ‘On the count of three.’

Rebecca nodded, eyes closed.

‘One. Two.’ He pulled her out of the car. ‘Three!’

Rebecca fell and knocked Thomas over onto his back. Time suddenly unfroze and the car span away from them, crashing to the road and crushing the front. Thomas scrambled to his feet.

‘Are you alright?’ asked Thomas.

Rebecca was crying and nodding furiously.

‘The baby-’

‘I’m alright,’ said Rebecca. ‘So’s the baby.’

They both turned and saw Tony and Cath standing, eyes wide, gawping at them.

‘What the sodding hell was that?’ asked Tony.

Thomas held Rebecca’s hand as they carefully walked towards the couple. ‘You wouldn’t believe-’

‘Who are you two?’ asked Cath. ‘Who the hell are you?’

Thomas looked at Rebecca and then back at the Parkers. ‘We’re note exactly normal.’




March 2nd, 1982




Rebecca screamed.

And then the baby screamed.




A little while later Thomas sat on the side of the bed whilst Rebecca gently stroked the small, delicate hand on the tiny, pink, sleeping baby.

Both of the proud parents looked on at the youngster, smiling. But there was sadness behind their eyes.

Cathy and Tony soon arrived and then they had their time with the baby.




More time passed…

‘Is there no other way?’ asked Cath, holding the tiny baby in her arms.

‘They’ll come for her,’ said Thomas.

‘I still don’t know who,’ said Cath. ‘You’ve been vague ever since the crash.’

‘Bad people,’ said Thomas.

‘That doesn’t explain anything,’ said Tony, looking concerned at the situation. ‘You can’t expect us to do this. All you’ve told us is that you’re from some weird group of people who got these special powers given to them.’

‘You have to take her,’ said Thomas.

‘But she’s your child!’ said Tony.

‘And you two can’t have any,’ said Thomas.

Rebecca looked at the baby and then started to cry.

‘Look,’ said Thomas, ‘whatever power is inside of us is now inside of her. I can’t detect it at the moment, but I’m sure it’s there. We were infected by it, but she has been created from it. It’s mixed up with her entire DNA structure. She may have it for the rest of her life whereas, given the right process, we could get rid of it. If the people I’m from found out that she was around…well, they’d come for her.’

‘But still-’

‘She deserves a normal life,’ said Thomas, getting up and crossing over to the window. ‘You need to take her back to Thornsby.’

‘Ha!’ said Tony, hardly able to hide his disbelief. ‘They very place your “people” come from.’

Thomas turned to him angrily. ‘They won’t ever suspect that she’s there. They won’t. And…’

‘And what?’ asked Cath, handing the baby back to Rebecca.

‘And if you ever do need help. Well, then you can find Jayne and the others. But don’t go looking for them. These powers might take a long time to manifest.’

‘This is unbelievable,’ said Tony, getting up and shaking his head. ‘And what about you two?’

‘We’ll go. We’ll disappear, just like we should have done before. We can’t stay with her. We’ll light her up like a beacon. You’ll never hear from us again.’ He marched back over to Cath. ‘And don’t let them do any of those health checks on her. You’ve got to keep her safe. Treat her like she’s your own.’

‘But she isn’t!’ yelled Tony.

‘She is now,’ said Thomas.

‘What do we tell everyone back home?’ asked Cath.

‘You’ve been away for almost a year. Tell them you had a baby. Tell them she’s yours.’




A little while later and Thomas and Rebecca were standing on a platform, waiting for a train to take them to London. Tony and Cath were also standing there, Cath had hold of an old-style pram and was gently rocking it. Tony was standing a little off from them, unsure of what he should be doing.

Soon the train pulled in.

Rebecca leaned into the pram and gently stroked the cheek of the baby girl.

‘Keep her safe,’ said Thomas.

‘I will,’ said Cath.

The two woman hugged each other and then Thomas shook Tony’s hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Thomas.

Tony simply shook his head in disbelief.

Rebecca looked down into the pram again, her eyes red from all the crying. She whispered softly to the baby. ‘Stay safe, my little Caroline.’

And then Rebecca felt herself being hauled up onto the train by Thomas. She kept her eyes transfixed on the pram as she watched Tony and Cath - near enough complete strangers - disappear into the distance with their baby. With their little Caroline.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Rebecca, leaning against the glass of the doorway.

Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. ‘I’ve made contact with someone in London. An ex-UNIT operative. He’s gonna give us a time ring. We can only use it once, but we might be able to get far away from here. Maybe towards our own time.’

‘Then we’ll never see her again.’

Thomas grabbed Rebecca’s shoulders and spun her around. ‘It’s for her own good. She needs to lead a normal life.’

‘We should have just brought her to Jayne.’

‘No!’ said Thomas. ‘Jayne would have never let her live a normal life. She’d take her on board the team when she was old enough. That’s not what I want for our child.’

Rebecca buried her head in his chest.

Thomas hugged her tightly. It was cold, he knew that, but they really had no choice. They had to get far away from 1982. It was the only way Caroline Farrington - no - Caroline Parker could ever be safe.

Next: Nivere takes a trip. Coming Tuesday 15th October.

The Story of the Ancestors: Chapter 4 (Outside Of Time)

Time had passed for the rest of the group. They had finished setting up their equipment and had run countless tests on each of them. Every single one of the team had been exposed to the time winds and every single one of them had become…contaminated…infected with the energies of the vortex.

It had become absorbed into their bloodstream and they had all reported that they had felt more powerful and stronger than ever before.

Margot had run a few tests and had been able to freeze time, slow it down and even speed it up. But it was difficult for them to control and every now and then one of the team members would flare up and have to be sedated to calm them down.

Ultimately, it was a dangerous situation they found themselves in.

And Jayne was feeling guilty and entirely responsible for what had happened. Lilly and her brother should never have been allowed in there on their own, especially not Brandon. She wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, but she gathered the power source of the shed-TARDIS had escaped, damaging it’s interior and twisting it and it’s occupants beyond anything recognisable.

Jayne and the others had come a decision, however. They had to open up the machine and try and see if there was some way to repair the damage.

Jayne and Margot stood before the metal door. Jayne took a deep breath and removed the key from around her neck. Taking a quick glance at Margot, she inserted the key into the lock and turned it. The door slowly clicked open.

The first thing she could feel was the cold. It felt bitter and there was a biting gust of wind that blew out and caused her to take a sharp intake of breath.

‘What the hell’s happened in there?’ asked Margot.

‘The dimensions have collapsed,’ said Jayne. ‘They’ve expanded beyond the console room.’

‘Then…what do we do?’ asked Margot, more clueless that she had hoped to be.

‘We go inside and get Brandon and Lilly out.’

Jayne pushed the door open and stepped through the darkness. She continued to walk for a couple of seconds until eventually the darkness cleared in front of her. She was standing amongst blackened and charred trees. Her feet felt cold and she looked down. She was standing in thick, pure white snow. She walked a little further. She emerged on top of a gently sloping hill. All around were fields and hills of deep snow. Above her the sky was a burnt orange colour and it was snowing. She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter around her.

Margot appeared at her side. ‘How is this even possible? It looks like some kind of twisted version of Narnia.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jayne. ‘TARDISes are psychic. They’re living things.’ Jayne knelt down and scooped up the snow, letting it slowly melt in her hand. ‘When it’s dimensions collapsed, it probably latched on to the nearest location it could find and tried to reconfigure itself, but failed miserably.’

‘So,’ said Margot, gazing around and spotting a church in the distance, ‘this is modelled on Thornsby?’

‘Kind of,’ said Jayne, making her way down the hill.

‘But what about Brandon and Margot?’

There was a flash across the sky and the land around them shook.

‘This place is unstable,’ said Jayne. ‘It’s like it’s still trying to expand, but it can only go as far as the TARDIS shell.’

‘But, isn’t the dimensions of a TARDIS supposed to be infinite?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Jayne, sitting down on a rock halfway down the hill. ‘This TARDIS is a much more basic design, built for war.’

‘So what happens when the dimensions - this land - reach as far as they can go?’

Jayne looked at Margot. ‘The walls burst?’

‘Look!’ said Margot, noticing a staggering, brown-cloaked figure emerging from a copse of trees.

The two women ran down to the figure. It was clearly female-shaped.

‘Lilly?’ said Jayne. ‘Lilly are you okay?’

Lilly lifted her head and looked up at the two women. Her face was gaunt and her skin blackened and stretched tight over her bony features. Her eyes were glowing white and her mouth was blackened with perfect white teeth.

‘Oh my God, Lilly,’ said Jayne, hands to her mouth. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

Lilly didn’t say anything, just mumbled and raised a bony hand towards Jayne.

The two women stepped back, but then they realised that Lilly was actually pointing. She was pointing back the way they had come.

The ground shook again and Jayne turned around. Up at the top of the hill, near to the trees were Jayne and Margot had come from, was another cloaked figure. It was looking down at the three of them and then turned, making it’s way towards the exit door.

‘Brandon!’ yelled Jayne, her voice echoing around the strange land.

‘Stop…him…’ said Lilly weakly.

Jayne and Margot pounded as fast as they could up the snow-covered hill. Brandon was already at the exit. He turned to face his sister and smiled, his face twisted and identical to Lilly.

‘Just stay there,’ said Jayne. ‘We don’t know what might happen if you step outside.’

‘Poor little Torchwood,’ hissed Brandon, stepping from the box.

‘No!’ yelled Jayne as he stepped outside into the crypt.

There were gasps from the rest of the team as Brandon stepped outside. One of the scientists pulled out a scanning device and ran it over Brandon. Brandon turned to look at the scientist and then grabbed his arm.

‘Help me…’ he hissed.

Jayne and Margot ran out of the shed-TARDIS.

‘Brandon,’ said Jayne, ‘let go of him.’

The scientist screamed as his arm began to turn grey.

‘We need scientists,’ said Brandon, his voice husky and gravely.

‘Not like this,’ said Jayne. ‘You were exposed to the inner dimensions and the time vortex. It’s messed with your head. You need to listen to us.’

‘Where’s Lilly?’ asked Don, grabbing the thing by it’s cloak and recoiling in horror when he saw Brandon’s face more clearly.

‘Lilly is ours now,’ it growled.

The scientist had stopped screaming. He had slowly mutated into a similar looking creature to Brandon. He turned and looked back at the rest of the group, slowly smiling he said. ‘Now I am one of them.’

‘How is this possible?’ asked Nivere.

‘Why are you happy to be like him?’ asked Rebecca.

‘It was your fault,’ said Brandon. ‘It was your fault that we came to be here.’

‘It was your fault,’ came Lilly’s voice from inside the box. ‘He sabotaged the ship.’

‘Is this true?’ said Jayne, horrified.

‘Lilly…’ blubbered Don.

‘It was an accident. But you shouldn’t have gone in the first place,’ hissed Brandon. He reached out an arm towards Jayne.

Margot took the initiative and grabbed a wooden chair, throwing it at Brandon. He grabbed the chair by it’s legs and the wood froze up, shattering all over the floor.

‘We can help you,’ said Jayne.

The ground inside the crypt shook.

Brandon fell to his knees and let out a pained cry. ‘I must be free. We must be free.’

‘Then let us help you!’ yelled Jayne.

‘What’s up with him?’ asked Margot.

‘He’s not able to think straight. He’s conflicted. His instinct to survive as the creature he is is overwhelming him.’

‘We will reclaim this world,’ hissed Brandon, throwing his arms up. ‘Poor little people.’

‘Help me get him inside,’ said Jayne to the rest of the team.

‘Seriously?’ asked Thomas. ‘But he’s your brother.’

‘Not anymore. But he can be again. He just can’t stay out here.’

‘I want to be with Lilly,’ cried Don.

‘Get a grip, Turner,’ snapped Nivere. ‘We can’t help her now.’

‘Come on then,’ said Jayne.

The rest of the team picked up chairs and other equipment and began to force Brandon towards the shed-TARDIS. He hissed and growled and lashed out, but slowly and surely, the other scientist and Lilly were forced back inside.

The last thing they saw was Lilly looking sad and lost beyond the doors.

Jayne forced the door closed and locked it. It shuddered for a few moments and then stopped.

She turned to the rest of her team and straightened herself up. ‘Right. We need to forget about who those creatures once were. This is an accident and it’s an accident we created. From now on all of our energies go on trying to save them and putting this right. No one opens that box and nobody goes anywhere near it.’

Don sniffled.

‘We are all concerned and upset, but we are Torchwood. We have to pull ourselves together.’

Nivere looked at her hands. ‘Can we not time travel to the future to get help. Surely if we can manipulate time, we can also travel through it.’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ said Jayne. ‘We may have time running through us, but we need control and a vortex to actually travel through it.’ She sighed. ‘And Torchwood didn’t want us here in the first place. If they knew about this they’d probably just send a team back to wipe them out. We’re here to help them, not destroy them.’

‘How are we meant to do that?’ asked Rebecca. ‘It’s impossible.’

‘We’ll find a way. We have to.’




The next few days were spent moving the shed-TARDIS into an adjoining area just off the crypt. Occasionally they would hear screams coming from inside, but the team did their best to ignore them. The rest of the equipment was set up and they began monitoring the readings from the TARDIS. It was just as Jayne had said - the dimensions inside were continually expanding and they were trying to burst through the walls.

And one time - but not the only time - they did…




Jayne was walking outside the church with Father Ainslie, getting some fresh air. It was still bitter outside, but it was now the new year and the snow was melting. Things inside the church had become tense and every now and then she needed to get out and have a breather.

Father Ainslie knew the situation. He didn’t quite understand everything, but he had devoted all of his time to keeping their secret hidden.

The two of them were about to enter the church when Jayne noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Hovering over a few of the gravestones was a small, slither of light. It looked like a crack. And then she noticed it had started to snow again.

‘What is that?’ asked Ainslie.

Jayne picked up her walkie-talkie and spoke into it. ‘Margot, I want you and Ben out here now. We may have a situation.’

‘What about the others?’

‘No. Leave them. I don’t want to cause a scene.’

Unfortunately for Jayne, a scene was what she got. Ben and Margot had attracted the attention of the others and they had been powerless to stop them.

And the crack had widened. They could hear voices coming from beyond it. Ben stood there with a machine monitoring the energy levels coming from it.

‘Well,’ asked Jayne, ‘what is it?’

‘I’m not entirely sure,’ said Ben, adjusting the dial at the side of the monitor, ‘but the energy coming from it is temporal energy. I have a sneaky suspicious that the crack leads to the dimensions of the time machine.’

‘How is that possible?’ asked Nivere. ‘The time machine is underneath the church.’

‘But it’s dimensions aren’t,’ said Margot, moving to stand beside Jayne as the crack grew wider and wider. ‘The doorway in the shed-TARDIS is just a doorway to the inner dimensions.’

‘And the dimensions are expanding,’ said Jayne. ‘They’re expanding so much that it may cause this world to burst at the seams.’

Ben looked extremely worried. ‘If that happens then they will be able to get through. It might even cause time to collapse.’

Father Ainslie didn’t really understand what they were saying, but already a crowd of townsfolk had gathered to watch the strange spectacle.

And then the crack widened even more. Ainslie pointed up towards it.

‘Look!’

The ghostly figures of Lilly, Brandon and the scientist pushed their way outside and scuttled down to the ground. The snow was coming down thicker and faster and the people began to scream and flee.

Almost driven by an animal instinct, Brandon directed Lilly and the scientist to attack. They swooped down and launched themselves at the fleeing people, grabbing them and pinning them down to the ground.

‘Stop! Stop!’ shouted Ainslie, going for his bible. ‘I implore you to stop!’

Brandon turned to the vicar and hissed at him. As fast as lightning Brandon grabbed him around the throat. The vicar struggled, but was powerless against the strength of Brandon. Slowly Ainslie began to alter and shift. His skin blackened and wrinkled and his eyes became huge, glowing globes of light as he transformed into one of the things.

Jayne watched on in horror as her people tried to fight back the creatures. More and more of the townsfolk were being transformed, and then they in turn began to turn others.

‘We need to do something!’ yelled Margot over the commotion.

‘Stay back!’ shouted Jayne.

Brandon’s neck snapped around and he gazed at his sister, a moment of recognition in his eyes.

‘They’ve became feral. All they can think about is survival,’ said Don. ‘And it’s all your fault.’

Brandon hissed and leapt on Jayne. He placed his gnarled hand around her throat and pressed his fingers in deep. Jayne coughed and spluttered, trying to fight him off. She was just about to give up as she felt her skin began to tighten up, when, from deep inside of her, she felt an enormous power. It felt like she had just downed a hundred mugs of black coffee. She felt tingly and so, so alive. She looked at her hands. They were glowing orange. Instinctively she placed her hands on Brandon’s head and slowly forced him back. She was now glowing all over her body. Brandon was cowering from his glowing sister and trying to scramble back to the crack.

The rest of the dozen or so creatures had also spotted Jayne and were attempting to get back to the crack. Slowly and surely Jayne pushed them all back until they were back inside the crack, then, with a flash of her hands, closed the crack up, sealing it.

Everything was still and the surrounding area had cleared. Jayne looked down at her hands. The power had subsided and returned to deep within her.

‘What the hell was that?’ asked Nivere.

‘The time energy,’ said Jayne. ‘That was the time energy. It’s what’s inside all of us.’

The all looked at their hands, as if expecting them to burst into life.

‘The crack’s not gone,’ said a breathless Ben, checking the readings. ‘It’s sealed for now, but it’ll open up again soon. And I get the sense that they’re trying to push themselves through by other means as well. Fading into our time like ghosts.’

The snow had stopped now and it was starting to rain.

‘So what do we do?’ asked Don.

‘We stay here. We stay here and we don’t stop until we find a solution.’




And that’s what they did. The townsfolk never spoke of what had happened that night for fear of being branded as mad, but they all knew they were there. They knew a darkness hung over Thornsby and they knew that there were angels out there to face the dangers. And over time they became known as the Ancestors. The Ancestors of Thornsby. The angels protecting their town from all that was evil.




Time had passed. Years had passed. The team had become close. They had continued to monitor the cracks in space and time, but had come no closer to finding a solution. They lived in the town and worked underneath the church. Vicars came and vicars went, and they all knew the secret. They all knew about the Ancestors.

One particular year, about five years after their initial arrival, Margot had noticed something: they weren’t ageing. They hadn’t aged a day since they had been exposed to the time energy.

‘Then our job could last a very, very long time,’ Jayne had said. ‘We have to continue, and then maybe one day we might be able to return home.’

‘We could go home now, Jayne,’ said Margot.

‘No,’ said Jayne, ‘we can’t abandon this world. It would disrupt everything. We have to stay. We have to put this right.’

Interlude

March, 1902


So much time had passed.

Margot had returned from paying some money to the grocer who provided the food for the group, and was returning to the church. She passed a funeral and the latest vicar, Father Jameson, and gave him a sad smile. It was always sad to see funerals. The people of this time always died from such trivial illnesses. The time energy inside each of them prevented them from succumbing to any kind of disease.

Margot went around the corner of the church, into the door and went behind the curtain at the front of the church. She took one of the candles and then made her way back through the main hall and towards the steps leading to the crypt. It was then that she saw the woman standing in front of the wooden door leading to the crypt.

‘Who are you?’ asked Margot.

The woman turned around quickly. She had long, dark hair - a little unconventional for this day and age - and was dressed in black. She had obviously just come from the funeral outside.

‘It’s you,’ said the woman, in an almost whisper-like voice,

‘Do we know each other?’ said Margot, certain that they didn’t.

The woman didn’t reply and just simply looked her up and down.

‘I asked you a question. Do we know each other?’ said Margot again.

‘No. I was mistaken. I thought you were from the Fieldgate’s funeral.’

‘No,’ said Margot quietly. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Caroline Pa-Fieldgate. Caroline Fieldgate.’

Margot nodded and swept passed the woman. ‘I suggest you go back to your funeral. I’m here helping the reverend of this church to clear space in the crypt. For storage.’

‘Okay,’ said the woman. ‘You look a little too spruced up to be helping clear a crypt.’

Margot stared at Caroline, her nostrils flaring. ‘What I do is my own business. Don’t come here again or I shall inform the police,’ said Margot, in the most stuck up voice she could muster. She then turned, opened the door and went inside.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Nivere, as Margot closed the door and leant back on it.

‘Is the time barrier still up around the room?’

The team had put up a shielding around the room using equipment from the time machine. It meant that the room was a second out of time and slightly phased out of line with the real world. It enabled them to remain hidden from any prying eyes.

‘Of course it is,’ said Nivere, grabbing an apple and biting into it. ‘You know the portal is only tuned into our readings. Nobody but us can get in here.’

‘Good,’ said Margot. But she was sure there was something strange about that woman. Something familiar. Maybe not about her face, but she just had this feeling…

Next: Adventures with Thomas and Rebecca and a caravan. Coming Friday 11th October.

The Story of the Ancestors: Chapter 3 (Twisted)

The shed was spinning through the time vortex and was glowing a white colour. The image of the shed was shimmering and soon the wood was all gone and it looked simply like a metal tube.

In the console room the Torchwood team were busy hurrying around. It was chaos. Absolute chaos.

‘We need to land!’ shouted Don over the commotion. ‘I told you were shouldn’t have tried this.’

‘We needed to test it,’ said Jayne, uncomfortable from underneath the console. She slid herself out. ‘Instead of telling me what I’ve done wrong, perhaps you could help a bit more.’

Margot kicked the console. ‘The whole things out of control.’

Lilly flicked a switch. ‘We all seemed to have forgotten that all the readings said that this ship had originally crashed. Well, it looks like it was more damaged than we thought.’

‘It’s the time rotor,’ said Nivere, from a bank of computers that Torchwood had set up inside the console room. ‘The crystals inside are failing.’

Jayne rubbed her forehead. ‘Can we land?’

‘We can certainly try,’ she said.




Thornsby, December 3rd, 1594




It was late evening in Thornsby. The air was bitter and most of the people in the little town had gone inside their homes to keep warm.

There was no need to be out.

The streets were dotted with little stone houses, the glow from orange fires shining from their windows. Along the cobbled street, the vicar, Father Henry Ainslie, struggled. He had gout and tonight it was causing him the most excruciating pain.

He made his way past the town hall and into the large market area known as the Bull Ring. He wrapped his garments around him a little tighter. It was then that he noticed something up above.

Against the black night sky and amongst the twinkling pinpricks of starlight, there seemed to be a column of light streaking down from the heavens and towards the church.

Ainslie clutched at his cross and feared for his church. It was making a wheezing and groaning sound and he was sure that the ground was vibrating slightly.

Just before it hit the top of the church, it vanished. Ainslie strode purposefully on. He got the keys out from inside his robes and unlocked the church door. He stepped inside nervously. All was dark, apart from a glow of light coming from down towards the church crypt.

He wasn’t sure of what to do. The light above the church had disappeared, but now here it was, shining from within the church.

That’s when the woman appeared. She was tall, wore some kind of jacket and trousers made of a strange material. She had long, reddish-blonde hair and she stepped out of the light, her hands on her hips as she looked around. And more people came. Ainslie fell to his knees and clutched at his cross. Were they angels sent from the heavens?




Margot shook her head and rubbed her grubby hands on her jeans. She crossed over to Jayne who was busy surveying their surroundings.

‘We need to stay out of there for 48 hours,’ said Margot. ‘That time rotor is glowing white-hot. If we’d have been in the vortex for much longer we’d have melted. Or worse.’

The light was beginning to die a little and their eyes were adjusting.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Margot, nodding towards Father Ainslie kneeling on the floor.

‘Looks like an old-skool vicar,’ said Jayne.

‘Unbelievable!’ growled Don. ‘Do you even know where we are?’

‘Earth,’ said Jayne.

‘Earth? Well that helps!’ grumbled Don.

‘Oh, shut the hell up!’ shouted Ben. ‘At least it is Earth. We could have landed on some planet or in the middle of a sun or something. Idiot!’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Don, advancing on the blonde-haired medic.

‘That’s enough!’ yelled Jayne, her voice echoing around the church. ‘Jesus Christ! Are we children? Are we just going to squabble? We’re Torchwood and we will behave in a manner which befit’s the name.’

The team stood there staring at Jayne. They dare not say anything more. She always gave them a lot of leeway when it came to rules and regulations. She wasn’t a strict leader and she certainly didn’t impose rules, but they all knew that when she wanted something doing…well, they made sure they did it.

Jayne turned towards Father Ainslie. He was still on the floor. She quietly crossed over to him and crouched down beside him.

‘Please, spare me…’ he mumbled from somewhere beneath his robes.

Jayne smiled and touched him on the soldier. ‘We mean you know harm.’

‘You are demons.’

Jayne shook her head. ‘We’re not. I promise you that.’

‘Then you are angels? Sent from God?’

She shook her head again. ‘No. Look at me.’

Ainslie shook his head.

‘Please,’ she said, ‘look at me.’

Slowly Father Ainslie raised his head to look at her. She smiled back at him. His eyes were full of fear.

‘I’m just an ordinary woman.’

‘But where did you come from? The light in the sky? The light in the crypt?’

Jayne sighed and sat down on the floor, cross-legged. ‘Take a deep breath, Father. This is gonna blow your socks off.’




Daylight had broken over Thornsby. The team had stayed camped in the crypt whilst they waited for the time rotor to completely cool down.

It had taken Father Ainslie a good few hours to believe Jayne’s story. She had told him the truth - that they had come from the future and had to get back there. Jayne had reasoned with the others that it was the best course of action. The truth would have been less strange than any bizarre story they had tried to concoct to get Ainslie to help them. Eventually he had finally given in, accepting that no matter what he really thought, they were clearly not from his world.

‘I may not fully understand what is happening here,’ he had told Jayne, ‘but as God is my witness I will help you people.’

So he had gotten them food and water and made them comfortable in the crypt. He had provided them all with hooded cloaks. The nights were cold, especially as the snow had begun to fall again, and the church could get extremely cold.

Ben lay there, checking his watch. It read 7am. He turned to the sleeping Margot who was lying beside him.

‘Psst,’ he said.

She stirred slightly.

‘Psst,’ he said again.

Her eyes snapped open. ‘What? What is it?’

‘You awake?’

‘No,’ she said sarcastically, ‘I’m sleep talking. What do you want?’

‘Are you excited?’

‘About what?’ she asked, turning to him.

‘About being here?’

She sighed. ‘Not particularly. Maybe I’d feel a bit more excited if I knew we could get home.’

‘Don’t you think Jayne can fix the time machine?’

‘I’m sure she can,’ said Margot, not sounding very convincing, ‘but I don’t think it’s going to be a quick fix. That time rotor looked fried.’

‘I keep thinking about my brother,’ said Ben, looking up at the ceiling. ‘He’s only 13.’

‘Yeah,’ said Margot. ‘They all seem so far away. When I kissed Harry goodbye yesterday morning - or, whenever it was - I never expected to end up here.’

‘We’ll get back to them,’ smiled Ben.

‘I don’t know,’ said Margot distantly. ‘I sure to God hope we do.’

In the corner of the crypt, beside the shed-TARDIS, Brandon Robson - eyes still closed - listened in on the conversation. He was determined that he would get back. He wasn’t going to be trapped here.




It was light now and Father Ainslie had gone with Jayne out into the snow to pick up food. Jayne had marvelled at the new world around her. It looked just like old English town’s had looked in history books. The quaint little houses with thatched roofs, the people in the raggedy, scruffy clothes and the bustling market place. But Jayne couldn’t process all of the information. It was too much for her. She wanted to run off and explore this time, but she knew she had a responsibility to her people. She had to get them back.

The snow was coming down fast and thick and Jayne wrapped the cloak tighter around her. She re-entered the church and made her way down to the crypt.

The crypt was a hive of activity. A number of computer banks had been pulled out from the shed-TARDIS and set up to monitor various readings from the time machine. They had also removed a few other devices essential to the running of the ship in the hope that they may be able to make some sense of what had happened.

Jayne looked around her. They were all there. The collection of scientists they had brought along with them and then the main team: April Nivere, Ben Featherstone, Margot Dunlop, Lilly and Donald Turner, Thomas and Rebecca Farrington and Brandon…no, wait, Brandon wasn’t there. Her brother was nowhere to be seen.

‘Does anyone know where Brandon is?’ asked Jayne.

Nobody took any notice, all of them engrossed in their work.

‘My brother,’ continued Jayne. ‘Does anybody know where my brother is?’

One of the scientists - a young, bearded one - looked up from a computer monitor. ‘I saw him a few minutes ago.’

‘Cheers, Ray,’ said Jayne.

Lilly and Don were sat on the floor with a collection of wires spewing out from underneath a console. Lilly seemed to be engrossed in a photo.

‘Come on, Lill,’ said Don impatiently. ‘We haven’t got time for looking at snaps.’

Lilly smiled. ‘It’s the hills back in Hamilton. I want to build our house there.’

Don glanced at the photograph. It showed rolling, green hills and trees. He laughed. ‘We need to get back home first, love. Anyway, I thought we were moving back to the UK.’

‘Maybe,’ she said distantly.

‘Go get me a sample of the rotor crystals,’ said Don.

Lilly looked at him and smiled. ‘Yes, sir!’

She got up and walked into the darkened shed-TARDIS. The only light was the soft, yellow glow coming from the time rotor. It was more or less safe to deal with it now. But Lilly noticed something. Standing beside the console, his face in shadow, was Brandon.

‘What are you doing in here?’ asked Lilly. ‘It’s still dangerous, you know?’

‘How are we gonna get this thing moving?’ asked Brandon, his hands spread across the console.

‘We’ll find a way. That’s what we’re doing now.’

‘No,’ said Brandon. ‘What we’re doing is setting up camp. Before long that’ll lead to setting up a home.’

‘Don’t be crazy,’ said Lilly, carefully lifting the glass around the time rotor core.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting some crystal samples.’

‘You see, that’s my sisters problem. She always wanted to investigate time and space and aliens and stuff. And now look - she’s gotten herself into a full-on adventure. I bet she’s loving this.’

‘Look, Brandon,’ said Lilly, taking out a complicated syringe-like device and piercing the glowing interior crystals, ‘why don’t you go out there and speak to your sister. There’s no use skulking around here.’

‘She won’t listen’ said Brandon flatly. ‘We need to make this thing move.’

‘Well there’s no chance of it yet.’

Brandon growled and thumped the console. ‘It’s not good enough!’

‘What’s up with you?’ said Lilly.

‘It’s all my fault.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It was me. I was the one who screwed up the machine. Torchwood HQ knew what you were doing and they didn’t want you messing with dangerous tech. I was supposed to remove the fluid link, but I didn’t get it free until after take off. I thought we’d just be able to go back, not crash land in this primitive world.’

‘But President Harkness would never…’

‘It wasn’t Harkness,” said Brandon. “Inside Special Ops.’

‘I need to get Jayne,’ said Lilly, nervously.

‘No,’ said Brandon. ‘I need to get this thing working and get you all back.’

Brandon flicked a few switches on the console. The room began to hum with power.

‘Brandon, no!’ said Lilly. ‘The cores exposed. The power will-’

Lilly stopped mid-sentence as the time rotor began to glow again. There was a hum and build up power. The whole room was starting to vibrate.

‘Switch it off,’ said Lilly. ‘Switch it off, you idiot.’

‘How?’ said Brandon, furiously flicking at switches.

‘It’s going into overload,’ said Lilly. ‘We need to get out of here.’

‘We need to shut it down!’ said Brandon, feeling helpless.

‘The whole rotor is going to blow up. God knows what it’ll do.’

‘Jayne!’ shouted Lilly towards the door. ‘Jayne! We need help!’

‘No,’ said Brandon. ‘No!’

‘Brandon,’ said Lilly, ‘just leave it. We need to-’

There was a flash of white, blinding light from the central column. The entire room was flooded with the light and it engulfed Brandon and Lilly. Everything was silent. Deathly silent.

Outside the air was still as Jayne stood in the doorway of the shed-TARDIS. Time seemed to have frozen momentarily.

And then the delayed explosion came. Waves of white and orange light flew from the doorway, hitting everyone in the crypt. The waves of orange, white and golden light continued to flow and coerce from within the cylinder, whipping and lashing at the April, Margot, Thomas…and anyone else in the room.

The group fell to their knees, writhing around on the floor as their eyes burned with the energy of the time winds.

Jayne could feel all of time and space passing through her. She saw faces of people she’d never even met. Men with ornate, high-collars, machine-like creatures, a man with long, grey hair…and she saw her own life flash through her eyes. Her Granddad and her childhood at the house.

Her entire body was glowing orange, but she had to do something. She managed to turn back. Her entire team were unconscious, all of them engulfed by the time winds. She forced herself forward into the blinding white interior of the time machine. It was like trying to walk into a hurricane. But once she had forced herself inside her eyes adjusted.

The console was broken and shattered. The time winds were flowing from the broken time rotor. The walls had gone and it felt like the room was expanding. And standing beside the console were Brandon and Lilly, the hoods on their cloaks limply hanging over their heads.

‘Brandon!’ shouted Jayne into the maelstrom. ‘Brandon! Come on!’

Both Brandon and Lilly turned to face Jayne. She could see their faces underneath the hoods. Their faces were deformed. Their eyes were white and glowing and their skin had been stretched back over their faces.

Brandon reached out a hand towards Jayne. They had been too close to the explosion.

She fell to her knees. Tears streaming down her face.

‘Jayne!’ came a voice.

It was Margot. She had staggered into the room and grabbed her from under her arms, trying to pull her back outside.

‘No!’ screamed Jayne.

‘We have to leave them,’ said Margot, her voice distorted and slow. ‘We need to close these doors.’

‘NO!’ screamed Jayne again as Margot managed to drag her out of the shed-TARDIS.

Margot grabbed the key from around Jayne’s neck, took a hold of the doors and pulled them shut, just in time to see the interior dimensions shift and form into…something else.

She slammed the doors shut and locked the doors with the key.

And then all was silent.




A good ten minutes passed. Ben had gone around the crypt and checked the rest of the team. Most of them were relatively unscathed, but everybody was registering temporal particles within them.

Jayne had simply sat there on the floor, staring at the time machine in front of her. Every now and again the cylinder would shudder and they would hear a cry from somewhere deep inside of it. And then it would stop.

‘Jayne,’ said Margot, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ said Jayne blankly. ‘Obviously something went wrong.’

Don staggered over to Jayne and Margot, his hands shaking. ‘What happened to Lilly?’

‘She’s trapped. She’s trapped in there,’ said Jayne. ‘Her and Brandon.’

‘What happened?’ he said, trying to hold back the tears. ‘She only went to get a sample of crystals.’

‘It must have been an accident,’ said Margot soothingly. ‘Just sit down with the others. We’re gonna see what we can do for them.’

Thomas guided Don away.

Jayne continued to sit there. She sat there for a long, long time.




And deep within the box the dimensions had changed. There was snow and cold and darkness. Somewhere in the midst of all this was the shattered remains of the console, and the deformed and cloaked Lilly sat on a rock, crying and touching a photograph of fields and hills. And all around her the dimensions changed until all that was there were snow-covered fields and hills.

‘Poor Lilly,’ she weeped, not really grasping what she was saying. ‘Poor little Lilly.’

Next: Jayne and Margot take a trip to "another world". Coming Tuesday 8th October.

The Story of the Ancestors: Chapter 2 (Delivery for Torchwood)

“Torchwood: outside the government, beyond the police; tracking down alien life on Earth and continuing to arm the Human race against the future. The 26th century - it’s getting dangerous out there, and you’ve gotta be ready.”




January 2nd 2544




Twenty years had past since that long, hot summer when Jayne had found the shed. And in twenty years she had followed her dream. She had always wanted to investigate aliens, and so she had found the secretly government funded Torchwood Institute. Torchwood had been around during the 20th century and the early part of the 21st, but it had fallen on hard times and had almost been lost to the mists of time.

But, as with most things, the Institute had been revived and was currently enjoying a new lease of life. Now, however, it had branched out across the planet with locations in Cardiff, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Canberra, New Delhi and many, many others places.

And the teams were bigger. There were many more people working at each branch now. Each branch had a head and a team of scientists.

Jayne had spent most of her life studying and preparing herself for eventual space travel when she stumbled upon Torchwood purely by accident. Her friend, Margot, had dropped it into conversation that she was starting this new job and she’d be investigating alien appearances.

The rest was history. She’d been at her job for the last 5 years and had worked her way up to head of Torchwood LA. She loved her job. She was married to her job. She was doing what she loved, but so far she hadn’t really had any encounters with aliens, only with alien artefacts, and this frustrated her. Just recently they had stopped coming to Earth. A far cry from the Dalek invasions of a few centuries ago.

Jayne had quite a decent, diverse team. There was Ben Featherstone, the young medical student who was on attachment to Torchwood. He was always slightly nervous, but this was one of his endearing qualities. Jayne was over ten years older than him and had taken him under her wing.

Margot Dunlop, her friend, was her second in command. She was a biologist and would often come across as being a little frosty with people, but underneath that frosty surface was a warm and kind heart. She and Margot had been friends since their schooldays.

April Nivere was a different kettle of fish. She was older than most of them and had her own agenda. Jayne wasn’t sure what it was, and she was a little weary of her, but her interest in archaeology was what kept her in the group.

Donald Turner and his wife Lilly Turner were older members of the group as well. They were both interested in the technical aspects of the alien equipment, and, although Jayne didn’t agree on bringing relationships into the workplace, the two of them worked well together.

And then there was the other couple. A young, beautiful couple in their twenties. Tom and Rebecca Farrington. They were also interested in the archaeology angle of their investigations, but Jayne always had a feeling that the two of them didn’t belong there and she worried that eventually their relationship would be the undoing of them.

On this particularly cold, January morning, Jayne woke to some bad news. She heard the “Mail Delivery” beeper sound on her desk-computer and, realising that she needed to get up for work anyway, got herself out of bed and sat down at the desk.

And then she read the message waiting for her…

Her Granddad had died peacefully in his sleep the night before.

She closed the screen of her computer and let out a huge sigh. She had known it wouldn‘t be long. He was already 89 and his health had deteriorated rapidly over the last year or two. But it was still a shock.

She felt overcome with emotional and so went to run herself a shower. She stood under the hot water for a long, long time feeling the tears fall freely and mix and mingle with the water.




The funeral was a week later. It was a moving, but simple affair. Jayne didn’t have time to hang around though. She had disconnected herself from her divorced parents a number of years ago when they complained about her spending too much time at work. She had not understood their frustrations and had asked them to respect her decisions in life.

So she had paid her respects in the frosty graveyard and made her way back to work.

This particular HQ of Torchwood was built underneath the Hollywood Hills sign. Why? Jayne didn’t have a clue. Apparently it was tradition back in the day to have the Torchwood HQ underneath or within a notable landmark. She always found it funny that Torchwood London was now underneath the New London Eye.

After driving up the road to the sign, she reached the concealed lift in the middle of dense bushes and descended down into the base.

As she appeared she heard the familiar voice of Tom Farrington.

‘Oh, her Ladyship puts in an appearance at last!’ he laughed.

Rebecca looked at him with daggers. ‘Funeral, Tom! Funeral!’

‘Oh yeah, sorry Jayne,’ said Tom quickly.

‘No problem, Tom,’ said Jayne as the lift reached the bottom. She stepped off the lift platform and surveyed her team. All of them were looking at her, waiting for her to speak. ‘I don’t want any of you to pussyfoot around me, please. Me and my Grandfather were close, but I’m okay. Really, I am.’

‘We’re really sorry for your loss,’ said Rebecca, speaking for the whole team.

‘Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you.’ She smiled. ‘Now, back to work.’

The room became a hive of activity again. The main hub of the centre was circular. The lift Jayne had stepped off led to a platform and a walkway that ran around the circumference of the room, effectively creating an upper level to the room.

Below was the main area with various doors leading off. In the centre was the main computer console and around the walls, banks of instruments, screens, computers…it looked like what it was: a research facility.

Jayne walked down the steps leading from the platform and headed towards the doorway that led to her adjacent office.

It was a small room with a simple, mahogany table inside and a map of the galaxy on the wall behind her.

A small, blonde woman with long curly hair followed her in. She was dressed in a smart, black jacket, blouse and skirt and sat down at the table opposite Jayne.

‘You sure you’re alright?’ asked Margot.

Jayne nodded. ‘I’ll be fine. I hadn’t spoken to him in a couple of months.’

‘Was he ill?’

‘He’d been getting worse over the past few years, but nobody really wanted to admit it.’

Margot smiled sadly. ‘At least he’s at peace.’

‘Yep.’

Margot cleared her throat and pulled a data pad from underneath the desk. ‘We had a delivery,’ she said, changing the conversation.

‘A delivery?’ said Jayne, reading the pad.

‘Yeah. A big, metal crate. It’s down in the storage room.’

‘Who’s it from?’

‘I haven’t got a clue. I didn’t know whether to open it or not. I called President Harkness and he just told us to go with gut feelings.’

Jayne nodded. ‘Let’s go unwrap our present then.’




Jayne, Margot, Donald and Lilly stood in front of the crate. They had run the usual tests, but it hadn’t shown any signs that it was dangerous.

‘Okay,’ said Jayne, ‘open it up.’

‘You sure about this, Miss Robson?’ asked Donald.

‘Don, just open the damn thing. We’re too overly cautious sometimes.’

Donald sighed and pulled out the cutting torch. Eventually, after a few minutes, he had managed to cut the front panel off and it came crashing to the floor with a bang.

Standing inside the crate made Jayne’s heart leap. It was the old, wooden shed that she and her Grandfather had found in his garden all those years ago. It’s wood was slightly worn down and it looked like it had seen better days, but it was the same shed.

‘A shed?’ said Lilly, a little disappointed.

‘I’d almost forgotten,’ said Jayne, trying not to laugh with delight.

‘What is it?’ asked Margot, stepping towards it.

‘It’s a TARDIS.’

‘You’re joking! An actual, real life TARDIS?’

Jayne nodded. ‘Yep. It landed at the bottom of my Grandads garden when I was eleven.’

‘Don’t you think Head Office should be informed of this?’ asked Donald, lifting the visor on his welding mask.

‘No way,’ said Jayne. ‘If they found out we’d got a TARDIS down here they’d send in the heavies and we’d never see it again.’

Margot stepped forward. There was a note scribbled on lined paper attached to the door of the shed. She handed it to Jayne.




“Dear Jayne,




If you’ve finally received this then it means that I’ve no doubt shaken off this mortal coil. I know this meant a lot to you when you were a kid. You spent days hanging around it, pretending it was a spaceship. You always said you wanted to make it fly. Well, now’s your chance.




Take care, sweetheart

Love, Granddad.”




Jayne finished reading the note, trying to hold back the tears and remain composed in front of the others.

‘What do we do?’ asked Margot, running her hand along the wood and gazing up wide-eyed at it.

Jayne smiled. ‘We make it fly.’




The next few months were spent in and around the shed-TARDIS. Jayne had also been sent the key to the box, which she hung on a chain around her neck. They had continued to operate in secret, deciding not to report their finding to Head Office. The President of Torchwood meant well, but he was always eager to carry out the work for himself. Jayne didn’t want anybody other than her team getting a hold of this.

It was on a cold and frosty Monday morning when Jayne’s brother, Brandon, managed to talk his way in for a visit with his sister.

Brandon was a skinny, slightly weedy looking guy with thick, bushy auburn hair. He wasn’t the most attractive of people, but he had made a name for himself working as a reporter for the LA Times.

‘Hey, Sis,’ said Brandon.

‘What are you doing here?’ smiled Jayne, running and giving him a hug.

‘Just thought I’d come visit you.’

‘Don’t lie,’ she said, smacking him on the shoulder.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I heard Granddad had sent you the old shed.’

‘You heard right,’ said Jayne, escorting him from the platform down into the central area to where the shed was standing, surrounded by Thomas, Rebecca and the others.

‘Wow!’ said Brandon. ‘It looks just the same.’

Brandon had been in the shed before, but he had never taken as much of an interest as Jayne had. He was always more interested in the real world, rather than fantasy.

‘Now,’ said Jayne, sitting him down at one of the desks. ‘Tell me why you’re really here.’

‘I told you-’

‘Don’t lie, Brandon,’ said Jayne, holding a finger up to him. ‘You know a story when you see one. “TORCHWOOD WORK ON MYSTERIOUS TIME MACHINE”’

Brandon shook his head. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘It better not be. Because I don’t want anyone else knowing about this.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Brandon, ‘but if you do get it working, then I’d at least like to be here and take some notes, just in case you ever do decide to let anyone else know about this.’

‘Okay,’ said Jayne, nodding slowly, ‘but you leave your notes with me.’

‘Don’t you trust me?’ said Brandon, sounding hurt.

‘No,’ laughed Jayne.

Suddenly there was a cry of delight from inside the shed and a humming of power.

‘I’ve done it!’ shouted April Nivere from within the shed. ‘I got the power back on.’

‘Jesus…!’ said Jayne, jumping up from the desk and running into the shed.

It hadn’t changed inside. The same console, the same gun-metal grey walls and dark, indented circles, but now the power was on and lights were shining down all around. Buttons and LED’s and lights flickered and blinked on the console, and the white-crystal-like structure inside the time rotor tube glowed.

‘What did you do?’ asked Jayne.

‘I managed to bypass the circuits. I re-routed the power from the central core of Torchwood HQ and jump-started this console.’ April looked very pleased with herself, a smile playing across her round face.

‘Look at this,’ said Rebecca with glee in her voice. ‘It’s the flight records of the ship.’

Thomas pushed in front of his wife to get a look.

‘Hey!’ said Rebecca, whacking him on the back.

‘Alright, calm down folks,’ said Jayne.

Thomas looked down at the data. ‘Looks like it was travelling at a massive speed through the space/time vortex and it was damaged. Whoever was inside at the time abandoned ship. Wow! He must have fallen through the vortex. Poor bloke. Then it went into low power when it crashed in your Granddads garden. And then it finally shut down.’

‘Let’s take it for a spin!’ said Brandon, excitedly.

‘No,’ said Donald. ‘We need to run more tests on it.’

‘The only way we’re going to be able to run tests on it is whilst it’s in flight,’ said Thomas, squaring up to Don. Thomas and Donald had never really gotten on. Don was older than him and often felt as though Thomas was being a little reckless in his enthusiasm for all things alien.

‘Easy, easy,’ said Lilly, putting a hand on Don’s shoulder. ‘There’s no harm in us taking it for a spin, is there?’

‘I think Jayne should decide on this one,’ said Margot, looking across at their commanding officer.

Jayne nodded. She knew it was irresponsible, but this was something she had wanted to do since being eleven years old. This was what her whole career had led to.

She took a deep breath.

‘Right. Okay, we’ll go.’

‘Yes!’ said Thomas, clenching his fists.

‘But we all go. Rebecca, you’ve been studying the schematics we got from Head Office regarding TARDIS control. See what you can do. Margot, Thomas, Donald, Lilly, Brandon, April…where’s Ben?’

‘Here,’ said Ben. ‘Sorry, I had a few medical samples I had to get into the cryo-chamber.’

‘Right. Everybody what they need. We need as much equipment as we can get. And gather up a few of the rest of the science bods, yeah? We’re going for an adventure in time and space.’

The group cheered. All except Don. He turned to Lilly. ‘She’s acting like she’s eleven again. This is all going to end in disaster.’

Next time: Bang! Coming Friday October 4th.