Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [73]
Why had Ace brought an audio cassette with her to 1940, in spite of all his warnings? Why had she left it at Limb's house? She was a bright girl: he fervently hoped she had left the tape as a clue.
He stopped outside the door to Ace's room. There was a
'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door handle stolen from a hotel in Coventry. The Doctor pushed the door open.
The room was a shambles, more so than the console room. Clothes of every description were scattered everywhere. The bed was unmade a huge, cuddly dinosaur perched on the pillow and empty coffee mugs lurked in every corner. The desk in one corner was piled high with souvenirs from Ace's time with him, the pinboard above it covered with photographs. He picked up a bar towel from the back of the chair. 'Welcome to Iceworld'. So long ago. So long since he had picked up this rebellious teenager. He dropped the towel and peered around the room.
'It's got to be in here somewhere.'
He spotted a set of headphones on the floor alongside the bed 'Aha!'
He grasped the headphones and followed the curly lead until it vanished under a mountain of Tshirts. He pushed them to one side, revealing the ghetto blaster that he had built for her.
He hauled it from the floor and dumped it on to the bed, dislodging the dinosaur, which rolled inelegantly into the corner. The tape deck was a jumble of different styles and scientific eras. The advanced electronics of the Time Lords mingled with Alpha Centaurian acoustic equipment and the valve technology of Earth. A slot for a cassette tape nestled under the front of an ancient Bakelite radio. The Doctor pressed the eject button and a battered cassette slid into his hand.
"Rage Against the Machine". How appropriate.'
He slipped Ace's tape into the deck and listened to her encounter with a youngsounding man. German. The sounds stopped abruptly, and the room was filled with screeching guitars.
The Doctor rewound the tape and listened again. Master race? Nazis. George Limb was in league with the Nazis. He closed his eyes.
'Ace.'
This had to stop. He had to stop it, now.
Hoisting the ghetto blaster on to his shoulder, the Doctor marched back out to the console room.
The drone of the airraid sirens was joined by something new and unearthly as the TARDIS began to fade from the shadows beneath St Paul's. The wet pavement was lit up with an electric blue glow as the battered police box melted into transparency and leaves swirled into the space that it had occupied. The square patch of dry tarmac where the TARDIS had once stood slowly darkened as the rain soaked into it, and soon there was no indication that anything had ever been there at all.
Moments later a small patch of scrubland behind Southwark Power Station echoed with the same alien trumpeting, and the rain began to bounce off something large and invisible. Then, with a final groan and a loud thump, the TARDIS materialised.
The Doctor struggled through the door, manhandling Ace's ghetto blaster by its shoulder straps. He pulled the door shut and locked it, then slung the music box over his shoulder. He peered into the night, squinting as the rain ran off his forehead and into his eyes. He could see the Peddler factory ahead of him, and a cluster of people outside the main doors.
Mullen, if things were going to plan. He scurried over to the road, the sodden grass squelching under his feet. The strap of the ghetto blaster bit into his shoulder. Ace was right.
It was too heavy. When all this was over he would build her a new one. A lightweight one. Mullen looked up in alarm as he heard footsteps pattering over the road. He spun round to see the Doctor emerge from the gloom... 'About time. We'd just about given up on you.' He looked at the jumble of technology hanging from the Doctor's shoulder, 'What in the name of God is that contraption?' The Doctor ignored him. 'Is McBride here?' The private detective appeared at Mullen's shoulder. He looked at the Doctor's grim face with concern.
'Did you find Ace?' The Doctor shook