"Now, that all looks quite straightforward," the Second Doctor said. "Once
the shop's closed, we break in, trigger the fire alarm so anyone who's
left leaves, and then set the demolition charges as you've calculated."
Gia nodded. "We should be able to source the explosives easily enough.
Isobel's contact at UNIT says they had a new delivery last week, so we
won't need to use those exploding cigars Zoe keeps trying to wish on us."
"She's only trying to be helpful."
"She shouldn't have ordered them wholesale in the first place."
The Doctor sighed. "She means well, you know, but I can't help feeling
she's not cut out to be a practical joker. Shall we pop round to the
flower shop and let her know what we're going to do?"
"Why not?" Gia rose to her feet. "I wonder how she'll feel about missing
out on all the fun Samantha and the others are having."

"This is not my idea of fun," Samantha muttered to herself. No sooner had
they reached the Soft Furnishings department than Jamie had started to
stumble and yawn. Currently he was only upright because she was supporting
him. This wasn't his usual habit of catching a nap whenever he could;
Samantha strongly suspected that he'd been drugged. Her suspicions of the
dollybird on the perfume counter were growing all the time.
"Let's take a wee rest," Jamie suggested, and collapsed into an ugly
leather armchair. Samantha shook him, but to no avail; he was already
sound asleep.
"Oh, great," she said. "When I find out who's doing all this, you're gonna
be in trouble, all right."

The area of the department store devoted to sports occupied a section of
the ground floor. Set here and there at key intersections were several
displays of merchandise. These looked something like wedding cakes that
had been scaled up, covered with astroturf, and then loaded with products
that nobody in their right mind would want.
Inside the cylinder that formed the base of the cricketing equipment
display, Victoria sat, hugging her knees. Although the structure looked as
if it was solid down to ground level, there was a barely-noticeable gap in
its circumference by which she'd been able to squeeze in. Once she'd
satisfied herself that no-one was going to try and drag her out, she'd had
the idea of working out if the security guards were patrolling according
to some kind of pattern, and, if so, whether she could contrive to slip
between them. But she'd quickly reached the conclusion that unless they
were actually robots, they wouldn't be that predictable.
The odd thing was, they didn't seem to be searching for her. Just like the
fitting room, the stand she was hiding in suffered from poor workmanship,
and she could see out through various cracks. The guards were certainly
walking up and down, but there was no sign of them trying to work out
where she'd gone or looking in possible hiding places. It looked as if she
wasn't in immediate danger, so it might be as well to wait and think
before making a move.

"Is there a problem?" Isobel's voice asked.
"Yeah, there is," Samantha replied, not looking round. "Jamie's been
drugged or something. We need to get him out of here and find the Doctor."
"There's no need for that. We can take care of him."
Startled by the unemotional tone as much as by the words, Samantha spun
round. Isobel was wearing a most unflattering mustard-yellow blouse, a
name badge, and an expression that suggested her mind was certainly not
her own. Behind her were four security guards, carrying a stretcher.
"Gerroutofit." Samantha glanced around nervously. "You're not taking Jamie
anywhere. Who d'you think you are and what have you done with the proper
Isobel?"
Isobel seemed momentarily flummoxed by the question; then she shook her
head and ignored it.
"This gentleman needs medical attention," she said. "Take him to Health
and Fitness. The lady will accompany us."
Three of the guards bent over Jamie, and began to lift him onto the
stretcher. The fourth reached for Samantha.
"Don't you dare touch me!" Samantha shouted.
If the guard heard her, he didn't take any notice. His gloved hand closed
around her wrist.
Samantha swung her handbag at the man, knocking him off-balance, tore
herself out of his grip, and made a run for it, alternatively dodging or
jumping over the various pieces of furniture in her path. Somewhere behind
her she could hear Isobel's voice shouting, but she couldn't make out the
words.

This store didn't make any sense, Victoria decided. She'd been in her
hiding place for some time, and apart from aimlessly wandering security
guards she hadn't seen anyone, customer or staff. In view of what rubbish
seemed to pass as this shop's stock in trade, she could quite understand
nobody buying anything, but there should still be people looking at it.
She had concerns about the decor, too. It went without saying that it
looked cheap and nasty, but that by itself wouldn't have surprised her.
The problem was more to do with its condition.
Given that this shop hadn't been here last week, it would have been
perfectly reasonable if everything had looked new. Or, if it was trying to
present the impression of having been around forever, it could have got
away with being worn and shabby. What didn't make sense was the way that
patches of fresh paint and gleaming plastic were randomly mixed with more
weathered areas. The divisions between them were clear, once you noticed
them, but didn't bear any relation to the surface features. In one case,
half of a PLEASE PAY HERE sign was faded and yellowed, while the other
half looked pristine.
She shook her head. She was just putting off what she had to do: Find a
way out and let the Doctor know what was going on.

Samantha rounded a corner and found herself face-to-face with a wardrobe,
its door conveniently open. Not giving herself time to think, she
concealed herself inside it, holding the door almost closed and peering
out through the gap. A number of figures rushed past; then nothing.
"I can't believe that worked," she said to herself.
More time passed. She let the door open wider, and peered out. There was
no sign of Isobel or the guards. Presumably they were now taking Jamie
away and he'd end up like Isobel.
Samantha, to her annoyance, felt herself tear up at that thought. She
tried to get a grip on herself. Crying like a baby wouldn't help Jamie.
What she needed was answers. This whole thing had started with the girl
who'd kissed Jamie, hadn't it? She'd seemed frightened enough of Samantha
to run away.
"When I get my hands on her she'll be scared all right," Samantha said.
She checked that there was still no sign of anyone, emerged from the
wardrobe, and set out for the perfume counter.

Despite the fact that in her wasp-striped rugby shirt she was ludicrously
conspicuous, nobody in the shop paid Victoria the slightest attention when
she scrambled out from her hiding place. It was as if, having even briefly
lost sight of her, the guards had forgotten all about her.
Plucking up her courage, she slowly walked in the direction of the main
door. About halfway there, she caught a movement out of the corner of her
eye. One of the aimlessly wandering security men had swung round, and was
looking at her. Deliberately, she took one more step. The man took two
long paces in her direction, and came to a standstill.
Victoria found herself reminded of a computer game Mel had once shown her,
in which the player found himself in a screen filled with Daleks. Whenever
the player made a move, all the Daleks glided a fixed distance in his
direction. She hadn't liked it very much even then, and had been quite
pleased when Davros had taken issue with the game's portrayal of Daleks as
mindless robots and demanded that it be banned from the Round.
She retreated back into the sports department, relieved to see that the
guards, once again, ignored her. Leaving by the main door wasn't an
option. She'd have to think of something else.

The perfume counter, when Samantha reached it, was completely unmanned.
She spent a little time looking at some of the cosmetics on sale, but
since none of them was helpfully marked "paralysing lipstick" or "knockout
aerosol" she found herself none the wiser.
She cast her mind back to when she'd been here before. She'd told the girl
just what she thought of her behaviour, and the girl had turned and
left...
... Through that door marked /Employees Only/.
Samantha looked around. The only other people she could see were the
attendants at the main Ladies' Fashions checkout. They were a long way
away and weren't looking in her direction; it was safe.
Trying to feel as confident as she looked, Samantha pushed the door open
and slipped through.

Victoria, standing before an identical door, found herself even more
uneasy. If the store could afford to employ all these security guards, why
was this door left completely unguarded and not even locked? It suggested
a trap.
Still, it wasn't as if she had much choice. It was this or stay in hiding
until someone came to rescue her. And while that strategy was tempting,
she wasn't sure her nerves could stand that much inaction. She pushed the
door open. No alarms sounded and no myrmidons appeared to cart her off, so
she crossed her fingers and crept inside.

The stairwell Samantha found herself in didn't do anything to raise her
spirits. The floor was bare concrete, covered in a network of hairline
cracks, and the peeling gloss paint on the walls had presumably once been
white. Daylight filtered down from a skylight far above, and was
supplemented by unadorned fluorescent tubes here and there.
Samantha's choices seemed to be up and down. Might as well try down, then.

Victoria, who'd chosen to go up, backed nervously against a nearby door as
she heard the footsteps coming to meet her. Then, as the approaching
figure waved at her, and she recognised Samantha, she relaxed slightly.
But not completely; if Isobel had been behaving so oddly earlier, Samantha
might not be trustworthy either.

"Are you all right?" she asked, as Samantha descended toward her.
Samantha nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. Not wild about your new look, I have to
say."
"I'm pleased to hear you say that," Victoria said, picking her words
carefully. "But, just for safety's sake, and please don't take this
personally, I don't think we should place complete trust in each other."

"I know what you're getting at. Anyway, where've you been?"
"Trying to get out of here."
"And you're still around, so... right."
"Have you seen anything of the others?"
"They're in trouble."
"I expected as much. Isobel was behaving very oddly."
"Oddly, yeah. That's one way of putting it. She's working for this shop
now -- got the namebadge and everything. And they took Jamie away
somewhere."
"Where? Don't you know?"
"Look, there were five of them, and one of me. It was all I could do to
get away myself."
"And what are you doing now?"
"It's like this. This all started when that judy on the perfume counter
snogged him. Then she ran off. So I was trying to find her and see what
she thinks she's playing at."
"Well, I haven't seen her. Do you think she came this way?"
"I dunno." Samantha nodded at the door Victoria had been standing against.
"Let's take a look."
She pushed at the door, to no avail, and then pressed her face to the
frosted glass panel.
"No good," she said. "Can't see a thing."
"I presume it's locked?" Victoria asked.
"Yeah. That's that, then."
"Maybe not." Victoria delved in her handbag and produced a nail file and a
paper clip. "You keep watch and I'll see what I can do with these."
"You're kidding me. Aren't you?"
Victoria's only answer was to drop to her knees, straighten the paperclip,
and insert it into the lock.
"I don't know if you've noticed," she said. "But there's something very
strange about this shop."
"What, you mean like everyone working for it being a zombie? That happens
all the time."
"No, not that." Victoria, nail file in one hand and paperclip in the
other, was manipulating the lock with delicate, precise motions. "Take
these stairs, for example."
"What's funny about them?"
"Look at the cracks. Why have them? All those Burger King and Pizza Shed
places--"
"Pizza Hut."
"Pizza Hut, then. They all looked new. We know this place wasn't here last
week, so why-- T'chah!" Victoria's hand slipped, and the paperclip fell to
the ground.
"Sorry, I'll shut up."
"Don't apologise, the fault was mine. Anyway, my point remains."
"You say the concrete's cracked. So what?"
"By itself, I admit, that isn't very suggestive. But there's a pattern to
it."
Samantha looked up and down the stairs. "Yeah, almost like..."
"Like a lizard's skin? That's what I thought. I saw the same pattern on
the walls in the sports department. It's as if the appearance of a shop is
nothing more than a facade over... aha."
Victoria twisted her left hand, and pushed with her right. The door swung
ajar.
"I do not believe you just did that," Samantha said.
"Oh, come now. It was only a cheap cylinder lock." Despite herself,
Victoria found herself smiling. "Actually, I'm just as surprised as you
that it worked."
Cautiously, the intrepid pair advanced into the room beyond.

Promptly at half-past one, Gia and the Doctor arrived outside the store.
There was, however, no sign of any of the others.
"Oh dear," was the Doctor's only comment.
"I hope they're just late," Gia said. "But I have to admit that the
balance of probabilities is that they're in trouble."
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
Gia suspected that the Doctor was waiting for her to ask him what they
should do next. She decided not to play along with him.
"You'd better hand the whole thing over to Torchwood," she said. "No
offence, but they're the experts at this sort of thing, aren't they?"
The Doctor chuckled. "I can spot reverse psychology a mile off. And if you
talk about Torchwood like that, you haven't met them, have you?"
Gia folded her arms. "Might have done. No reason why they shouldn't have
spoken to me after-- Hello, there's Zoe."
Zoe arrived at a run.
"I came as quickly as I could," she said, as soon as she got her breath
back. "You know that plan you had to blow the shop up? It won't work. That
isn't an ordinary department store."
"Really?" The Doctor looked at her with concern. "What have you found
out?"
Zoe unhooked her shoulder bag and opened it.
"I found this in among the bromeliads," she said. "And it wasn't there
this morning, and no-one went near them except me. And you know whose
books ArnCo comes from, of course."
She held out the thing she'd found. It was a globe, apparently made of
plastic, with a flattened base. At first it seemed to be full of nothing
but swirling white flakes, but as the trio watched these gradually settled
to the base of the sphere, revealing an exquisitely detailed model of This
Time Round.



Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8

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