Samantha wasn't giving up without a fight, but in the grasp of two store
detectives, both bigger than she was, her options were limited.
"Get off me!" she shouted at them, more for something to shout than
because she thought it would do any good.
"Let her go," Gia's voice added. "Or I'll blow your brains, such as they
are, across the room."
The grip on Samantha's left arm suddenly relaxed. A few seconds later, so
did the one on her right. She pulled free, to see that Gia was holding
something to one man's head, while Zoe was efficiently wrestling the other
guard to the floor with a succession of judo moves.
"Put your hands on the wall," Gia said. "And no sudden movements."
The guard she was standing behind did so.
"Sam, keep this on him," she said, passing a piece of copper pipe to
Samantha with a wink. While Samantha kept the end of the pipe pressed
against the man's head, Gia frisked her captive, relieving him of a syringe,
a baton and a pair of handcuffs. The latter she promptly snapped round the
man's own wrists. With the baton in her hands, she turned to his colleague.
By now, Zoe was pinning him to the ground and had her arm locked around his
throat, but he showed no signs of giving up the struggle.
"I don't think he's human," Zoe said. "If he was, he'd be dead by now."
"That's a nuisance. It means we don't know how hard to hit him to knock
him out."
"You tie him up then, while I keep him pinned."
Gia retrieved the guard's handcuffs, and with Zoe's help secured him. Then
she snatched a handful of scarves from a nearby display, tied both guards'
feet, and gagged them.
"So much for them," she said. "Now, Sam, what's been going on here?"
"Long story," Samantha said. "But in short, this shop's taken over Jamie
and Isobel. And it isn't a shop, it's some sort of creature."
"Thought so," Zoe said. "Have you seen any trolleys moving about by
themselves?"
"Nope."
"Oh. I'd have expected that."
"Anyway, Victoria and I got split up. I don't know where she is, but
you'll know her if you see her. She's dressed like a bumblebee, black and
yellow stripes all over."
"Why?"
"Dunno. Oh, and you were right about those guards. I reckon they're just
clothes full of purple gunk. No insides at all."
"Curious. If the shop can construct humanoid drones, why is it recruiting
real humans? We'll have to look into that."
"Leave that for later," Gia said. "Let's get you out of here."
"No way. I'm not leaving until I know Jamie and Isobel are all right."
"Do you know how they were placed under control?"
"With Isobel, I think it was the shortbread she ate. And Jamie started
acting funny after one of the shopgirls snogged him."
"Some sort of biological or chemical mechanism, then," Zoe said.
Gia held up the syringe she'd found. "And this must have been meant for
you. Right, we'll need to get this to the Doctor and see about an antidote."
"I'll do that," Zoe said, took the syringe, and headed for the main door.
A few feet away from it, she clapped her free hand to her head and dropped
to her knees.
"What's the matter?" Samantha asked, dashing over to her.
"Silenski implant," Zoe replied, forcing the words out.
"You what?"
"My brain's tamperproofed. And something's trying to tamper with it."
Gia nodded at the waist-high loops of wire that stood on either side of
the door.
"Not quite the alarm system I was expecting," she said. "All right. I'll
do it. Sam, you try and get Zoe away from the door."
She left the shop, syringe in hand, and returned less than a minute later
without it. Zoe was back on her feet, keeping a respectful distance away
from the alarm loops.
"Right," Gia said. "Sergeant Benton's going to deal with that for us. Now
what?"
"Find the others and get them out," Samantha said.
"That might not be too easy if this whole organism is focused on us," Zoe
said thoughtfully. "What we need to do is distract it somehow."
She ran her finger down a nearby store guide.
"Here we are," she said. "Restaurant, top floor. We know how to deal with
restaurants."
"Right," Samantha said. "I'm coming with you. Gia, get after Victoria and
the others."
"Yes, sir," Gia said, and saluted ironically.

When Victoria had escaped from Jamie, she'd run down the stairs in a blind
panic, and hadn't realised until too late that she'd gone down a little
further than she'd come up. The area around the foot of the stairs was lit
by the same fluorescent tubes as elsewhere, but the light they gave out was
yellowish and flickery. Somewhere overhead, she could hear running footsteps
and shouting, sounding very far away.
The sensible thing to do would be not to attract attention. Wait for the
pursuit to die down, and then go back to the public areas of the store and
try to blend in. But Victoria had already tried that, and got nowhere. To
her own surprise, she felt inclined to take a few risks.
As she pushed the nearest door open, she wondered if this was how the
Doctor felt all the time.

"Excuse me," Gia said.
The young woman at the leather sales counter looked up.
"Hello," she said, in a singsong voice. "My name is
ViolettehowcanIbeofservicetoyou. How can I be of--"
"I heard the first time."
The woman stared at her blankly. Gia felt as if she'd just given incorrect
input to a computer.
"Tell me," she said, in the slow and clear voice of one addressing voice
recognition software. "Have you seen a girl round here? Dark hair, short,
dressed in black and yellow stripes?"
"I'm afraid not." The woman leaned forward, her eyes fixed on Gia's. "Can
I improve your day in any other way?"
Gia narrowed her own eyes. "Does this shop have an electrical goods
department?"
"Third floor, near the lifts. Have a nice day."
"Thank you." Gia turned to leave, and then turned back. "Oh, by the--"
She dived to one side. The dart whipped past her and buried its head in a
handbag on a stand behind her.
ViolettehowcanIbeofservicetoyou threw her blowpipe aside, produced a
syringe, and emerged from behind the counter, still staring fixedly at Gia.
Gia briefly weighed up the options of running or fighting, and decided to
stand and fight. Judging by the examples she'd met so far, this shop
didn't endow its drones with very much intelligence, and if she couldn't
outthink this one she might as well give up now. She snatched a glove from
a table behind her.
"How much is this?" she asked, waving it in the assistant's face. With her
other hand she grabbed the arm holding the syringe and twisted hard.
She had hoped that she might make the girl drop the syringe. What she
hadn't expected was for the arm to come off altogether, and the assistant,
spraying purple liquid, to deflate with an inhuman wail. Her face, frozen
into immobility, stared up at Gia from a pile of clothes.
Gia realised she was still holding the arm she'd pulled off. Now she
looked at it, it was just a sleeve, with liquid dripping from the severed
end. She threw it to the ground, and made for the escalator. To her
surprise, she realised she was shaking.
/I didn't kill her/, she told herself. /She was never really alive anyway.
It's not as if I meant to do that. And she was trying to stick that syringe
in me.../
She reached the escalator, leaned on the handrail, and tried to stop her
teeth chattering.

Victoria tried to make sense of the scene before her. Like the room she
and Samantha had explored before, it seemed to be based around a
disconcerting combination of organic and inorganic elements. Unlike that
room, there was a clear division between the two.
The door through which she'd entered led onto a narrow walkway, made of
steel, lined with railings, and with patches of rust in the same scale-like
pattern that she'd noticed everywhere else. On either side of the walkway
was a series of pits, some of which contained heaps of everyday items --
clothes, furniture, shoes, toys. Purplish protrusions, something like
tentacles and something like roots, grew from the walls and floors and
spread out over the heaps.
Walking slowly along the walkway, Victoria tried to puzzle out what all
this stuff had in common. The heaps appeared to be sorted by content; no-one
had thrown a saucepan into the clothing pile. And everything here looked
more or less like something this shop would sell. Was it being used as some
kind of a template? It didn't seem likely: the quality of the goods here was
higher than anything she'd seen above.
As she watched, a chair in the pile of furniture, which several of the
rootlike things were touching, cracked and fell apart. A few items above it
moved slightly, shifting this way and that, and exposed a cash register, of
a different design from the ones this store used.
"Now where did that come from?" Victoria wondered out loud.
"It is the store's policy not to reveal trade secrets," Isobel's voice
said.
Victoria spun round. Isobel was standing at the door.
"You are in no position to escape," Isobel continued. "This area is closed
to the general public for reasons of safety. I must ask you to leave at
once. Please walk slowly towards me."
"Come and get me," Victoria said. There was no point in making things easy
for Isobel or whoever was controlling her.
Isobel began to advance onto the walkway.
"For your reassurance," she said, "I should let you know that I have been
fully trained to work safely in this environment."
There was something vaguely reflective in one of her hands, Victoria
noted.
"Please keep away from the digestion chambers," Isobel continued. "Falling
into one of the chambers may be detrimental to your health and safety."
Isobel was now within feet of Victoria. The glittering object in her hand
was now clearly visible as a syringe, held ready to be plunged into
whatever part of Victoria was most convenient.
"Have a nice day," she concluded.

Gia had reached Electrical Goods with the vague intention of cannibalising
a few devices and building something that could help in rescuing Victoria
and the others -- something to detect lifesigns, perhaps, or to paralyse
whatever the store used as a nervous system.
A glance at the technology on display told her it wasn't going to be that
easy. Not only was it primitive -- she'd expected that -- but exceedingly
cheap and nasty. And as soon as she pulled out an insulated screwdriver and
started dismantling a portable radio, the staff were onto her. Another one
of the inhuman assistants, this one a violet-eyed beauty by the name of
Moniiqueaskmeifyourequireanything, had hurried up at once.
"I must ask you not to tamper with the goods on display," she began. "It
is the policy of this store--"
Gia raised her screwdriver.
"Don't make me use this," she said, sounding rather shakier than she'd
hoped. "I don't want to hurt you."
The attendant ignored the threat as if it hadn't been uttered.
"For the convenience of customers, all our staff in this area will be
happy to answer questions about the products," she said. "We therefore ask
customers not to risk causing unintentional damage."
"What about intentional damage?" Gia asked. "Keep back."
The woman pulled a pricing gun from her belt, aimed it at Gia, and pulled
the trigger back halfway. Maybe it was the accompanying whine of power, or
the little cluster of glowing red LEDs round its muzzle, but Gia suspected
that it could do a lot more than mark her down as a never-to-be-repeated
bargain.

Somewhere overhead, there was a violent detonation.
Throughout the store, floors shook, objects vibrated off shelves, and
employees looked around uneasily. In the Decorative Accessories department,
racks of ugly vases were reduced to uglier shards. Here and there, patches
of plaster fell from the ceiling or flaked off the walls, and a fine dust
filled the air. The electric lights flickered and died.

Isobel clutched at the railings as the building swayed. In the pits below,
the tentacles thrashed to and fro.
"I seem to be making a habit of this," Victoria said. "But I fear I must
leave at once."
She squeezed past Isobel and made a run for the door. But Isobel hadn't
been more than momentarily distracted. Before Victoria was halfway to the
exit, she'd been rugby-tackled and dragged to the floor. To her horror, the
walkway was flexing slightly under her, and the appearance of scales could
no longer be discounted as a trick of the light; the steel had become dark
green, leathery, and very obviously the skin of some creature.
Isobel must have lost the syringe, Victoria decided, or by now it would
have been driven into her leg. She grasped the railing and pulled, but
Isobel's grip didn't slacken. Not only that, but the floor itself felt as if
it was pushing against her. Escape was out of the question, and it was
surely only a matter of time before reinforcements arrived. She wrapped her
arms and legs round the railing and willed herself to be immobile.
"You will not be harmed," Isobel said, trying to pull her free. "Please do
not attempt to resist as this may also be detrimental to your health and
safety."
The walkway shuddered and twisted. For one heartstopping moment Victoria
and Isobel were both hanging over a seething mass of tentacles, with only
Victoria's grasp on the railings between them and being digested. Then the
walkway righted itself again.
"Is this your choice?" Victoria asked. "Surrender to you or be thrown to
the monster?"
"Your continued safety is our highest..." Isobel stopped. Victoria
couldn't see her face, and her voice lacked its usual expressiveness, but
there was a definite air of confusion. "Our second highest priority."
"Do tell me. Whatever is your highest priority?"
"Damage limitation."
"Damage limitation?" Victoria repeated. It could be her imagination, but
Isobel's grip seemed to be weakening. "Please, tell me more."
"In the event of fire, please follow all instructions given by members of
staff," Isobel said. "Do not attempt to retrieve personal possessions."
"Fire? You mean the shop's on fire?"
"Please follow all instructions given by members of staff--" Isobel
groaned, whispered "burning," in something a lot closer to her normal
voice, and let go of Victoria altogether.
Victoria pulled herself upright and looked round. Isobel was on all fours,
shaking her head as if dazed.
"For safety reasons we should leave this area at once," Isobel said, her
voice wavering. "Come with me, now."
The walkway rocked again.
Victoria sighed. She could probably make her escape now, but that would
leave Isobel in danger. It looked as if the only way to get both of them out
was to surrender, or at least pretend to.
"Very well," she said, and held out her hand.
It took Isobel several goes to get up, and once she was on her feet she
needed to lean on Victoria for support. Her face was flushed, her hands hot.
Victoria let Isobel lead until they were back in the basement area, at the
foot of the staircase. Here, too, the appearance of a normal shop was
beginning to crumble. Cracks in every surface were oozing the same sort of
purple liquid she'd seen before. A rash of fire alarm buttons, instructing
users to break the glass in an emergency, had spread across the walls like
chickenpox. The lights had gone out, and dark smoke obscured the skylight,
but emergency lights exuded a sickly greenish glow.
Climbing the steps to ground level seemed to take an age. Several times
Isobel swayed and nearly fell, or leaned against the wall gasping for
breath. Once or twice she tried to talk, but didn't manage to come out with
anything coherent. Once they reached the door that led back into the shop,
Victoria tried to open it, only to find that Isobel hadn't given up.
"Not right," Isobel said, trying to drag her further up the stairs. "Not
where we need you."
"Isobel, you're sick. You need help."
"Where we're going. Not that way." Isobel's grip on Victoria's wrist
tightened painfully.
"You're hurting me! Let me go!"
Isobel's grip didn't slacken, and she tugged at Victoria with renewed
strength. Victoria tried to break away, but once again found herself at a
disadvantage. She didn't want to risk hurting Isobel, but it was all too
plain that Isobel didn't feel the same inhibition regarding her. Isobel's
fingernails dug painfully into her, and she couldn't help screaming.
Two or three steps further up, Victoria realised that someone had heard
her. There were footsteps approaching briskly from further up. Isobel came
to a halt and seemed to be listening.
"Victoria Waterfield," Gia said, as she came down the stairs towards them.
"I'd know that scream anywhere."
Relief surged in Victoria's mind, followed closely by exasperation. As Gia
came closer and Victoria got a clearer view of her, this gave way to unease.
Gia looked paler than usual, which Victoria hadn't previously thought
possible, and her clothes were covered with plaster dust. A pricing gun
dangled from her right hand; it looked as if she might drop it at any
moment.
"What happened to you?" Victoria asked. "Are you all right?"
"Physically, yes," Gia said. "Mentally, not so sure."
Isobel chose that moment to try and force Victoria up the stairs once more.
"Can it wait?" Victoria asked. "Isobel's in a bad way. We need to get her
out of here."
"I'll try."
Isobel, even possessed, couldn't manage to resist both of them, and in
very little time all three were back in the sports department. Apart from
the green emergency light, it looked more or less undamaged. There was no
sign of anyone else. All the checkouts were deserted, the doors unguarded.
"Where is everyone?" Victoria wondered.
"Upstairs, trying to save what they can," Gia said. She had to raise her
voice; Isobel was struggling and kicking in their grip. "Like insects."
"You haven't seen Jamie, I suppose? Or Samantha?"
"Samantha and Zoe were going to cause a diversion. That explosion was
probably it. You should see upstairs. Ceilings down, water and purple goo
everywhere."
"Zoe's here too? I suppose she came in..."
"With me. It seems ages ago." Gia stopped, her expression growing vacant.
"Gia? What's the matter?"
Gia pulled herself together. "Never mind."
They'd nearly reached the main door when Victoria caught a movement out of
the corner of her eye. She turned round. Jamie was standing a little way
away, a pricing gun in his hand. He, too, looked slightly feverish.
"You two ladies will come with me," he said.
"Victoria, try to get Isobel out of here," Gia whispered. She let go of
Isobel's arm, and raised her own pricing gun.
"Put that down," Jamie said. "You aren't authorised to use it."
Luckily, Isobel seemed to have exhausted her strength earlier. Victoria
found that despite Isobel's resistance, she could coax her closer to the
door.
"Keep back, or I'll shoot," Gia's voice said from behind her, sounding
almost scared.
"In the interests of health and safety," Jamie's voice countered, "You
should not attempt to use that equipment."
"Don't come any closer..."
There was click, a rush of air, and a gasp. Victoria turned round, to see
Gia lying on her back, a dart protruding from her arm. Her pricing gun lay
beside her, unfired. Jamie was bending over her.
"I'm sorry," she gasped. "Get her out of here..."
Jamie took hold of her legs, and began to drag her away. Isobel chose that
moment to make her own break for freedom, and for the next minute Victoria
was occupied in struggling with her. But Isobel's strength seemed to be
fading fast; quicker than she'd hoped, Victoria had reached the door, and
pushed it open. At first glance, she couldn't pick anyone out of the crowd
that met her eyes. Then she saw the Doctor -- her Doctor -- and pretty much
fell into his arms. UNIT men were rushing past her. Others were attending to
Isobel.
"Doctor!" she said, as soon as she could speak. "Gia's still in there, and
Jamie. He shot her with some sort of dart."
"You mean he's under the store's influence?"
"Yes. Isobel, too. I'm sure it's killing her." She looked round for the
first time, to see Isobel on a stretcher. Liz was bending over her,
hypospray in hand.
"I've sedated her for now," she said. "We'll keep her under medical
supervision."
Four soldiers emerged from the building, with Gia on another stretcher.
Nyssa was with them, looking put out.
"He ran off," she complained. "I couldn't get close enough to him." She
leaned over, and plucked something from Victoria's sleeve. "You were lucky.
He nearly got you, too."
"What?" Victoria asked, baffled.
Nyssa held up a dart. "It was sticking in your sleeve, right here." She
tapped one of the thicker parts of Victoria's rolled-up sleeves. "Anywhere
else, and you'd be like those two now." She nodded at Gia and Isobel.
The Doctor took Victoria's hands in his.
"Now, Victoria," he said. "You're the only person who can tell us what's
going on. So, please, let us know everything that's happened."



Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8

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