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  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Missy said, as she carefully removed her hat and rested it on the console’s telepathic circuits. ‘I haven’t forgotten about you lot. You can knock as much as you like, but you’re not coming in …’ Her hands danced across the controls as she spoke. ‘Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.’

  Jabbing a large red button with an exquisitely manicured nail, Missy allowed herself a smile as the Skarasens howled in pain. ‘Sorry boys,’ she said, ‘but if you try to snack on a TARDIS, you’ll get a mouthful of electrified plasmic shell.’ Her stomach rumbled. The smell of charred flesh from outside made her mouth water. It had been years since she’d had barbecued Skarasen.

  Poor old Flipper.

  But now was not the time for a jaunt down memory lane, no matter how delicious the organic portions of her former pet had been. Missy had places to go and people to subjugate. The Hypersphere may have been lost, but there were other sources of unlimited cosmic power. Reaching into a jacket pocket, she pulled out a small leather-bound notebook, flipping through its yellowed pages until she found a list written in blood. Briefly, she wondered whose it was.

  ‘The Cardium Heart? Too primitive. The Slarvian Astral-Core? Too volatile.’ She stopped, tapping a finger against the penultimate entry. ‘The Sun-Stealer of Tavos … Now, that’s a possibility, but the Tavosian Union will fight to the death to protect it. Do I really have time to commit genocide?’ A grin spread across her face and she snapped the book shut. ‘What am I talking about? I’ll make time.’

  Entering the coordinates for Tavos, she pulled at the dematerialisation lever, and … nothing happened.

  Missy stared at the controls in confusion. Where was the thunder of the TARDIS engines? Why weren’t they moving?

  She entered the sequence again, pumping the lever in frustration, but still the TARDIS didn’t respond. She checked the fault locators. Everything was functioning as it should be: the helmic regulator, temporal accelerators; and the Eye of Harmony …

  The breath caught in her throat.

  The Eye of Harmony, the energy source of this and every TARDIS, raged constantly with the power of a trapped sun. Now it was cold and lifeless, shut down remotely.

  That could only mean one thing.

  The thump of boots behind her gave the first indication that Missy wasn’t alone in the control room. She turned slowly to find a staser pointing at her head. The woman who held it was one of her own kind; she looked young, maybe only 200, or 250 at the most. Her dark skin was smooth, her eyes almost black, blonde hair cropped short. She was taller than Missy, the body beneath the tight leather jacket and combat pants taut and lean, like an athlete. Or a hunter. Her grip on the gun looked equally strong, a golden band on her ring finger, her knuckles scarred from past fights.

  The two women stared at each other, as still as Weeping Angels.

  Missy wanted to rip her spine from her back, but knew she would be dead before the blood had soaked into the deck plates. They would see to that, from wherever they were watching.

  The woman broke the silence at last. ‘You’re shorter than I expected.’ Her eyes flicked down to Missy’s boots. ‘Explains the heels. Short Prydon syndrome. Seen it all before.’

  Missy didn’t move. She didn’t frown or smile, but stood, hands clasped before her, as immobile as the TARDIS.

  To her credit, the woman stood her ground. Her aim didn’t waver, her hand didn’t shake, although there was no mistaking the bead of sweat that blossomed on her brow to run down her cheek.

  ‘Aren’t you going to say something?’

  Missy didn’t respond.

  The woman wetted her full lips. ‘I heard you never shut up.’

  Missy took a sharp breath through her nose, taking in the woman’s scent. ‘Arcalian,’ she concluded, enjoying the muscle in the woman’s eye that twitched in response. ‘From the House of Stillhaven. Still in your first incarnation, but, ohhh …’ Missy’s own eyes lit up, glistening with interest. ‘You suffer from Abridgement Syndrome.’ She pulled a face, pushing out her bottom lip. ‘No regenerations for you, poor baby. Still that’ll make you easier to kill.’

  The woman snorted, betraying her nerves. ‘You really think that’s going to happen?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Missy said, brightly. ‘You violate my TARDIS and point a gun at me. I’ve eviscerated people for forgetting to tie their shoelaces. Do you really think I’ll let you live?’

  A light flashed on the woman’s ring. A communication signal. The trespasser’s expression soured ever so slightly, but her voice remained professional and neutral when she spoke.

  ‘Activate holo-link.’

  A figure shimmered into being, a flickering hologram of a man wearing ceremonial armour and a haughty expression. His domed scalp was largely devoid of hair, his impressive nose held high and his grey eyes keen. It was a face Missy hadn’t seen for a very long time.

  ‘General,’ she purred. ‘What an unexpected pleasure. Would you like me to curtsey or bow?’

  ‘I’d like you to shut up and listen for once,’ the hologram replied, the clipped voice projected from Gallifrey, half an eternity away. Missy wondered if the General was standing in the Panopticon, or the War Room. No, definitely not the latter. She’d blown that up, hadn’t she, before escaping Gomer’s Asylum? It was so hard to remember sometimes.

  ‘I assume this is your handiwork?’ she commented, indicating the incapacitated console.

  ‘The High Council has frozen your connection to the Eye of Harmony.’

  ‘The High Council? Are they still around? I thought Rassilon ruled the roost these days.’ The General’s expression tightened at her mention of the Lord President. ‘How is the old goat? Still choking on the White Point Stars I shoved down his throat? I hope his regeneration was nice and painful.’

  ‘They say he screamed all the way through,’ the woman told her. ‘Ohila had to mix him a special draft.’

  ‘Yayani,’ warned the General, and Missy chuckled; not only had she learned the woman’s name, she’d also heard the smirk in Yayani’s voice as she’d described Rassilon’s torment. Interesting.

  The General’s attention turned back to Missy. ‘Control of your TARDIS will be returned in due course—’

  ‘So long as I dance to whatever twisted tune Rassilon is playing this time. I know how this works. Been there, baldy, bought the T-shirt.’

  The General ignored the jibe. ‘We have a mission for you.’

  ‘Then you’ve got the wrong renegade. Isn’t goodie-goodie-two-shoes your usual puppet? What’s the matter? Lost his number?’ Missy snatched up the cross-time telephone from its cradle on the communication panel. ‘Hang on, I have him on speed dial …’

  ‘The Doctor is … unavailable.’ The General raised his holographic arm, a globe appearing in front of his gauntleted hand. ‘This is the Kyme Institute.’

  Missy took a step nearer the image. There was a speck hovering above the planet’s equator. She reached forward, prodding the dot with a finger. It expanded to show a space station shaped like a gigantic wheel.

  Yayani’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Should she be able to do that?’

  ‘No,’ Missy said, rotating the holographic image on its axis, ‘but I never let that stop me.’ She glanced up at the General. ‘So, why’s this place got the High Council’s knickers in a twist? Looks booooooring to me. What is it? Twenty-seventh century?’

  ‘Twenty-eighth,’ the General confirmed. ‘According to the Lord Prognosticator, a team of scientists are conducting a series of time experiments that may have catastrophic consequences for established history.’

  ‘Sound like my kind of people.’

  ‘Which is why we need them stopped.’

  ‘And you can’t be seen to interfere.’

  ‘Gallifrey’s existence must be kept secret. If our enemies were to discover that we’d survived the Time War …’

  ‘The Universe would be ripped asunder, planets would bleed and stars would shatter.’ Missy w
inked at Yayani. ‘Just another Sunday morning for me …’

  The General’s eyes bore into her. ‘Do you remember how I found you in the Siege of the Chronotide? Your screams for mercy as the Multiform closed in?’

  For the first time since her TARDIS was boarded, anger contorted Missy’s face into a mask of pure hatred. It was an expression that had struck fear into the hearts of supernovas and sent warlords and demigods running for their mothers, and yet the General regarded her with something approaching boredom.

  ‘I’m not the Doctor,’ Missy snarled, her nose millimetres from the hologram’s imperious face. ‘I can’t be bullied or shamed. Those who try end up very dead. Try it again, and I’ll rip out your hearts.’

  The pompous idiot smiled, actually smiled. ‘Without a TARDIS? I’d like to see you try. You can refuse our request, of course …’

  ‘Then, I refuse.’

  ‘… and spend the rest of your days marooned on this insignificant mud-ball.’

  Missy looked down her nose at Yayani. ‘Why not get your lapdog to shoot me?’

  ‘And deny the Skarasens the thrill of the hunt?’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint, but they’ve gone bye-byes, permanently.’

  The General raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’

  A deafening bellow rattled the control room doors, followed by another, and another.

  Yayani had the decency to look surprised as the resurrected monsters renewed their attack, the walls of the TARDIS shaking beneath the onslaught. ‘That’s breaking the Laws of Time.’

  ‘They make the rules, they break ’em.’ Missy threw out her arms in surrender. ‘Oh, what the hell. Let’s do this. Perhaps a mission is just what I need to blow the cobwebs away.’ She turned back to the console, sweeping up her hat which she secured with a long onyx pin. ‘Give me the coordinates and I’ll be off before you can say lickety-split.’

  ‘No need,’ the General told her, as the Eye of Harmony roared back into life, the dematerialisation circuit activating remotely.

  With Missy’s back to him, the General couldn’t see her lips thin into a single line, before she forced herself to smile and wheeled around to face him.

  ‘You really have thought of everything.’ She snapped her heels together and delivered an extravagant salute. ‘Orders delivered and understood, sah! Will do your dirty work like a good little soldier, and be back in time for kit inspection, sah, yes, sah!’

  The General gave her a look that would wither Krynoids. ‘Just get it done, and we’ll release your TARDIS back to your control.’

  ‘And never bother me again?’ she asked, fluttering her eyelids, knowing exactly what the answer would be.

  ‘Until next time, yes.’

  Missy’s hands curled into fists by her side, but she covered her frustration by planting them on her hips and turning to Yayani. ‘And I suppose I’m stuck with you, too.’

  Yayani nodded. ‘I’m the High Council’s insurance policy.’

  Missy rolled her eyes. ‘To ensure I carry out my mission like a good little girl.’

  ‘Without any tricks,’ the General confirmed.

  Missy clasped a hand to her chest in mock outrage.

  ‘Tricks? Moi? Perish the thought.’

  ‘Think of her as your companion.’

  ‘A companion who’s ready to shoot me at a moment’s notice?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Missy’s mouth twitched into a smile. ‘The best kind. Well, don’t let us girls keep you. I’m sure you have boots to polish and squares to bash.’ She wiggled her fingers at the hologram in farewell. ‘Bye-bye, baldy. Say hi to Rassipoos for me.’

  Without another word, the hologram vanished. Missy turned, inspecting the instruments on the navigational panel. ‘Are you going to point that thing at me all the time?’ she asked, not looking up.

  ‘Will I have to?’ Yayani asked, expertly tracking Missy’s movements with the staser.

  ‘Probably, but if we’re going to be pals, you might as well pop it away. I imagine you’re quick on the draw. One false move, and I’m toast.’

  ‘Flattery won’t stop me from doing my duty,’ Yayani told her, holstering her staser all the same. ‘So, what next?’

  Wiping a speck of non-existent dust from the console, Missy turned and walked towards the far wall. ‘Next, we do what we’re told.’ She ran a finger around a circular locker set into the wall and it opened. Missy reached in, retrieving a leather cuff that she fastened around her wrist.

  ‘A Vortex Manipulator?’ Yayani frowned. ‘Who in their right minds uses those any more?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard, silly? I’ve not been in my right mind since, well, forever.’

  Snapping the roundel shut with a satisfying click, Missy strolled to the umbrella stand to choose a parasol from her extensive collection. ‘Are you coming, or what?’

  Behind Yayani, the central column fell still as they reached their destination. With one final resounding thud, the engines powered down and the eonic anchor deployed. They had landed. On cue, the doors slid open.

  Missy’s eyes sparkled as she stepped aside to allow Yayani to disembark. ‘After you.’

  ‘Don’t you want to go first?’

  ‘Why bring an expendable and get cut down in a hail of plasma bolts yourself?’

  But there was no laser fire as they stepped out into a corridor; no running guards, not even an alarm. Slightly disappointed, Missy pulled the TARDIS door shut, savouring the tingle of chameleon shielding beneath her fingers. The time machine had disguised itself as a food dispenser, containing tasty snacks and treats for the institute’s staff. Missy smiled in appreciation when she noticed that each of the brightly coloured packs was at least three decades past their use-by dates. ‘Good girl,’ she whispered, patting the glass window.

  ‘It’s quiet,’ Yayani said, keeping her voice down.

  ‘Oooh, do you think?’ boomed Missy. She checked her Vortex Manipulator, Gallifreyan text swirling across its tiny display. ‘The General has deposited us slap bang in the middle of the graveyard shift. Most of the boffins will be tucked up in bed, dreaming of particle accelerators. Pity.’

  ‘Why?’

  Missy gave her the look she usually reserved for simpletons and UNIT personnel. ‘Because there’ll be fewer to kill if they’re all asleep.’

  ‘Deaths are to be kept to a minimum,’ Yayani told her.

  ‘The General said that, did he? He actually said those words, in that order.’

  Yayani nodded.

  Missy blew air from her cheeks. ‘Then, there’s no point in me sticking around. You’re on your own.’

  She jabbed at the Vortex Manipulator, and then was forced to jab at it again when it stubbornly refused to operate.

  Yayani crossed her arms and regarded Missy with infuriating amusement. ‘Going somewhere?’

  ‘Obviously not. The sneaky slaphead has fritzed this too, hasn’t he?’ Missy leaned in to Yayani conspiratorially. ‘He hates it when people call him that, by the way.’

  The ghost of a smile played on Yayani’s lips. ‘Duly noted.’

  Missy cocked an eyebrow. Maybe there was something about this girl, after all. A light winked on the Manipulator’s display, breaking the moment.

  ‘Oh look, a map.’ The Vortex Manipulator beeped and Missy looked up, peering down the corridor. ‘We’re on level six. The research facility is twelve storeys up.’

  ‘And that’s where we’ll find the experiment?’

  ‘You mean the General doesn’t know?’

  ‘That’s why he’s sent us.’

  Missy rolled her eyes and strode over to a computer console set into the wall. Raising her parasol, she activated the screen with a blast of sonic energy from its tip.

  ‘You have a sonic umbrella,’ Yayani said, the scorn in her voice all too obvious.

  ‘And I’ll gut you like a gumblejack if you use that tone again,’ Missy retorted, tapping the display. She fell silent for a moment, opening and closing
information files at an alarming rate before she spoke again. ‘I’m surprised they’re still doing the tattoos.’

  Beside her, Yayani shifted uncomfortably. ‘Tattoos?’

  Missy didn’t look up. ‘The Time Lords. Branding prisoners with biodata tags. Like the one on your wrist.’

  The young woman’s hand went to her forearm.

  ‘So where did they put you? Shada? Capetrious?’

  ‘They didn’t put me anywhere.’ Yayani nodded purposely at the screen. ‘Well?’

  Missy pouted. ‘Awww, I thought we were going to share secrets and braid each other’s hair and everything. Suit yourself.’ She turned back to the terminal. ‘This thing’s useless, anyway. All the juicy data is locked behind a firewall. You need a biometric key.’ She waved her fingers in the air. ‘A handprint.’

  ‘Well,’ Yayani said, glancing down at Missy’s parasol. ‘Blitz it.’

  Missy looked innocently at the umbrella. ‘Blitz it? With this?’

  Yayani gave her an exasperated look.

  ‘Nah,’ Missy concluded. ‘Too easy.’ Whirling around, she thrust the tip of the parasol into the air. There was a squeal of sonic interference followed by a klaxon that blared throughout the station.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ Yayani spluttered, drawing her staser.

  ‘Because it’s fun!’ Missy shouted back, struggling to make herself heard over the alarm. ‘Stand by for action!’

  Armoured guards came running from every direction, pulse-rifles primed and ready to fire. Yayani cursed beneath her breath, her aim switching from one guard to another, until Missy reached over and slapped her hand down as if she was a naughty child.

  ‘Oh, put that away, will you? We’re hopelessly out-gunned, and you know it.’ She turned towards the armed men and shook her head as if they were in on the joke. ‘You’ll have to forgive my friend. She’s new to the whole being caught red-handed thing. But don’t worry, it’s a fair cop.’ Missy raised her gloved hands. ‘We’ll come quietly.’

  ‘We will?’ Yayani hissed.

  ‘Drop your weapon,’ snapped a gruff voice. A tall man with a fierce expression on his rugged feature took a step towards them. Unlike the other guards, he wasn’t wearing a helmet, but the unwavering gun in his hand looked just as deadly as every other blaster pointing in their direction.