UNIT:X (Chapter 6)

Chapter 6 (Forgotten Encounters)

“How is she?”

“She’s fine, Faith, absolutely fine.”

Faith rubbed her eyes and then leaned in to look at the laptop again showing her soon-to-be ex-husband on the webcam. He smiled sadly at her and then took off his glasses. He leaned in closer to the lens.

“You know it doesn’t have to be like this.”

“It does,” said Faith, nodding sadly. “Jason, she’s six years old. She can’t keep going through this.”

“I know that,” he said, shaking his head, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t try and make it work.”

“We tried for six years to make it work.”

“We didn’t try hard enough,” he said. “You didn’t try hard enough.”

Faith exhaled and stepped back. “We’re not going down that route again. You knew I was in the military when we met.”

“I thought it’d change when Ruby was born.”

“Jason, it’s ingrained in me. I can’t just walk away from all this.”

She closed her eyes. She realised how cold she sounded. Her and Jason had never intended to start a family. He was an aircraft engineer and she they met on a military base in Iraq. They had moved back to Perth and Faith had fallen pregnant. They had tried to make it work, but Faith had been posted abroad. The distance had put strains on her and Jason’s relationship and they had decided to separate. She had fought for Ruby, but in the end relented, knowing full-well that Ruby could have a much more stable life back at home instead of being based at some military base or somewhere far from her family.

Faith, meanwhile, just couldn’t give it up. She couldn’t give up the life she was born to lead. Her father was a military man, her mother worked for Torchwood back in the 1970’s. It was in her blood. As bad as it sounded, a family life was never part of what she wanted. But now she didn’t have Ruby, she was terrified that she’d never have a relationship with her.

“You didn’t have to join that secret group,” said Jason.

“I couldn’t have turned them down,” said Faith. “Stark had chosen me out of all of those people. It’s what my father did. I wanted this opportunity.” She smiled down at the screen. “Besides, it won’t be forever.”

“Ruby is already six,” said Jason, refusing to smile back at her. “You’ve already missed so much.”

“Daddy...” came an upset child’s voice from off screen.

“Look, I’ve gotta go. Like I said, the chicken pox will clear up. She’ll be fine.” He leaned in. “We’ll speak in a few days.”

“Tell her mummy loves - ”

The screen went black before she could finish. Faith lowered her head. She fought back the tears. It was too much now. Too much to let the emotions break through. She had to remain strong for the rest of the team.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” came Beth’s voice.
She quickly composed herself and turned to face the young woman who was standing with a data pad in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” continued Beth, “but I couldn’t help me, y’know, overhear the end of that.”

“It’s fine,” said Faith, nodding. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? I mean, if you wanna talk about it...” she smiled.

Faith smiled. Beth was a sweet girl. Young, but sweet. But she wasn’t old enough to have experienced much of the world yet. At the same time that Stark had formed UNIT:X he had pulled together the team. He insisted on giving them all code names to use in the field and it had stuck with the majority of them.

Beth had been one of the brightest to join the team, but she hadn’t been the first computer expert they had had. In fact the team didn’t start out this way. Back then there was Deadbolt and Skybeat and Sigma....they were all gone now. She wondered what would happen to her daughter if she was gone. Would Ruby even remember her?

“I’m fine, honestly,” said Faith. “What’s happening?”

“Well, Alistair asked me to find you. Apparently we’re picking up some strange readings from Mr Stark and the Doctor. He thinks you should take a look.”

“About bloody time,” said Faith, getting up and grabbing her jacket. “They’ve been out cold for twenty minutes.”



Holly had thought it was a good idea when Faith had suggested it. She had thought it a good idea as Faith ran it by the Doctor and reassured him that she’d be well-protected. She had thought it a good idea when the Doctor reluctantly agreed. She had thought it a good idea right up until the point she was sat in the back of the landrover being driven to the centre of the town.

She shook the thoughts out of her head and stared straight ahead. Claire Taggart was sat in the drivers seat with Oliver Osborne in the passenger sheet. She was in the back flanked by Corporal Pike and Foster. Her hand went to her temples and felt the two, small nodes again, relieved they were still there.

“Stop touching them,” said Osborne, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror. “They’re not gonna come off unless you pull really hard.”

“I’m scared at who’s doing the pulling,” said Holly, moving her hands away.

“There’s still time to take you back,” said Taggart. She looked back at her. “You don’t need to be here.”

“No, I owe it to Richard,” said Holly. “Besides, I was just hanging around like a spare part back there. At least with you two I can get to see some action.”

“It’s just a routine sweep of the area, remember?” said Taggart. “Normally myself and Osborne wouldn’t come – we’d send out the troops, but - ”

“The Doctor insisted,” said Holly, nodding. “Well, I hope I haven’t put you two in danger as well.”

“Nonsense, love,” said Osborne, smiling, “we needed to get out and stretch our legs, didn’t we Swift?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Taggart. “If I see one more black or whiteboard adorned with pink and yellow sticky notes I’ll go crazy.”

Osborne laughed.

“How’d you two get recruited to this group then?” asked Holly.

Osborne smiled and looked at her in the mirror again. “It wasn’t long after you met Stark actually.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Holly, frowning.

“You think we don’t know, Holly Dangerfield?” he said. “You’ve been keeping it quiet from the Doctor as well.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Must have been over a year ago now. You were working in a library in Huxley at the time. There was some lunatic reckoning that he was travelling in time and then Stark and the troops turned up.”

“Okay, you’ve got me,” said Holly, admitting to it. It was true. His name Peter Hooper and he claimed he had fallen in love with a woman called Annabelle from the 16th century. She had dismissed it at the time, but she had witnessed Stark turn up and take him away. He had even spoken to her. But something wasn’t quite right. Why had she forgotten it. She frowned.

“There’s that little memory,” said Osborne, nodding to Taggart. “It’s there, isn’t it?”

“I remember it happening, but it’s right at the back of my mind,” she said. “And I mean right at the back. It’s like if I think about it it appears, but if I don’t it’s like it never happened.”

“It’s called a Forget-Me-Not,” said Taggart. “Created by Benton for use on the public. Not as aggressive as Retcon, but definitely jumbles up those memories.”

“On the way out Stark would have dropped a few pills into the water cooler – it makes you put the memory away. You remember if you need to, but otherwise you don’t really recall it.”

“And what’s Retcon?”

“Nasty stuff,” said Osborne. “Retcon proper wipes your memory. Forget-Me-Not just makes it seem hazy. Makes you question less. Retcon was an issue because it tended to leave gaps in the memory which the victim would then try and refill and go looking for answers.”

“Well, tell Stark cheers from me.” It explains why she had never mentioned the brief encounter to the Doctor before. “What happened to Peter?”

Osborne laughed. “We gave him his wish. He moved to the 16th century and got married to Annabelle.”

“Then she was real?”

“Of course she was,” he grinned. “Anyway, enough chit-chat. We’re here.”

The vehicle pulled up outside a white-bricked building just on the outskirts of the town centre. Holly looked up at the sign ominously – it was Dent’s Undertakers, whom her parents had used for the arrangements for her granddads funeral.

A soldier exited the building and saluted the two senior officers.

“This is the furthest we go at the moment,” said Taggart. She indicated the nodes on the soldier’s temples. “Just remember, it doesn’t block it out totally, but it stops you from concentrating on anything you may see.”

“Okay,” said Holly, nodding. “So if I see something what do I do?”

“Don’t pay it any attention,” said Osborne, taking a large gun from one of the soldiers. “Just keep on walking. The Doctor’ll bloody kill us if he finds out we’ve lost you.”

“I still can’t quite believe we’re out here,” said Holly, looking nervously around her.

“It’s like he said – it’s just a sweep.”

“Yeah,” said Holly, “but I just wish he was out here with us.”



“Hmmm,” said Benton, rubbing his chin and then realising he hadn’t shaved that morning.

“Hmmm?” said Beth, entering the room with Faith in tow.

“Just checking my e-mails,” said Benton, and it keeps glitching, like there’s some kind of interference. But,” he said, clapping his hands together, “there are more important things at work.”

He swivelled round in his seat. The Doctor and Stark were laying either side of Robinson.

“Beth said there was activity?” said Faith.

“That’s right,” said Benton, nodding, “and it’s rather worrying.” He pointed to a monitor which showed the brain activity of all three of the patients. Each of the lines was wavering erratically. “We need to make sure these lines don’t mingle. If they do then we’re in some very serious trouble.”

“In what way?” said Faith, looking at the Doctor more closely.

“Well, whatever’s going on in there is causing the three of them immense stress. If they mingle it could mean that they fall into a coma and become trapped forever.”

Faith leaned in closer to the Doctor. “What’s going on in there, Doctor?”

To be continued...