Post by T.E.C.H:- Part 1 on Aug 24, 2018 9:44:39 GMT
T.E.C.H:- Part 1:- The Dumbledore Affair. by magicmuggle01
A/N: - Please note that while this story is fiction, it is based on an actual book that I’ve written. The main characters names and some locations have been changed to accommodate the Harry Potter universe. The original story has also been copyrighted under my own name. Please do not copy in any way, shape or form and publish. Thank you for your time and please read on and enjoy.
Disclaimer: - The Harry Potter name and Hogwarts belong to JK herself.
PROLOGUE
As we enter a house, we see a living room. A plain sort of room with only the basic’s for furniture. A boy suddenly appears out of thin air. Its early morning, and the daylight hours were just starting to dawn outside. The sounds of the birds just beginning their dawn chorus could be heard outside, and no one was awake yet.
The boy looks around for a few moments seemingly trying to get his bearings; has he slowly turns his head he spotted a door at the far end of the room, and started to walk towards it, slowly he turns the door knob and gently opens the door and cautiously exits the room. Once out of the living room he heads for the stairs on his left, and carefully – on tiptoe – crept quietly and slowly to the top, trying to make no noise. One step creaked. He stood still, listening for any sound of moment, but no sound was forthcoming, so he continued to the top of the stairs. Once he’d reached the top, he paused once more continuing to listen for any sounds, but again all was silent. Upon hearing nothing, he crept along a corridor making straight for a door at the end, when he’d reached his destination he slowly and quietly opened it. As the boy peered around the door, we see a boy’s bedroom come into view. He looks around for a few moments when his eyes suddenly came to rest on a lump that’s lying in a bed at the far end of the room against a wall.
‘So this is the subject that I’ve come to replace,’ the stranger could be heard muttering.
The boy walked further into the bedroom and gently closed the door behind him. He turns around and slowly started to walk towards the bed, making as little noise as possible. The lump started to move and moan, the boy stops in mid stride and watches and waits with held breath waiting for any sign that the figure in the bed was about to wake up. But all was well; the lump settled back down and continued to sleep.
Once all had settled down once more, the boy again started to creep slowly forward, and this time as he moved forward he put his hand into the right pocket of the futuristic clothes that he was wearing and removed what appeared to be a long straight piece of wood.
Once he’d reached the bed, he carefully and gently takes a hold of the blankets and slowly began to pull them back, to reveal another boys face. Once the face was exposed, he was looking at an exact double of himself; it was like looking into a mirror. The boy looked intently at the figure in the bed, when all of a sudden, the boy in the bed stirred.
The boy in the bed – as if sensing something – suddenly opened his eyes, and when he sees himself looking down at him he opened his mouth to scream. But the look alike was too quick for him. The look alike quickly pointed the stick at him and could be heard muttering the words Stupefy and the figure in the bed became still.
Making sure that he had remained unheard, he went over to a chest of drawers and pulling out a pair of pyjamas he speedily got changed into them. He laid his futuristic looking clothes on top of the stupefied figure and then waved the wooden stick over the figure, muttering some words. The figure on top of the bed slowly started to vanish, leaving the other alone in the room.
After the boy had vanished, the look alike got into the bed and as he covered himself with the bed covers he could be heard muttering to himself,
‘Later today I set in motion my masters plan for world domination, by brain washing Albus Dumbledores closest family and friends’. And with an evil grin on his face, he fell asleep.
Chapter One:- The Chase
It was a dark and dismal night. And a boy could be seen running through the dank and dismal alleyways of a large futuristic Edinburgh City, he looks about 10 years old. The year is Twenty Four Nineteen; he’s scruffy looking – like he could have done with a good bath – he’s dressed in a dirty Blue jumper, a pair of dirty and frayed Green combat style trousers with holes in the knees, and a pair of old threadbare white trainers and no socks. He appeared to be running for his life. He’s panicking and has a look of extreme terror and fear on his face, and he’s constantly looking over his shoulder, looking back towards the direction that he’d just come from.
Then from around the corner, the reason for his scared look soon becomes obvious; a large group of people was chasing him. No matter which way he turned, there would always be more people waiting for him, it was like the people knew where he’d turn up next and where ahead of him waiting. – And considering the people knew the alleyways better than him, it was no wonder that they were to get the drop on him at each twist and turn -. He was like a scared animal, the crowd were howling, howling for his blood. Each time they caught sight of him they gave an almighty cry. So the boy kept running. By now he was beginning to tire from the chase, he felt like he wanted to curl up and die there and then right on the spot, but instead he kept going.
About twenty minutes before it had been a totally different story. The people had been so thankful for his help; they’d witnessed a phenomenon that they had never seen before. The boy had helped a young girl who’d fallen and hurt herself. It turned out that a little girl of five had fallen from a first floor tenement window and broken her arm and leg, and she was screaming in agony. And mixed in with the child’s screams there was also the sound of a woman screaming and crying as well.
~#FLASHBACK#~
The boy had been passing through an old part of Edinburgh known as the Grassmarket – which used to be an up and coming yuppie area but was now an area occupied by some of the poorest people around. People who’d arrived from the country and other cities in search of work but found no jobs available -. He’d been trying not to draw any attention himself’ he knew from past experience that to draw any attention to the things he could do was just asking for trouble, but when he’d heard the child screaming, he, like everyone else around him had rushed towards the screaming noise’s to see what was happening. He saw a large crowd gathered around something lying on the ground. He pushed his way through the crowd and once he’d reached the front he saw a little girl lying on the ground, howling and crying.
As soon as he saw the injured child lying there with her right leg and arm twisted at odd angles, – he was thinking how easy it would be to just walk away and forget what he’d seen. But not even he could leave child laying on the pavement in agony -, he’d immediately forgotten about keeping a low profile and knelt beside the crying child and laid one of his hands on the girls arm and the other on the child’s leg. He was ignoring the sounds of the crowd milling a round him, muttering.
‘What’s the boy doing?’
‘What’s he up to?’ were some of the questioning sounds.
He closed his eyes and with a fierce determined look on his face he concentrated, hard. After a few moments had passed, in which nothing appeared to happen, a strange green, blue glow had started to emanate from both his hands and started to engulf his and the girls bodies. There was an instant out burst and gasps of amazement from the crowd.
The boy slowly moved his hands back and forth along the broken limbs, concentrating all the time. Whilst all this had been going on the girl’s mother was looking terrified at what was happening, but bit by bit the girl gradually stopped crying until she stopped altogether, as the pains in here arm and leg slowly went away. She tentatively and slowly raised herself to her feet – carefully moving her arm and leg as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
The child looked around and spotted her mother to whom she was able to run tearfully towards and gave her a big bear like hug. The mother was so overjoyed to see her daughter was safe and well that she turned to the strange boy and started to thank him for his help. The crowd had been so amazed at what they’d just witnessed.
‘Ho – ho – ho – how did you do that?’ some of them stammered sounding abit scared.
‘I don’t know’ replied the boy. ‘All I know is that I’ve always been able to do what you’ve just seen,’ but just then a voice spoke up from the back of the crowd, and a man – who appeared to be a religious figure dressed in long flowing black robes and carrying a long decorative wooden staff – pushed and barged his way through to the front of the crowd.
After taking one look at the situation before him shouted out,
‘Who has performed this deed on the injured child?’
And several of the crowd nervously pointed towards where the boy was standing. The man suddenly swung around and stared at the boy with fiery eyes.
‘Come here boy’ the man demanded in a menacing voice.
With the arrival of this man, the mood of the crowd seemed to suddenly change from astonishment to a tense feeling of fear. The people appeared to be more afraid of this man than with what they’d just witnessed when the boy had healed the child.
By now the boy had started to regret stopping to help the child, and he was also becoming very wary of the crowds change of mood, he was also very unsure about this man standing before him. The boy’s self-survival instincts seemed to be kicking in. he wanted to run, but with so many people milling around, he knew it was practically impossible for him to do so, for he’d never be able to run very far. With what seemed like no other choice in the matter, he slowly and carefully made his way over towards where the man was standing. Once he’d reached the man, he was grabbed by his chin, and his head was forced upwards until he was looking directly into the mans face. As he looked into the boy’s eyes, he said.
‘Who are you boy? Who are you really?’
The man seemed to be looking deep into the boy’s eyes. It was as if he was trying to look into his very soul. As he was looking into his eyes, the man’s face started to become twisted and contorted, as if he was in silent pain. And his body had also started to shake as if he was shivering with the cold, when all of a sudden he flinched away from the boy as if a great force had pushed him away. Then with what seemed to be exhaustion the man fell to his knees, almost totally falling to the ground.
When he’d recovered himself, he shouted out to the crowd,
‘This is one of the evil one’s who must be destroyed.’
The mother of the child then spoke up.
‘But he helped my little girl, surly he cannot be evil if he can help another child?’
‘That’s one of their tricks,’ replied the man ‘they pretend to help people so that they can gain their trust and then they strike just when you least expect them to. You must destroy him before he destroys you’.
‘What do they do?’ someone shouted.
‘I can’t say’ came back the reply ‘it’s too horrible to tell, all I can say is that whenever any of his kind turn up, death always follows not far behind. No-one is happy to have these people hanging around. We must kill him.’ The man said again in a more forceful tone.
‘But he’s only a child’ someone else shouted.
‘Child or not, he’s still dangerous, but if you want to welcome him into your community, do so. But remember this’ – sweeping the crowd with his staff – ‘so far I have kept you all safe from danger, but this boy could destroy us all. It’s him or you, you choose. Never let it be said that I ever forced you into doing anything that you didn’t want to do’– he added with a sly sound in his voice –.
The boy heard the crowd murmuring among themselves. Then one of the men said, ‘The Reverend is right, we can’t take the risk. We must be rid of this boy so that no harm befalls any of us.’
And the crowd started to slowly advance towards the now petrified looking boy. The boy heard shouts of ‘burn him’ and ‘witch’. He turned to run, but before he could run far, someone had grabbed him from behind and pinned his arms to his sides.
At the first sign of being grabbed, the boy struggled with his attacker. He was struggling so hard, that his attacker found it very hard to keep a good hold of him; he was wriggling furiously like a snake, kicking his legs and feet in all directions. As the rest of the crowd moved forward the Reverend was shouting out to the man, who was trying to keep a hold of him’
‘Don’t let him get away.’
At these words, several other people moved forward – from the main body of the crowd – and tried to grab the boy’s flailing legs.
But the boy was determined not to let anyone else get a really good hold of him. Since his arms were pinned to the side of his body, whenever someone got to close he lashed out with his feet, hitting two or three people in the stomach and other parts of their bodies.
The boy’s struggles were beginning to pay off though, because the person who had first grabbed him was gradually starting to lose his grip on him, until he was forced to let go and drop the boy to the ground. He fell with a dull thud, and when he realised he’d been dropped, the boy was up and off like a jack rabbit so fast before the crowd had realised fully what had happened. But they soon recovered and were off after him in hot pursuit.
~#END FLASHBACK#~
The crowd had managed to get the boy cornered in a dead end alley. There was only one way in and one way out. When he’d turned around he found that his only way out was totally blocked by a solid wall of people, people whom had such a look of hatred on their faces and there wasn’t anywhere left for him to run. A voice from the crowd shouted.
‘Don’t worry kid we’ll make this as painless as possible.’
The boy backed away until his back came up against a brick wall and there wasn’t anywhere left for him to go. He thought this was the end of him, and has he stood there, defiantly looking at the slowly advancing crowd, he was thinking about what had happened to him to reach the predicament he was now in. When all of a sudden there was to be heard the sound of screeching brakes and the alley was suddenly bathed in bright lights. People armed with some sort of guns emerged from the vehicles that had suddenly arrived on the scene. And through all the chaos and commotion a voice of authority came booming through the air ‘STAY WHERE YOU ARE, DON’T MOVE.’
The crowd halted their advance towards the boy, and instead were now looking over towards where the newcomers had appeared and were looking at them with scared looks on their faces.
The people with the guns barged their way through the crowd pushing the people out of the way, creating a clear path towards where the boy was still standing with his back against the wall, staring at the newcomers with a look of astonishment on his face.
One of the men marched down the middle of the crowd and right up to where the boy was standing. Once the man had reached the boy he came to attention in front of him and saying,
‘Sir, we’ve orders to escort you to T.E.C.H. headquarters, if you’d care to follow me.’ The man turned and started to march back in the direction he come from.
The boy quickly thought it over and came to the conclusion that anywhere was better than being where he was at this moment. So he followed the tall figure to one of the vehicles – the crowd watched him as he walked passed – and the man opened the front car’s back door and he climbed onto the back seat, the door was closed behind him and the vehicle slowly moved away from the kerb side.
~#~#~#~#~#
IMPORTANT A/N. I HAVE THE MAIN CARACTER GETTING INTO A STRANGE CAR TO GET AWAY FROM AN ANGRY MOB. PLEASE REMEMBER NOT TO GET INTO STRANGE CARS YOURSELVES.
Chapter Two:- T.E.C.H. headquarters
Whist he was being driven through the city he was beginning to wonder exactly what he’d let himself in for. Getting into the car had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now his curiosity was beginning to kick in. He glanced towards the driver and leant forward and tapped the glass partition that separated the driver area from the passenger seating. The driver lowered the glass partition and the boy asked him what T.E.C.H. was?
The driver said ‘Sorry sir, but I’m not authorised to give out that sort of information. Maybe it would be better if we just let Doctor Williamson explain things to you after we arrive at headquarters’.
‘Alright’ replied the boy sounding a bit unsure, and sat back in the seat.
‘In the mean time sir there’s some soft drinks in the small fridge and also some computer games for you to play if you’d care to.’ Then dropping his voice to a whisper the driver said.
‘Between you and me, the Doctor likes to play the computer games himself.’
The boy opened various small cupboards and quickly found the games, and also the where the monitor and games console was located for him to play the games on. He chose a game called Alien Annihilator Mega Blaster Turbo and put it in the console and turned on the monitor, and whilst that was loading he’d gotten a can of cola from the small fridge, opened it and settled down to play.
Whilst the boy was doing all this, the driver had raised the glass partition, and continued driving. The car drove on through the streets, along Pinces Street , pasiing the West End and along Gorgie Road . After about twenty-five minutes, the vehicle was approaching Dalmahoy and turned a corner to reveal a large set of iron gates. The car slowed and came to a halt at what appeared to be a security check point, a security guard came out of a hut like building and approached the car, the driver opened his window to talk with him. The boy saw that there was another security guard standing by the hut with a large Alsatian dog on a lead, the driver felt in his pocket, and pulled out a small wallet. He opened it and showed something to the guard who nodded his head and then the guard turned to look into the back of the car and stared at the boy, the driver said something to him and he once again nodded his head.
The guard then went into the hut, and through a glass window I noticed him pressing a button set on the wall and the gates started to slowly open. The driver of the car drove forward and continued to drive along a long winding road that led towards a large old style house that could be seen in the distance was set well back from the road and was surrounded by trees. As the car moved towards the house the boy was able to take in the surroundings in more detail. As well as the trees around the house there were also trees spread out to the back of the house and a large expanse of grass to the front of the house.
During the journey up to the house, the boy also noticed a long Metal fence which had warning signs on it at various sections. The notices had writing on them which said DANGER, ELECTRIC FENCE, DO NOT TOUCH; the fence seemed to go right around the property. The boy also noticed a few more guards with dogs moving about in the grounds. After seeing all this he wondered more then ever about what he might have let himself in for.
The car finally stopped before the house at the foot of some stone steps that led up to a large set of wooden double doors. The boy looked out of the car window and saw that the house looked like something from an old mystery or horror movie. It looked really, really old. There were ugly looking statues that were dotted around the top of the house at various intervals. The driver got out of the car, walked around to the other side and opened the passenger side door allowing the boy to exit. As he emerged from the car, one side of the big doors opened, and a man emerged and walked down the steps.
‘Welcome to T.E.C.H. headquarters Christopher, my name is Jackson .’
When Chris first saw Jackson , he saw an elderly man who had silver grey streaky hair and also a slight stoop in his posture, but at the same time with the way he moved he seemed to be full of virility.
‘How do you know my name?’ Chris asked, in a puzzled sounding voice.
‘We know a lot about you Chris. Probably more than you even know about yourself. Even down to the fact that you like to be called Chris. If you’d care to follow me, I’ll take you to see Doctor Williamson.’
And with that Jackson turned around and quickly walked back up the steps and through the front door, with Chris having to run slightly to keep up with him, following closely behind. Once Chris had walked through the front door, Jackson closed it, but didn’t lock it.
Jackson then turned and said ‘This way please’ and then started to briskly stride down a long corridor, Chris once again had to virtually run to keep up with him. As they went along, Chris was taking in his surroundings. They passed many old paintings of people dressed in old fashioned and weird clothes. They also passed suits of metal, Chris asked what they were, and Jackson explained that they were suits of armour. Once worn by people centuries ago for protection when they went into battle.
They continued along the corridor, turning left and right every so often and up some stairs until Jackson came to a stop in front of a certain door. With the suddenness of the stop Chris nearly ran into Jackson , but managed to stop in time. Chris looked up and looked at the door and noticed a small sign that said private. Jackson knocked and a voice said.
‘come in.’
Jackson opened the door and said,
‘Master Christopher Potter Doctor Williamson.’
‘Thank you Jackson ’ came back the reply.
Jackson stood aside and Chris entered the room.
After he’d entered the room Jackson turned and exited closing the door behind him.
When Chris was alone with Doctor Williamson, the Doctor was silent for a few moments, looking Chris over, then he spoke up.
‘Please take a seat Chris,’ indicating a seat at the front of the desk with his hand. Chris sat down, he felt a bit worried about what he may have let himself in for, but his curiosity about what was going on at this place seemed for now to be cancelling a lot of that worry out and getting the better of him.
After Chris had sat down in the chair, the Doctor was silent for a few more moments. He spoke up and said,
‘You appear to be worried Chris, let me assurer you that there’s nothing what so ever to be worried about, your among friends here. Among people who understand about the abilities that you’ve demonstrated.’
Chris looked as if he didn’t believe him. He had after all been living on his wits for the past several months and was used to fending for himself and also being able to sense what people were feeling, but somehow this felt different.
Then the Doctor spoke,
‘Well Chris, You’ve probably been wondering what all this is about.’
‘Well I had kind of wondered’ he replied in a cautious voice.
Chris had been trying to sum up what he thought of the Doctor. Chris was an intelligent boy and could not be fooled by much. And what he saw was a man who looked as he himself couldn’t be fooled by very much either. Chris tried to reach out with his mind so he could some kind of idea of what the Doctor was like. But he seemed to come up against a brick wall. There was no way Chris could penetrate it.
The Doctor smiled, in an amusing sort of way which seemed to indicate that he knew was Chris was trying to do. And he continued.
‘Well in a nutshell, this is a special institute for gifted people like yourself, people who have demonstrated special abilities, and talents.’
‘I don’t know do you mean’ asked Chris.
And with that, Doctor Williamson pressed a button and with a soft humming sound a large screen dropped down from the ceiling, it startled Chris who jumped with fright at the unfamiliar noise. He pressed another button and a picture appeared on the screen. Chris soon realised that he was watching himself from about four weeks ago, when he’d been in a town on the coast. He’d been walking along a cliff top and had heard a man shouting for help. He’d managed to track down where the person was and realised that he’d fallen down the side of the cliff and was now stuck on a ledge. And to make matters worse, the ledge was starting to crumble bit by bit from under the man. So Chris had realised that he wouldn’t have time to go to the town for help, he’d have to help the man right now. He saw himself using his levitation skills to lift the person up from the ledge – without touching him in any way – without the use of a rope or any other climbing aid. Then the scene suddenly changed to what had happened earlier that day.
‘Well’ said Doctor Williamson. ‘Do you still say that you have know idea what I’m talking about, or should we continue?’
After Chris had been shown the footage, he looked at the Doctor and said nervously,
‘How did you get a hold of this?’
‘We have our ways, just like we also know that your homeless and have been living on the streets for the past several months and foraging in dustbins for stuff to survive, and stealing what clothes you need of clothes lines’ said the Doctor.
‘What do you want?’ asked Chris in a resigned sort of voice.
‘Good I like someone who is direct and to the point. Well simply put, we’d like you to consider joining our little organisation.’
‘And what does this organisation do?’ asked Chris in an, I don’t care sort of voice.
‘Well’ said the Doctor ignoring the tone of voice that Chris had just used. ‘We take specially gifted people like yourself and train them to use their powers wisely. And in return we’d like you to help us combat a particular sort of crime.’
‘And what sort of crime is that?’ asked Chris who’s interest was starting to perk up a bit.
‘You’ll find out later, that is if you decide to join us and develop your skills.’
But before Chris could say anything more, an alarm sounded and the Doctor pressed a button on his desk’
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
A voice replied that there was a problem in the time barrier.
‘What kind of problem?’ he asked.
‘Well it looks like someone or something has been sent back in time, but all the time lines appear to be intact indicating everything or everyone are where they should be.’
The Doctor thought for a few moments then said’
‘Okay, I’ll be right there.’
Turning to Chris he said,
‘Well Chris it looks like you’ll be finding out what we do here at T.E.C.H. sooner than we’d planned, because for security reasons your going to have to come with me.’
With that the Doctor got up out of his chair and walked around his desk and over to the door and opened it, he stood there waiting for Chris to join him.
Chris had remained in his seat, unsure what to do. He’d didn’t know if he should get up or stay where he was. When he noticed that the Doctor was waiting at the door for him to join him, he jumped up out of his chair because by now Chris – though still a bit anxious – was quite curious about what actually went on at this facility, so he needed no more persuasion to join the Doctor at the door and follow him into the corridor.
They walked along various corridors together until they reached a set of lift doors. The Doctor pressed a button and Chris heard the sound of machinery sounding in the distance. Then a loud Tinging noise sounded and the doors opened. The two of them stepped into the lift and the Doctor said.
‘Level minus fourteen.’
Then a metallic sounding voice cried out,
‘INTRUDER, UNAUTHORISED PERSON DETECTED IN MAIN LIFT.’ The Doctor quickly replied,
‘System override, imput emergency override code Alpha, Mike, Golf one, one nine three two one Alpha.’
‘Voice print identification confirmed, override Code accepted,’ replied the voice ‘System resetting, you may proceed.
And the life doors closed, as the lift to move downwards. The Doctor seemed to have an idea and he spoke to the computer.
‘Computer, take a note of the physical form and imprint the voice of the person with me in the lift. He is to have level four security access to the establishment.’
‘System working… physical form of subject logged,’ said the mechanical voice, ‘Require vocal sample of voice to be used for voice print identification.’
The Doctor then whispered,
‘Say something to the computer Chris,’
‘Such as what? Replied Chris out loud.
‘Voice print logged, subject now has level four security access to limited areas in the establishment’ continued the voice of the computer.
It didn’t take long before Chris realised that not only were they going downwards, but they were also moving down underground. Chris could not help but wonder what was going on in this place that it all needed to be done so deep underground. After several seconds had gone by, the lift stopped and the doors opened to reveal a sight that took Chris’s breath away.
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Three:- Start Of The Journey
They had both emerged from the lift into what looked like a massive control room of some sort. There were various assortment of large and small monitors on the walls and also terminals of various sizes dotted around the floor area, and upon closer inspection, they were found to be monitoring heartbeat, blood pressure, brain activity and various other important bodily functions. Other monitors seemed to be monitoring some kind of waves or ripples, but for the moment the Doctor didn’t seem interested in any of this. All he appeared to be interested in for the time being was something at the other end of the control room.
So the Doctor quickly strode over towards where a man was sitting looking at a smaller monitor, Chris had to virtually run to keep step with him, for the Doctor was taking long strides.
‘Ok Steve, what have we got?’ the Doctor asked stopping before a man sitting at a smaller monitor.
‘Well, we seemed to have some sort of spike that seemed to indicate something or someone had gone back in time, but now as you can see – with a sweep of his hand towards the monitor – everything seems to be in its proper place.’
‘Well run an analysis to determine whether or not what you saw was organic or inorganic.’
‘Yes sir Doctor Williamson’ replied the technician.
And with a well practiced hand, the mans fingers zipped over the controls, pressing button after button.
After a few moments of furious activity he stopped doing what he was doing and then said,
‘Ahhh that’s funny.’
‘What’s funny?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Well, the analysis seems to indicate that whatever was sent back in time was organic, but not only that, there also appeared for a few minutes to be two of the same person in the same time frame. Then there was only one of that same person.’
The Doctor then asked, ‘can we pin point the exact year and location?’
‘Yes’ replied the technician, he pressed a few more buttons and replied,
‘The year was Eighteen Ninety-one and the Location appeared to be the village of Godrics Hollow .
Just then, at that moment there was a video call for Doctor Williamson, he went over to a console at another work station and pressed a button, and I noticed a screen lighting up revealing the face of a female. Even from my position across the room, I noticed that the conversation was quite intense, and after a minute or two had passed the Doctor pressed another button and the screen turned off. He came back over to where Chris was standing; he appeared to be deep in thought.
The Doctor stood there silent for a few seconds, and then he began to talk.
‘Who do we know that was famous and lived in that village that showed up on that last spike?’
The technician that was operating the monitor pressed a few more buttons and said,
‘Albus Dumbledore.’
‘Darn,’ said the Doctor ‘I was afraid of that. One of our Special Forces units has just raided a warehouse and found people in who’re in some kind of cryo genic sleep. And we also found evidence of cloning technology. It looks like someone has been cloning people and sending the clone back through time and space, replacing them with the original people. The originals are then sent forward in time to the present day and put into cryo genic sleep, no doubt to stop them from realising that there was anything wrong and to keep them incapacitated. A Ten year old Albus Dumbledore was identified in one of the cryo sleep modules.’
‘But that’s impossible’ said the technician. ‘He was one of the most revered Wizards in Wizarding history. Why would anyone want to clone him and then send his clone back in history to replace him when he was just a boy? It doesn’t really make sense. Anyway we would have picked up something, like a change in the timeline or something.’
‘I think we did pick up a change, remember the spike that you spotted earlier in Godrics Hollow, you spotted two spikes that indicated that there were two of the same person, and then there was only one of that person.’ The Doctor turned away thinking. When he turned back he said,
‘What if the Dumbledore that we know from history was replaced by a cloned copy that was sent back to replace the original version. And the clone was the one meant to start the Second Wizarding War, and kill all those people. We do know after all that the one known as he who must not be named started that war and Albus at the time was a main supporter and active member of the Order of The Phoenix that opposed him and his forces. I can only assume at this juncture that the clone was sent back for some reason, so that he could change history.’
The Doctor – after thinking about what he’d just said – suddenly turned around.
‘Right I think for the moment we have enough information to call a red alert situation. I want team one put together at once. Anyways it’s about time that the rest of the guys met the latest possible addition to their team.’ Turning towards Chris as he said this.
‘Tell the team to meet in meeting room briefing room one in one hour. And Steve, could you stay with Chris for the time being and show him where he’ll be sleeping and make sure he makes the briefing on time.’
‘Sure’ replied Steve.
And with that Doctor Williamson walked slowly away, he appeared to still be deep in thought, going through another door at the far end of the room.
Steve turned to Chris saying ‘Come on, I’ll show you to your room Chris.’ Steve and Chris walked away and both disappeared through the same door that the Doctor and he had entered by earlier.
The two of them entered the lift and Steve said, ‘Level minus seven.’
The lift shot upwards for a few seconds then stopped and opened its doors to reveal a long corridor with doors leading off of it.
Steve lead the way ‘the next three levels are the main living quarters for all the staff within the compound that your in.’ Explained Steve, ‘in other words Chris, your now in the accommodation section.’
Steve continued along the corridor until he came to a door, which he opened by pressing a series of buttons on a display set into the wall on the right side of the door. Then turning to Chris he gave him a slip of paper with a six digit number on it.
‘This is your combination lock code. You’ll need to remember it so that you can get back into your room whenever you come and go.’
When the lock was released, and the door opened, Chris saw his room. He saw that it was very spacious; it had a single bed along with a desk and a wardrobe. The floor was carpeted and the bed had a duvet cover on it. And on the bed Chris saw a new set of clothes. Then Steve spoke.
‘Later on you can decorate the room any way that you want, but for now you’d better get ready for the meeting. You can have a shower through that door’ – indicating a door, which led into a bathroom –, ‘and I see that Jackson has already laid out a complete change of clothes for you to wear.’
Chris noticed that there was also a window that was showing a seaside view, which puzzled him. He turned to Steve saying,
‘I thought we were underground?’
‘We are’ came back the reply.
‘But this window has a view of the outside.’
‘I know’ replied Steve with a smile.
‘But how is that possible?’ asked Chris.
‘Well, you could say that it’s all down to a special holographic technology that we have. It’ll all be explained to you in full later on. But for now, you’d better get ready for the briefing. I’ll leave you to get washed and changed, I’ll be back to get you in about an hour and take you to the meeting room.’
Steve left the room closing the door behind him.
Once Chris was alone, he felt for the first time – since as long as he could remember – that he really finally belonged somewhere. He didn’t even feel out of place here. He’d a strange feeling that he may have finally found a home. He smiled and immediately started to get ready for the meeting. He went into the bathroom and walked over to the shower booth. He turned on the shower, and ran his hand under the water; Chris seemed to revel in the hot water. It had been so long since he’d last had a good hot shower, or even a bath. There hadn’t been much time for such luxuries whilst he’d been on the run.
Chris suddenly got undressed and step into the shower booth. He ran his hands through his hair totally wetting his head, and then he got the shampoo and soap and gave himself a complete clean, feeling refreshed afterwards.
After about an hour, Chris was just finishing getting ready, and was putting the finishing touches to his new attire – tucking the hem of his new light blue T-shirt into the waistband of his new light brown long length shorts – when Steve came back and knocked on Chris’s door.
Chris was surprised when he’d heard the knock, and was even more surprised when nobody had just walked in. When Chris had been with foster parents or in any of the state’s children’s homes – before he’d run away – he’d never ever, gotten any privacy. People had just walked into his – or even anyone’s – room. When the knock came again, he replied
‘Come in.’
Steve entered saying ‘Right Chris, if your ready I’ll take you along to the briefing room.’
‘If you hang on for a minute Steve I’ll just get my new socks and trainers on, and comb my wet hair.’
‘No problem’ Steve replied.
Once Chris had finished getting ready, they left the room and walked down the corridor back towards the lift. As they walked along Chris apologised about the slight delay before he’d said come in, and he explained briefly about how he wasn’t used to all the stuff that was going on, and how he’d never gotten any privacy before.
‘Well Chris, in this organisation we respect everyone’s right to privacy. Sometimes it can be difficult, but we try and give whatever privacy where we can. That’s why I wouldn’t enter your room until you’d replied for me to come in.’
When they’d reached the lift doors, Steve pressed the button to summon it, the doors opened immediately, the both of them got in. Steve then said,
‘Level minus twelve.’
The doors closed and the lift descended to level twelve. They both exited and Chris followed Steve and both of them walked along until Steve stopped in front of a door. Steve opened the door and walked in, with Chris close behind.
The room that Chris found himself in was a plain sort of room with a long table that ran down the centre; the table could sit about twelve people at a stretch. The room was also carpeted with what looked like carpet tiles, and a large white screen attached to the wall, and what looked like an overhead projector attached to the ceiling. There were already a few people in the room when Chris arrived – five in total including Doctor Williamson –, they all turned their faces towards the door when the two of them entered and then the Doctor spoke up.
‘Hello Chris, it’s good to see you again. And – looking him over – you look a bit more presentable this time.’ Then turning to the rest of the people in the room he introduced him, ‘Right everyone, I’d like you to meet Chris, he’ll be joining you as an observer on this mission, and if all goes well he might very well be joining you on the team. Right Chris, let me introduce you to the other people you might be working with. From left to right we have Peter, Angie, Andrew and finally Elizabeth who’s the eldest and is also the team leader, and by the way, be warned, she likes to be called Liz. She doesn’t like to be called Elizabeth, so call her that at your own risk.
The people nodded their heads towards Chris as each of them was introduced and also gave him a welcoming smile, and Chris in turn nodded back to each of them also smiling. Chris was studying his new potential team-mates; Liz looked about Seventeen and had long strawberry blond hair that reached halfway down her back, she also had dark blue kind eyes and a kind face though Chris noticed that her mouth – even though was smiling – had a serious look as if she stood no nonsense from anyone. Peter looked about Fifteen and had jet black hair and brown hazel eyes and looked kind enough though, he looked a bit surly, Chris thought that he’d reserve judgement on him for the time being. Angie looked about Fourteen and had long brown hair which reached just passed her shoulders. She had Emerald green eyes that sparkled every time she smiled. And last but not least, there was Andrew. He appeared to be about Thirteen years old, blue grey eyes, dark brown crew cut hair and
a jolly looking face. If he was to join them he would be the youngest member of the team, being only Eleven years old, Chris liked the look of them. Then the Doctor got down to the serious business about what was happening.
‘Right folks, we have an emergency Eighteen ninety-one England , Godricks Hollow to be exact. We’ve discovered that someone has been cloning various people and sending them back in time and then replacing the originals with them and bringing the originals back to the present day and putting them into cryo genic sleep. And for the benefit of those who do not know what cryo genic sleep is, it’s a form of sleep where it’s like being frozen in time. The ageing process is slowed right down until it almost doesn’t exist, and when your revived later it seems as if no time has past by what so ever. You look the same as when you went into the cryo chamber.’
‘Now one of our Special Forces units has found a warehouse, and in that building we’ve found scientific equipment that’s used in the development of cloning. And as well as the cloning equipment, we’ve also found a Ten year old Albus Dumbledore.’
At the mention of this name there was a collective gasp from the members of the group. Each looking at each other Though not Chris since he’d never heard of the name until now. The Doctor continued
‘But when we checked the time lines everything was as it should be, accept at one point when we saw two blips which seemed to indicate two of the same person in the same era at the same time, but that only lasted a minute or two. So we checked the Albus we’d found and discovered him to be have been jinxed with some spell which after running some tests turned out to be stupyfy and also after various other test it was revealed that he was the original Albus. So all the evidence at this time seems to indicate that there is another Albus Dumbledore in the past, and with everything that we’ve found in that warehouse it looks like he’s a cloned version.’
After the Doctor had said all this he’d paused to let what he’d just said sink in. Then he continued.
‘Now your mission will be to go back to Eighteen ninty-one, find the clone and keep him under observation for the time being and at some point later on you’ll have to swap the two of them back. But in the meantime the clone was sent back for a reason, and if you can find out why it would help tremendously in our investigations.
The boy called Andrew then spoke up,
‘Doctor, why would anyone want to replace someone with a clone of that person?’
Whereas the Doctor replied,
At this time we’re not sure, because we can only surmise at this point that it’s someone who wants to change history for some reason to suit themselves. We also found small electronic devices that are usually implanted into the heads of people, and attached to their brains. These devices are banned because they’re used to control people, and these people are made to do whom evers bidding, and also tests that have been done on these devices have shown that with prolong exposure the implanted person is likely to go psychotic. So for the moment, with the discovery of these devices it leads us to believe that the clone may have such an implant in their head and being controlled by someone to meet their own means. So whilst we’re finding out what that is at this end, you people will need to go back in time and track down the clone and for the time being keep him under observation until we contact you with further instructions. Here are some photographs of the boy – handing photos to each team member. They saw a boy of ten years old with dark coloured hair and dark brown eye’s looking back at them. In fact he looked like any other boy that you’d see walking down the street in the world, any day of the week – so that you’ll know what he looks like when you arrive in his time period. Right folks, you’ll need to go to the Memory Intergration room to do some quick revision of the time period that you’ll be visiting, and then you’ll need to go to the costume department after that.’
Then the Doctor turned to Chris,
‘Just follow the rest and they’ll show you where to go.’
So Chris got up with the rest of the team and followed them out of the door and into a room a couple of doors down from the briefing room. When he’d entered the memory room Chris immediately spotted several chairs – which reminded him of dentist chairs –. A man indicated one of the chairs to Chris; he walked forward and sat down. Then the man lowered something that looked like a pair of glasses over his eyes, the man went on to explain,
‘Don’t worry, this won’t hurt you.’
‘What does it do?’ asked Chris.
‘Well, it’ll help you to quickly absorb and learn the culture and ways of the time period which you’ll be going to, that way you’ll not be to surprised by some of the strange things that you’ll find there. And you’ll also be able to blend in more effectively with the people of that era, if you know about it in advance.’
So a switch was turned on and what looked like small t.v. screens appeared to switch on, on the inside of the glasses, and Chris was able to see images before his eyes, showing him various pictures of Eighteen Nineties England. He saw images of the way people lived – from the poor to the well off – and the way they were dressed. He saw many images that flashed by his eyes. After what seemed a long time – but had been in reality about thirty seconds – the machine was switched off. When Chris emerged from the machine, he was amazed by what he’d just seen, he was heard to say,
‘WOW that was amazing. That was quite a trip, what just happened?’ The guy who had hooked him up replied,
‘You’ve just absorbed twenty years of knowledge in just thirty seconds’ and Chris once more stated
‘Wow.’
‘You now have all the information that you need to pass yourself off in an otherwise alien environment,’ the man concluded.
Once all the others had been put through the memory machines, they exited that room and the group proceeded further down the corridor and into another room, now this room really was big. It was vast. It held rack upon rack of clothes that belonged to many different time periods. There were a couple of women who worked in this area. They appeared to be in charge of all the clothing that was used on the missions that all the teams went on. So once they knew which era they were going to they set about getting the proper attire ready for them.
Chris being the youngest team member was kitted out in a stiff collared white shirt with a waistcoat, a jacket, a large bow tie that looked like a bow on a Christmas present, a air of knickerbocker trousers, a pair of woollen knee length stockings and a pair of sturdy dark brown boots. The older boy’s were kitted out much the same except they were issued with what looked like proper ties and proper trousers instead of knickerbockers. They were also given canvas bags to carry. The girls were issued with what looked like silken colourful dresses and stockings and white shoes for their feet and bonnets on their heads.
After they’d been dressed in the clothes of the time period, Chris was taken to one side and escorted to the infirmary – while the rest of the team went elsewhere –. Where, upon arrival Chris was asked to take his jacket off and roll up his shirtsleeve, which he did. Then a Doctor injected something into his arm – just under the skin –.
‘What was that?’ asked Chris curiously.
‘It’s a recall device, which you press and you’ll automatically be recalled back to the present time.’ Replied the Doctor. ‘ There is also a locator incorporated into it to enable us to track you in an emergency. Now one more thing to take before you put your jacket back on, and that’s a blood sample.’ Once the sample was obtained, Chris put his jacket back on.
While Chris was doing all this, Doctor Williamson had quietly entered the infirmary and said,
‘All finished?’
Startled by his sudden appearance Chris nodded his head.
‘Right, it’s time to get you and the rest of the team on your way. The others are waiting for you in the time departure room.’
Doctor Williamson then led the way out of the infirmary and back down to level minus twelve. When they’d once again reached the control room, the Doctor went over to a door – set in the wall opposite to the door they’d just entered by – and opened it.
They entered a small room that had another door at the far end. The Doctor and Chris had to wait for the first door to close behind them before a security guard would allow them to pull open the next door. Once the other door was released, Chris followed the Doctor and into a very large room, much larger than the main control room. If the control room had amazed Chris before, that was nothing compared to what he was looking at now. What he saw left him totally speechless.
~#~#~#~#~#~
Chapter Four:- The Time Machine
Again, like in the control room he saw a lot of monitors and various other equipment standing around in the middle of the floor and against the walls. But what amazed him even more was the sight of a large cylindrical object in the very centre of the room. And as he looked up, Chris saw that its height seemed to reach right up to the ceiling. – And that in itself was very high up –. The rest of the team were waiting at the foot of a ramp that led up to an open door that was set in the side of the object. Both the Doctor and Chris walked up to the others and the Doctor said,
‘Well everyone, good luck with the mission and come back safe and – turning to Chris – especially to you Chris, good luck on your first mission.’ Then he turned around and exited through the same door that he and Chris had entered by a few moments before and disappeared. With that the team walked up the ramp and entered the object.
At the door Chris hesitated. Liz, – who was just behind him – said,
I know it looks a bit daunting Chris, but don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks.’ And with that encouragement he entered and sat down in one of the seats that were vacant, and watching the others he copied what they were doing. He pulled some straps over his shoulders and up between his legs, and was trying to attach the two sets of straps together across his chest. But as he was having trouble trying to make them both connect up together, the front door was slammed shut with a clang and locked from the outside. At the sound, Chris looked up with some apprehension.
At that moment Liz looked up to check on the progress of everyone, and seeing that Chris was having trouble with the straps. So undoing her straps she went over and helped him out of his difficulties. Then when she’d finished that job – receiving a grateful smile from Chris – and strapped herself back into her seat, she looked around to make sure everyone else was secure and being satisfied, she turned and flicking a switch set into the wall spoke into a microphone and said,
‘Okay control, team one is ready for deployment.’
A voice answered.
‘Roger team one, deployment will commence in t minus one minute and counting.’
Chris’s heart was beating, as if someone was beating a drum very fast. A voice then started to count down from sixty. And as the countdown commenced the object that he was in started to revolve. Very slowly at first, but with every second that passed it picked up speed and went faster and faster. As the object picked up speed, Chris felt himself being pushed back into the seat with the force of the spinning. Chris started to go pale in the face, and also started to feel queasy. He tried closing his eyes, but that seemed to make matters worse. Then he felt someone taking a hold of his hand. He opened his eyes and looked up. Chris saw that it was Liz who was holding his hand and was smiling an encouraging smile at him. He managed to smile back at her.
‘Keep looking at me and it won’t feel so bad.’
Chris had heard Liz say the words, but was sure that he hadn’t seen her lips moving. Chris seemed to have heard the voice in his head. But at that moment Chris had other things to worry about. So Chris kept his eyes on Liz’s eyes and in so doing he seemed to feel strength and encouragement flow into him. By the time the countdown reached zero, he felt nice and calm. He felt a type of peace that he’d never experienced before. When the voice reached zero, Chris felt a sudden lunge and it felt as if his insides were being turned inside out. He felt like he was being torn apart, it was only when the revolving started to slow down did Chris start to feel a bit more like himself.
When the revolving finally stopped, Chris was amazed to find that he was no longer in the object that he’d started out in. instead he found that he was now outside in the open air lying on his back on some grass staring up at a bright blue sky. He sat up and looked around, blinking his eyes in the sudden bright sunshine.
‘Where are we?’ he asked.
But before anyone could reply to his question, Chris suddenly turned over and threw up on the grass.
‘Well look at that,’ said Peter – with a laugh – ‘guess who can’t handle time travel?’
Liz walked over to Chris and put her arm around his shoulders.
‘Don’t worry about it’ she said – casting a vicious look in the direction of Peter – everybody’s sick the first couple of times, it’ll take your body a bit of time to get used to the sudden change.’ And then in a whispered voice Liz said, ‘You should have seen Peter being sick when he’d first time travelled, he’d kept it going for nearly two minutes.’
Chris snorted with laughter at what Liz had just said.
Then she turned and said ‘is everyone else alright?’ Everyone else nodded their heads. Once she’d established all was ok, she took a flat round object out of her bag and pressing a button on the side the lid flipped up. After pressing another button on the inside Liz spoke into it.
‘Team one to control; we’ve all arrived safely and in good condition. No injuries to report.’ After a moment a voice replied,
‘Roger team one, message received and understood.’
‘What’s that’ asked Chris as Liz started to put the device away in her bag.
‘It’s a communication device that allows us to stay in touch with our control room in the future.’
‘Amazing’ he replied. But before Liz had put her communicator fully away another voice could be heard coming from it.
‘Team one this is Doctor Williamson, do you read me, over?’
Liz opened the device and replied
‘Yes Doctor Williamson we read you. Pass your message, over.’
‘New information has been obtained concerning the clone. We’ve found out from records that we retrieved that the clone has been Genetically Engineered with special abilities. It has virtually the same powers and abilities that you all have. So you must be extremely careful. Only defend yourselves if you are attacked, over.’
‘Message received and understood Doctor, over and out.’
Then she let go of the send button and returned the communicator to her bag. Turning to the rest of her team Liz said,
‘Well you heard the man. We only attack when we’re attacked, not before, understood?’
And everyone nodded their heads.
‘Good – looking around her – now the village is about a mile North of us that’s in that direction – pointing –. Were going to have to walk so the sooner we get started, the sooner we get there.’
So they all set out to cross the field that they’d landed in and out of a gate at the far end that led into a country lane. Once they’d exited the field, Liz closed the gate behind them and they set off along the lane.
They soon came to a road, and began to walk along the grass verge. As they walked along, they passed several people, but thanks to the well prepared planning in advance they seemed to pass without drawing attention to themselves. Any people they passed never gave them a second glance. People must have thought they were brothers and sisters. They also kept a sharp look out for any boys that they met and tried to match them up to the description and the photo that they’d committed to memory back at base. But any that they did meet didn’t meet the criteria, so they continued to walk towards Godrics Hollow.
Once they’d reached the village they made for the most logical place to start their search, the village square. When they arrived at their destination Liz said
‘It would be better if we split up, we’ll be able to search the village much more effectively that way. Right Andrew, you search the Eastern side, Peter you search the Northern end, Angie you search the Southern end whilst Chris and myself will take the Western end of the village. Remember to keep in touch through telepathy with your progress, and also if you spot anything, even if you’re unsure get in touch.’ Liz looked at the church clock and saw that the time was Eleven o’clock, ‘Ok, it’s Eleven now, we’ll meet back here in one hour, Ok, lets move.’
Everyone moved off to their designated search areas. Chris and Liz moving towards the Western end of the village and started their search.
Once Chris and Liz had reached the area that they were to check, Liz said
‘Chris, you cross over and check the doors on the other side of the road; you know what were looking for.’
So with a nod of his head, Chris crossed over the road and started looking at the doors for any names or numbers, Liz looked over the doors on her side and found nothing.
They’d been searching for just over forty five minutes and had almost given up hope and were about to head back to the square when all of a sudden Chris spotted a boy who looked just like the photo. He was about the right age and was dressed in a similar way to the way he was dressed. Chris signaled to Liz and she crossed over and joined him. Chris pointed the boy out and Liz said
‘Well done Chris’ and they started to follow him. Then all of a sudden Chris heard a voice in his head.
‘Ok everyone, Chris and I have found him, we’ll follow him and keep you up to date on his movements.’
Chris jumped slightly at the sudden voice that he’d heard and he looked over hurriedly towards Liz and he saw that she hadn’t moved her lips. And Chris remembered that something similar had happened during the trip through time. He’d heard her voice then as well but hadn’t seen her mouth move that time either.
Then Chris heard other voices and realized that it was the other team members replying that they’d await her instructions. Chris looked at Liz and said
‘What were those voices that I heard in my head?’
‘That was me getting in touch with the others to let me know that we’d found our boy.’
‘But how did you do that without the use of a radio? And also without moving your lips?’
‘Through telepathy’.
‘Through what?’ asked Chris in a confused voice?
‘Through telepathy’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’ll explain later, it’ll be part of your training if you decide to join us. But for now we have more important things to worry about. Let’s sort out that clone and find out what he’s up to.’
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Five:- The Green Orb.
The boy version of Dumbledore led them down a side street where he went into a baker’s shop. When he came out he was carrying a loaf of bread; he then retraced his steps and walked back up the road the way that they’d come. He led them up and down quite a few streets before he finally entered a door on a road called Merlin’s Lane. Liz and Chris crept up to the door and walking passed it, noted what the number was which was 9. Liz once again used telepathy to speak to the others, and this time it didn’t quite take Chris by surprise when he heard the voices.
‘Search team one to all teams, have followed the subject to a house at number 9 Merlin’s Lane. There is a small cafe just across the road from the person’s house, meet myself and Chris here and we’ll fill you in on the details.’
After the rest of the other search teams had confirmed the message, Liz and Chris walked across to the café they’d spotted. Liz ordered a coffee and Chris a glass of Orange juice. They took their drinks over to a table by the window, so that they could have a clear view of the house across the road.
After about twenty minutes had passed the rest of the group had arrived at the café and trooped inside. They walked up to the counter and placed their orders for various drinks and went and sat with Liz and Chris. Once everyone was present at the table, Andy asked,
‘Which house does he stay in?’
And Liz pointed towards a door stating,
‘That house across the street, the one with the royal blue door.’
So the Team waited in the café. After about ten minutes had passed by – during which time they had spotted six boys heading up a path at the side of the house – there had been no sign of movement from within the house it self, and there was also none on the outside either. After another twenty minutes the café owner was starting to stare at the group a bit suspiciously. Liz – spotting this – was about to get up and suggest that they move on, when all of a sudden the front door of the house opened and they saw Albus coming out.
He headed away from the house and up the same path that the other boys had gone along, set behind the house. The team got up and exited the café and followed Albus along the path and across open country. There was a danger of being seen, but thankfully the subject seemed intent on watching where he was going. He appeared to be heading towards some steep hills that they could all see in the distance. After about ten minutes they’d indeed reached the a for mentioned hills and observed him entering a large cave. The team halted and waited for a few minutes, when they were sure that he wasn’t coming out again in a hurry, they crept forward to the cave entrance and stopped and listened.
‘Right’ said Liz,
‘I want Andy and Angie to stay here and cover the rest of us while we go into the cave to see if we can discover anything. If you’re attacked remember that you can only stun with your wands.’ So whilst Liz, Peter and Chris entered the cave, Angie and Andy drew their wands and took up defensive positions.
Once Liz and the others had entered the cave, the world seemed to go pitch black, she uttered a word – Lumos – and a light started to glow, lighting up the path ahead. Chris saw that she’d – just like the others – drawn a stick like object and had produced a light from the end. They continued to creep cautiously forward. As they continued to walk further into the cave they came across various other passageways that joined onto the one the main one that they were in. every time they came to a corner they carefully peered around it, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. As far as they could see the cave looked just like any other cave that you’d see anywhere. After about five minutes of walking along dark caverns, they saw a bright green light shining in the distance, and they also heard the sound of voices, they sounded like they were chanting. As they moved forwards, the voices grew louder. When they turned into another corridor they saw the green light shining out of an inner cave entrance, and the light was reflecting of the walls. They continued to move forward and once at the entrance to the inner cave, they peered round the corner, what they saw amazed the three of them. They could not believe what they were seeing; they saw a large shining orb that was green in colour, and emitting a green light, and it was floating about four metres off the ground.
The six boys that the team had observed going up the hill were standing in a circle, and The Albus clone was standing in the centre directly underneath the large green orb. There was a bright glowing line of light coming from the orb and it was coming straight down and going through into the clone and channelled from him to the boys forming the outer circle. The six boys were holding out their arms wide open and the light formed an unbroken circle, going from one boy to the other.
‘Together’ said the clone ‘we’ll rule the known world. We’ll – as we grow – become a big powerful organisation in which no ne will be able to stop us. You my friends will become my trusted lieutenants, and will lead the rest of my followers to total victory, the will be ours. While the norms have a puny war, we’ll be building up a following that will be the ultimate force on this planet, and we’ll rule supreme over everyone else. And when the war to come is over, and everything is in turmoil, we’ll just walk right in and take over.’
And the six boys were chanting and repeating what the Albus clone was saying in slow drawn out voices.
Chris was watching what was happening. And was amazed at what he was seeing.
‘What are they doing’ he asked to no one in particular.
‘It’s a form of brain washing’ replied Liz. ‘The clone is trying to bend the boys will around to his way of thinking. He doesn’t want them to have any free will of their own. Once he’s finished with them, it’ll be like their brains are empty. They’ll only remember what he wants them to, like stuff about their families so that no one will be suspicious. Then he fills up the rest of their minds with mindless rubbish, like, inciting racial hatred towards norms – also known has Muggles –. They’ll be virtually like automatons, doing his bidding.
Liz tried to get in touch with the others at the cave entrance. But for some reason she found that her telepathy was useless, she couldn’t get through no matter how hard she tried.
‘Peter’ she whispered. ‘I can’t seem to get through to the others with my telepathy, see if you can get through using yours.’
So Chris and Liz watched Peter while he tried, and judging by the look on his face – for they thought he was going to burst a blood vessel – he was certainly trying hard. But eventually even he had to give up, sadly looking towards Liz and shaking his head from side to side, he’d been unable to get through.
‘Sorry Liz’ was all he could say.
‘We’d better get out of here and report what we’ve observed to Doctor Williamson. There must be some sort of interference in these caves, which prevents us from using our telepathy.’
They turned back and started to retrace their steps back through the maze of caverns. When all of a sudden Peter stubbed his toe quite hard on a jutting out piece of rock, he let out a shout of pain. He tried to stifle the yell by putting his hand over his mouth but he was to late, for a moment the sound reverberated around the cave. Liz and Chris halted and listened for a few seconds to see if they’d been discovered, but all remained silent. No doubt thinking that they were undiscovered, they continued to walk cautiously away from the inner cave area.
The seven boys in the large cavern had indeed heard him, and slowly turned their heads in the direction from whence the noise had come from. They then turn their faces back towards the clone and awaited his instructions. The Albus clone had also turned his head towards the sound and suddenly there was a glowing green light coming from his eyes. He seemed to be concentrating on the wall; it was almost as if he could see through the solid stone. Then an evil sneer came over his face, he turned to one of the boys and said’
‘Follow who ever that is and report back to me. But do not interfere with them what so ever for the time being. At least not until I say so.’
The boy he’d chosen gave him a brief bow and set off to follow our intrepid heroes. In the meantime, Peter, Chris and Liz – thinking that they were still undiscovered – continued to creep along the caverns – with the boy following closely behind them – until they came to the cave entrance. The others were still waiting there for their return with worried looks on their faces.
‘What happened’ asked Andy.
‘We were worried about you; you were gone for quite a long time. Why didn’t you use telepathy?’
‘I tried, but for some reason I couldn’t get through to you. There was some sort of interference’ Liz and the other two knelt beside their comrades.
‘Have there been any problems at this end since we’ve been gone?’ asked Liz.
‘None’ replied Paul. ‘Why’d you ask?’
‘Because we’ve just witnessed the clone recruiting six boys to be the future leaders of the movement that he’s starting up. And for all we know he may already have other people in on the act already. So we’ll have to be on the look out for anything or anyone acting suspiciously towards us from now on, because anyone could be out to try and stop us. Right lets get away from here, and get in touch with headquarters, this place is starting to give me the creeps.’
So the five of them got up and set off down the same path that led towards the town. But just before they came to the path exit that led into the town, they came across an old derelict house, which they went into. After going into an room that looked like it was more stable that the rest of the house, Liz pulled out the small communicator from her bag and tried to call the Doctor, but for some reason could not make contact. It seemed to be the same sort of interference that had inhibited their telepathic powers.
In the meantime – unknown to them – the boy who’d been sent to follow them had followed them to the house and had over heard their every word. The boy inched forward a bit more, but he’d kicked a small stone and set it rolling along the floor. The team heard the noise and Liz said,
‘Who’s there?’ the boy – realising that he’d been discovered – ran off. Peter saw the boy running away and said
‘It’s only a kid, nothing to worry about, he must have been curious about what was happening.’
‘I hope he didn’t overhear anything’ replied Liz. ‘Right, we have to get away from here and find somewhere away from this interference so that we can get in touch with the Doctor and let him know what we’ve found out.’
So once again they set off down the same path they’d been on earlier and headed back towards the village square. But just before they got to the square, they came across another derelict building. When they looked inside it they found that that there were enough rooms for them to provide uninterrupted conversation with each other, and also allow them to try once again to get in touch with the control room back at base.
They entered the building and Liz immediately got the radio out of her bag and said,
‘Team one to time control, team one to time control, do you copy, over.’ A voice replied
‘Team one this is time control; pass your message, over.’
‘Thank goodness’ said Liz with a thankful sigh ‘We got through to you this time, we couldn’t earlier, time control could you please put me on a secure channel to Doctor Williamson, over.’
‘Stand by team one, putting you through now.’
After a couple of seconds had passed by, they heard Doctor Williamson on the radio.
‘Team one this is Doctor Williamson. What have you managed to find out about our friend? Over.’
Then Liz went into a lengthy detailed report about what they’d witnessed, and at the end of the report wanted to know what to do next about the situation.
‘It sounds to me as if the sooner we get the clone exchanged for the original the better things will be. So your main aim just now will be to immobilise the clone and capture him. Then once you’ve achieved that objective, you get back in touch with me and let me know when he’s under wraps, then we can exchange the two and hopefully there won’t be to much damage to the time line.’
Chapter Six:- Overcoming Obstacles
In the mean time, the boy who’d followed them to the first building had returned to the inner cave and was making a report to the cloned version of Albus, and was telling about everything he’d observed. About the gadgets that he’d seen and anything else.
‘Sooooo, their from the future’ replied the clone in a slow quiet drawn out voice, ‘Well, they’ll soon wish they’d never come back in time to interfere with my plans.’ Turning to the other boy’s he said,
‘Come my friends, we must prepare for any attack that might come our way from these people who wish to stop us full filling our destiny of ruling the world.’ And the clone turned away laughing an evil laugh.
Mean time, we return to Chris and the others.
‘Any ideas?’ asked Liz. No one answered her. ‘Come on people, we have to come up with a plan to immobilise the clone before he does anymore harm to the timeline. If he persists in disturbing things anymore in the past, we might find ourselves not even born. And that could be disastrous for us and the way future events unfold.’
Then Peter spoke up. ‘The way I see it is this, we don’t know exactly what abilities or powers he possesses, so we cannot really think of a way to immobilise or capture him until we have some way to hold him for an indefinite period of time. And to do that we have to have some idea of how powerful he is. Though by all accounts from what we have seen so far, it looks like he’s extremely powerful. And immobilising him is going to be extremely difficult.’ Then Angie spoke.
‘I think that the only way to find out anything will be to do an assault of some sort and see what were up against. Maybe an ambush, that sort of thing.’
‘You might have an idea there,’ said Liz. ‘He might be expecting a frontal assault. So any ideas where we can spring this ambush on him? Bearing in mind that we want to take him totally by surprise.’
‘How about the caves that he goes to’ suggested Angie? ‘There are a lot of places where we can hide ourselves and not be seen.’
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ said Liz. But that plan has one slight problem with it.’
‘What’s that?’ sounded several voices.
‘Well there are certainly more than enough spaces to hide inside the cave, but there is also the strong possibility that we could become trapped inside the cave with no way to escape if things got to hot. I know we can teleport away if we needed to, but that would be dependant on whether or not we could. Remember the failure we had in being able to use our telepathy. Goodness knows how many of our other powers are effected by whatever stopped us using telepathy. But anyway, Chris has only just joined us and doesn’t know how to teleport yet. And I’m certainly not going to leave him behind if I can help it.’
‘I never thought of that’ replied Angie in a disheartened sounding voice.
‘Never mind. It was a good idea; and it might come in handy some other time.’ Then turning back to the others Liz said
‘Any other ideas?’
Then Chris spoke up
‘What about his house? Could we stage some kind of ambush there?’
‘Maybe we could’ replied Liz, thinking.
‘Since we’re able to teleport, we can just teleport into the house. But we’ve no time just now to teach you the finer points of teleportation Chris. Will you be able to open the back door all right?’
‘No problem’ he replied.
‘Okay everyone, that seems to be the best plan for the time being, so let’s move out.’
Everyone left the derelict house and headed off down the road. But this time instead of heading for the Village Square , they headed towards the Western end of the Village, towards Albus’s home, to set up the ambush. As they were walking through parts of the Village, they received a few curious stares from some of the adults. Not many, but it was still a bit daunting to have them – even if it was only a few people – staring at you.
After a few more stare Liz said,
‘I’m beginning to wonder if the clone managed to get to more people than those boys that we saw in the caves. We do seem to be attracting more attention this time round, more than when we first headed up to the caves.’
This worried Liz, but there was no time to worry about it just now, they were approaching the house.
‘Right Everyone’ voiced Liz ‘wands out and make sure that your stunning spells are spot on, I don’t want to take any chances whilst we’re here; I want to be ready for any eventuality.’
Everyone drew their wands and with determined looks on their faces they moved towards the house.
Chris seeing the wands said, ‘What are these?’
‘There called wands’ replied Andy, ‘We use them to stun people, knock them out for a while. There are other things that we could do with them, such as kill, but it’s not in our nature to do that. No matter what, we’re unable to kill another living being, no matter who they are or what they do to us.’
‘I see’ said Chris.
‘Right everyone, I’ll teleport in and do a quick scout around,’ said Liz, ‘Just to make sure that the immediate area is clear. Wait here until I get back, and keep a look out, if anyone comes, let me know immediately.’ And with that Liz disappeared, which startled Chris a bit since this he’d never seen anybody do that sort of thing before.
After what seemed an eternity, Liz reappeared beside the others.
‘No problem’ she said, ‘the immediate area is clear. The rest of you teleport into the living room while Chris and I deal with the back door.’ When the others had disappeared Liz turned to Chris saying,
‘Well come on then, you can show me this trick you have for dealing with locked doors.’
So Chris and Liz crept around to the back door and went quietly up to the door. Chris laid his hands around the lock area, and concentrated. After a few moments, and the green blue light started to emanate from both his hands again and engulfed Chris and feeding down to where his hands were. After another few moments, a clicking noise could be heard, which was the sound of the lock disengaging.
Opening the door Liz remarked with a smile ‘Impressive. You’ll come in handy with that little trick.’
Once they were in the house, both of them made their way into the living room where they met up with the others where upon Liz said,
‘Right everyone, I want a more detailed search of the house done, I only had time for a quick look around. So Peter, you and Angie search upstairs and Andy, you search the rest of downstairs; I want you to make sure that there is no one in the house what so ever. I don’t want innocent people harmed in any way when we spring the ambush.’
So whilst the rest of the house was being searched, Liz was looking around the living area and hallway to try and establish where the best places would be to hide and wait. Whilst she was doing this, her eyes fell upon a note on the mantelpiece. It was addressed to Albus; she picked it up and unfolded it. It said your mother and I have gone to your aunt Gertrude; she’s not feeling to well. Go to your uncle Bruno’s until we get back in a couple of days. Mum and Dad.
‘Perfect’ thought Liz. ‘Now we know for definite that no one will disturb us. And we also know that the only person who’ll come through the front door will be the clone.’
Liz refolded the note and replaced it on the mantelpiece. By the time the others arrived back in the living room and reported that the house was totally empty accept for them, Liz had settled on the hiding places.
‘Right Peter and Angie get behind the sofa, Andrew you go into the hallway cupboard, there’s enough room for you to hide in there,, Chris and I will go into the kitchen. When Albus appears, let him go to the mantlepiece to read the note, and then we’ll strike, then we’ll let him have it with all stunners. We may or may not be in for a long wait, so be on your guard at all times.’
Everyone nodded their heads. And Liz turned to Chris and said ‘Chris, since you don’t have a wand yet, when the shooting starts just keep your head down.’
‘Right’ he replied
While they were waiting, Chris took this opportunity to ask some questions about T.E.C.H. and what the organization did exactly. Liz tried to explain the story as best as she could.
‘T.E.C.H. was formed about Seventy years ago when time travel was first discovered. A professor Mendleson discovered time travel in the year 2345. and once it had become common knowledge, people started to take advantage of time travel to go to the past in order to plunder some of the pasts riches. So professor Mendleson set up an organization in order to combat these thefts, he called the organization T.E.C.H., which stands for Time Enforcement Commission for Hogwarts. The idea was to keep an eye on the time lanes and look out for even the smallest discrepancy that looked out of place. Once any discrepancies were discovered a T.E.C.H. team were deployed immediately to stop the thieves.
In the beginning T.E.C.H. didn’t bother too much about preparation work – like what we did before we came on our missions –, because it was at the time because it was a simple case of in and out before anyone noticed that there was anything wrong or even going on. But as the technology became more sophisticated has time travel progressed; they had to start doing prep work – because sometimes the teams that were sent back had to spend several day’s or so in the era that they were sent back to –, so that the teams that were sent back were better prepared for what was in store for them. And since they had to spend several day’s in that era the teams also had to be able to pass themselves off more easily has people from that era, just like what were having to do at this moment.
Then some of the crooks that went back in time started to use children in some of the thefts, because it was found that children were able to adapt to the new surroundings very easily. So T.E.C.H. started to recruit children to work along side the adult T.E.C.H. personnel since they could not arouse suspicion and were able to round up the children that were sent back. It was difficult at first because the children could pass themselves off as children of that era quite easily and spotting them became a pain in the neck. The thieves were dressing them up in the period clothes of the time. Then about twenty years ago T.E.C.H. discovered several children with certain powers. Powers that enabled them to sense other people who didn’t belong in the same time period that they were in. so they recruited these children, and started to send them back in time – children were used because they could pass themselves off without attracting to much attention –. It was an immediate success; all the children were rounded up and sent to detention centres. Then when the rounding up of the children started to dry up, the T.E.C.H. children were used to work along side their adult counterparts, until more recently when the cloned version of Albus Dumbledore appeared on the scene and the rest you know.
Chapter Seven:- The First Battle.
‘That’s quite a story’ Chris replied. But he never said anymore, because at that moment a key was to be being put into the lock of the front door. They heard someone enter the house, and close the door behind them. Footsteps could be heard walking down the short hallway and a voice called out,
‘Mum, Dad are you in?’
Of course there was no answer. Then the living room door slowly opens and the cloned version of Albus poked his head around the side of the door. Looking around, his eyes settled on the mantelpiece where he noticed the note and he fully entered the room. As he walked over to where the note was; he stopped in the middle of the room, listening. Liz was puzzled as to why he’d stopped; it was almost like he’d heard something, but Liz herself had heard nothing. The clone put his hand up to his chest then dropped it, and then he moved forward again.
Just as he got to the mantelpiece and he had put his hand up to reach for it, Liz suddenly shouted, ‘NOW.’
And everyone – except Chris – came out of hiding and started firing stunning spells. But there was something wrong. The clone did not appear to be effected by the spells that were being fired at him. They just seem to bounce of him. In fact he just started to laugh, and he turned around saying in a cruel snarling voice,
‘Did you really think I hadn’t heard you when I came in? I heard your heartbeats as loud as someone beating a drum. In fact, even above all the noise you’re making just now, I can still hear your heartbeats. Now, this is really starting to get rather tiresome.’
And with that his eyes started glowing bright green and a beam of bright green light shot out towards the sofa, blasting a hole right through the centre of it. There were screams as Angie and Peter cried out in shock. Even the others were shocked at what they’d just witnessed; they hadn’t expected that to happen. They were expecting the clone to use similar powers to the ones they had, but this was something totally new and alien to them. They had no way of defending themselves at this time from the awesome power that the clone was displaying. By now the clone was firing shots towards the living room door and into the hallway – where Andrew was hiding – and he was still firing away with his wand – even if it did seem hopeless –. Suddenly Andrew took a direct hit in the chest and fell to the floor unconscious. Peter had seen what had happened and managed to rush over to where he’d fallen; dodging the clone’s green bolts. Once he’d reached Andrew, he managed to teleport the two of them to safety.
Angie managed to teleport over to where Liz and Chris were and Liz shouted – above the noise – for her to teleport back to where they’d first arrived and to take Chris with her. She’d try and hold him off whilst they got away.
‘NO’ shouted Chris, ‘I want to help you.’
‘At this moment you can help me by getting away from here. As I said before, we don’t leave anyone behind.’
As soon as Liz had said these words Angie grabbed Chris’s arm and Chris had a sensation of flying and also what felt like he was being squeezed through a narrow tube. He saw the living room disappear around him and he found himself once more standing in the middle of the field where he and the others had first arrived. The others were also in the field, but they were gathered around Andrew who was lying quite still on the grass.
Chris immediately went over to where Andrew was lying, and knelt down beside him. He took one look at him and realised that he wasn’t breathing. Chris at once laid his hands on the wounded chest and concentrated harder than he’d ever done before. The same green blue glow once again emanated from both his hands. After a few seconds – where all the others were holding their breaths – had gone by, Andrew’s chest started to heave up and down and he also began to cough and splutter as his lungs started to fill up with oxygen, and looking down at his chest, he saw that the wound had been closed.
‘What happened?’ asked Andy in a weak voice,
‘You were dead, you took a direct hit to the chest’ replied Peter. ‘That is until Chris helped you.’
Turning to Chris Andy said ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem’ replied Chris.
During the time that he’d been attending to Andy, Chris had heard Angie’s voice in his head saying,
‘Everyones away Liz. You can join us now.’
And then Liz appeared in the field along side everyone else. She looked tired and rather worn out.
‘That was to close. How’s Andy doing?’ she asked.
‘Not to bad now, since Chris fixed him up’ replied Peter.
‘But never mind Andy, what about yourself? You’ve hurt your arm. You should let Chris have a look at it.’
Chris took one look at Liz’s arm and saw at once that it was broken in a couple of places. Chris once again laid his hands across the two breaks and managed to weld the two bones back together again with his healing powers.
‘Thanks Chris’ Liz said moving her arm back and forth.
‘Alright, what happened?’ asked Andy.
‘I’m not sure, but it looked like he had some sort of protective shielding around his body’ replied Liz.
‘When he stopped in the middle of the room and put his hand to his chest, he must have activated it then.’ Andy continued.
‘So what do we do now?’ Asked Peter.
‘First things first, I’ll have to get in touch with Doctor Williamson and let him know what’s happened’ replied Liz. ‘Then await further instructions from him’
So Liz once more took her radio from her bag and called the Doctor. When he came on the radio Liz gave a full report on what had happened in the house. After she had finished, the Doctor sounded rather grave about what had happened.
‘Your right, it does sound like he had a protective shield of some sort, probably a shield charm. That can be the only reason that your stunning spells didn’t work on him and bounced off him.’
‘So what do we do Doctor?’ asked Liz.
‘Well…. at the moment our scientists are actually working on something to nullify the effects of what you’ve described to me, and I think their quite close to finishing it. I’ll need to get back to you about that one. But with any luck you won’t have to long to wait, but in the mean time I’m afraid you’re going to have to make out the best way that you can, sorry.’
So the team sat back and looked at each other with what looked almost like defeated expressions. Liz looked around at the surrounding countryside and up at the sky.
‘We’d better look for some shelter, it’s getting dark and it also looks like it’s going to rain.’
Angie spotted some buildings a short way away and pointing towards them said,
‘What about those buildings over there?’
‘Yes, perfect’ replied Liz. ‘You lot teleport over to them and I’ll walk along with Chris.’
So whilst Angie and the others teleported over to the buildings, Liz and Chris walked over the fields and headed for the buildings. They had to trudge over several fields and through several gates before they reached the building which turned out to be half ruined, and looked very old. Part of the building still had half a roof, but was still broken down enough to be unliveable. The team had no choice but to make the best of a bad situation and spend the night where they were. Liz issued her last orders of the day.
‘Andy, you take the first three hours, Angie the next three and Peter the last three. Keep a sharp look out, and if you see or hear anything unusual wake me at once, understood?’
‘Yes Liz’ replied the three of them together in one voice.
So the rest of the team slowly fell asleep – after making themselves as comfy as they could on the bare stone floor – leaving Andy on the first watch. After a while Andy started to walk around because it was the best way that he could think of to stay awake and not fall asleep from boredom. After three hours – which was so boring that he couldn’t wait to get to sleep – he woke Angie and stretching her arms she fought her way to full wakefulness. Whilst she was doing this Andy was saying that all was quiet and there was nothing to report.
‘Very well’ she replied. And Andy settled down to sleep while Angie got to her feet and started to walk around a bit to make sure that she was fully awake.
At one point during her stint on guard duty she thought she’d heard something, but after staying still and listening for a few minutes she heard nothing more and put the noise down to her imagination and didn’t think anymore about it. When her stint was up, she woke up Peter and made her report, stating that all was well – forgetting all about the noise –.
While Peter was standing guard, he also thought he’d heard a small cough coming out of the darkness. He contemplated waking Liz, but after a few minutes of listening he heard nothing further and thought against that idea. He didn’t want to be known has someone who jumps at every shadow or animal noise that the night had to offer, so he also remained quiet.
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Eight:- The Dead Cat Warning.
The next Morning dawned sunny and bright. The birds were singing their usual dawn chorus, and you wouldn’t think that there was anything wrong in the world. But unfortunately, this was the real world and not dreamland.
All of a sudden there was a scream, which startled those that hadn’t woken up yet wide-awake in a blink of an eye. It was Angie that had screamed. Everyone rushed over to where she’d been sleeping and soon discovered the reason why she was upset. There was a dead cat lying in a pool of blood beside where she’d been sleeping. There also appeared to be a note lying beside the cat.
Liz unfolded the note and read the contents out aloud. ‘This is a warning. Do not interfere with my plans or you’ll all meet the same end has this cat. Take heed and live.’ The note was written in red, red like blood, probably the cat’s blood.
Liz was furious with this warning. ‘I’ll not have any member of my team threatened or scared off like this. Not by anyone, not even a jumped up little upstart like this clone.’ And with that she got her communicator out of her bag and immediately got in touch with Doctor Williamson.
‘I hope you have some good news for me Doctor? Because at this moment I’m not in the mood for anything else.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’ asked the Doctor.
And Liz told him about the dead cat warning that they’d received.
‘Well I do have some good and some bad news, the device that’ll render the clone’s powers useless is now ready.’
‘And what’s the bad news’ asked Liz.
‘The bad news is that you have to get within two metres of him for it to be totally effective.’
‘Well never mind,’ replied Liz ‘I’m sure we’ll manage to work it out. Could you send the device to us now Doctor?’
‘It’s already on its way.
And out of nowhere a small round metallic object appeared at their feet in front of them. Liz bent down and picked it up, it could fit snugly into the palm of her hand. There were two buttons on it, one red and one green. Then Liz heard the Doctors voice over the communicator.
‘To activate the device you have to press the green button, and the red button of course deactivates it. Good luck, Doctor Williamson out.’
The communicator went dead.
‘Can I see that?’ asked Chris. And Liz handed him the device without thinking.
‘Right then’ she said ‘we’re going to have to head back into town and head back to Albus’s house.’
At this piece of news there was a fair bit of murmuring.
‘I know that it’s asking a bit much after what happened yesterday, but with this device we can disable the clone’s powers and then we can really nail him. Then we’ll never have to worry about him again.’
‘But what about the distance?’ asked Peter ‘ We have to get within two metres of him to be effective, and I don’t think he’s going to allow us to just walk up to him and say, excuse me do you mind if I just disable your ability to do magic and such like?’
‘I know it’s asking a lot, but have I ever lead you wrong before?’ There was a general shaking of heads at this statement.
‘Right then lets move out and sort this problem out once and for all.’
So they all trooped out of the old farmhouse and headed back towards town. Liz had decided to walk the distance into town. This could be due to the fact that she could think her plans through and get them straight in her mind before they arrived at their destination.
In the meantime the clone had been busy. So as not to attract too much attention from the real Albus’s parents, the clone had used his powers to clean and repair all the damage that had been done to the house. And was even now walking along the street by himself. When he’d reached the Village Square , he sat on the top step of the old war memorial that was sitting in the centre. There he just sat and waited, as if waiting for something to happen. He kept his eyes on the road that led into town.
When Liz and the others had reached the outskirts of the town, it was decided to split up and approach from different directions.
So Liz and Chris approached from the West, Angie teleported to the Eastern end of the Square, Andrew from the North and Peter from the South. Once they we’re all in position they used their Telepathy to let Liz know that they we’re ready to move on her word.
But before Liz could say anything, Chris suddenly collapsed, and he seemed to be in pain. He was writhing around on the ground clutching his head. Liz was on the ground beside him in a trice.
‘What’s wrong Chris?’ She worriedly asked.
‘He’s inside my head’ he cried ‘I can hear his voice; he’s trying tom entice me, trying to get to me. Please make him stop, he’s, he’s hurting me.’
Liz at once laid her hand on his forehead, and spreading her fore finger and thumb to touch both sides of his temple; she concentrated and muttered a few words to herself. After a few seconds had gone by, Chris’s movements began to settle down. Eventually he was in what looked like a deep slumber and free from what he’d experienced.
Liz used her telepathy to tell the others that the attack was cancelled for the time being and everyone was to meet her at the West approach road to town. At once everyone had materialised beside her. When they saw Chris lying on the ground they asked what had happened. Liz said,
‘I’m not sure, one second he was ready for the attack and the next second he was in sever pain, clutching his head saying that he was trying to get to him. I had to calm him down; he was in so much agony. For the time being he’s calm. We’ll teleport back to the farm and see how he is later.’
So Liz took a hold of Chris’s arm and they all teleported back to the farmhouse that they’d slept in the night before.
In the mean time the clone had a satisfied grin on his face. He was muttering to himself,
‘So they have someone who’s not experienced enough to block my powers. He can’t prevent me from probing his mind. And the power that I sensed there was tremendous; he would be a worthy ally to have. But for now he’s beyond my influence, there’s been some sort of mind block erected. I can’t get through to his thoughts at this time. Next time I’ll have to be more careful. But for the time being I can wait, I can wait.
Mean time, back at the desolate farmhouse we find that Chris was still asleep and Liz was trying to explain about what had happened back on the outskirts of town.
‘As I said before, he was alright one second and in agony and rolling about on the ground the next. He was shouting he’s inside my head I can hear his voice and so on. So to calm him down I used an incantation to bring up a mind blocker in his mind. It appears to have worked for now. All we can do for the time being is wait for him to wake up and see what he can tell us.
Mean time the clone had returned to the Dumbledore house, to plan his next move. He wanted the person that he’d sensed; he was more powerful than all the people that were under his control were. He wanted that power joined with his own. With that person’s power and his own combined he would be unstoppable. He kept his mind open, reaching out and feeling for the powerful mind that he’d sensed earlier. He once again came up against the same mind block that had interfered with him the last time. But he could wait, and while he waited he kept up the assault on Chris’s mind, slowly chipping and probing at the block that was stopping him. He slowly probed for any weaknesses that he could exploit. But whoever had erected the mind block had done a very good job with it. But the clone knew that if he kept up a continuous slow bombardment, he would eventually break through. And all the while, whilst he waited for his chance to manipulate that mind around to his way of thinking. He had a look on his face that showed pure greed. And if there was one thing that he was good at, that was waiting. He did after all have all the time in the world at his disposal.
Several hours later we return to the farmhouse. Chris had just awoken, and was having a drink of water; And Liz was asking him questions.
‘What happened back there Chris? We were all ready for the attack, when all of a sudden you collapsed in a heap onto the ground crying out in agony.’
‘I’m not sure’ Chris replied, ‘one moment I was ready to go, then I felt something entering my mind, some kind of strange force. And before I could do anything that force suddenly knocked me for six and I felt intense pain, unlike anything that I’d felt before. And I also heard a voice inside my head promising to stop the pain if I allowed him access to my mind. I felt like I was being enticed to go somewhere, but I’m not sure where. Then the world suddenly went dark and I remember nothing more until I woke up just now.
‘I think it was the clone that was trying to take over your mind. He sensed that you were new and had not yet been trained to block out any invasion or probes of any kind, so you were left vulnerable. I promise you one thing, that will not happen again. From now on there will always be someone with you at all times to help you through this. And that person will be helping to maintain the block that I’ve erected.’
Chris looked relieved, and said ‘thank you.’
‘No need for thanks Chris. As far as I’m concerned, your part of this team now, and we look after each other.’ There was a general nodding of heads from the others at this statement.
It was decided that there wouldn’t be another attempt at catching the clone that day. Liz had decided that it would be better for Chris to rest up for the rest of that day, to help him recover from his ordeal.
But the clone was not going to let Chris of the hook that easily. He kept up a steady bombardment of Chris’s mind. But done in such a subtle way that Chris did not even realise that his mind was being manipulated, the clone was trying to break through any mind blocks that had been imposed by the other team members. He’d realised that it had been a mistake when he’d attacked Chris’s mind directly. Now he was using stealth. But he was only picking away bit by bit with the mind blocks, what he needed was more power. So the clone decided to go up to the cave that night and use the machine to boost his mental powers.
Chris could still feel something in his mind but since there we’re no more voices he never really gave the feelings much thought. He just put them down to being the aftermath of the mind invasion that he’d experienced. The mind blocks that were being used seemed to be keeping the mind that had invaded his mind at bay.
Andrew had lit a fire and someone had produced some cans of food – along with a couple of collapsible Dixie can – out off one of the bags along with a tin opener. And soon the cans were opened and the contents poured into the Dixie ’s and placed on the fire. While the food was heating up Andrew got some plastic plates and cutlery out of another bag and placed the plates on the floor with the cutlery on top of them. Once the food was ready, it was shared out between them and whilst they ate they planned their next move.
By the time night had fallen once again they had decided that the best thing to do would be for one of them to teleport into the house and plant the device somewhere in the living room with it switched on. That way when the clone came within range of it, he would not be able to activate what ever he’d done before to bring up the protective shield. That way the person who planted the device would be an extra hand to help with any attack that takes place.
‘Right everyone, to bed. Goodnight’ said Liz.
‘Goodnight’
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Nine:- Sadness And Preparations
What they didn’t know was that the clone was at this moment heading up to the cave. Once he’d reached his destination he started to hook himself up to the machine that the others had seen him use earlier. Once hooked up he started to think about the mind that he had touched earlier. With the extra boost of power that the machine offered, he was able to easily break through the mind blocks in Chris’s mind and he started to slowly manipulate that mind.
Chris – while he slept – was having dreams. Not nightmares, but pleasant dreams about a perfect world. A world in which he had a hand creating. A world where there was no poverty or hardship. There was also a voice in his head – but this was a different voice to the one that had been there before. This voice was softer and gentler – this voice was saying that only the two of them could make this type of world possible. All he had to do was get up right now and come up to the caves and stand together with him and follow him and his teachings. The voice was so hypnotic; he felt he could not disobey it.
The voice and the visions that Chris had see and heard were so enticing that without knowing it he got up and quietly – without waking the others – walked out of the farmhouse and headed back towards the village and the caves on the other side of the village.
He was now so entranced – with what the machine and the clone were doing to him – that he now appeared to have no will of his own. When Chris got to the caves he found not only the clone, but also the six boys they’d observed earlier. They were all there waiting for him to arrive.
The clone then spoke up.
‘Welcome to the latest follower to the cause.’ Turning to the others he said, ‘This boy will be my second in command. He’s almost as powerful has I am. You will obey him as you would me.’ And there was a joint response of ‘Yes master’ by all the boy’s.
The clone told Chris to stand in front of him, and slowly – without blinking or thinking twice about it – done what was ordered. Then the clone placed both his hands on either side of Chris’s head. Then the same light that Chris and the others had seen during their first trip to the caves was again emanating from the orb that was above the centre platform, and a straight beam fell from the orb and directed itself through the clone and out through the clones hands and into Chris. Chris shuddered slightly from the force of the beam, but eventually he had no choice but to succumb to the beam, drinking it in.
‘Now, my latest disciple, do you promise to follow me and obey me in all matters?’
‘Yes master’ replied Chris in a slow drawl.
‘Then join us in the circle and become the seventh follower within the inner circle.’
So Chris moved forward into the ring and turned to face the cloned version of Albus.
Has Chris joined the circle; Peter had awoken and noticed that Chris was missing.
‘Wake up everybody’ he said, ‘Chris isn’t here.’
Everyone woke up as soon has they heard this. There were questions asked – did anyone see him leave? When was the last time people had seen him? Etc etc – Liz even tried to contact him using telepathy, but to no avail.
‘I just don’t seem to be getting through to him. It’s almost like a barrier has gone up – just like the time we were up in the caves – and is blocking out any way of getting through to him. I’m afraid with him creeping away silently in the night, being careful not to disturb anyone, I can only surmise that he’s gone and joined the enemy.’ There were cries of,
‘No surly not. He’s one of us; he would never do that to us.’
‘I know none of you want to believe it – I for one certainly don’t – but in the absence of any other evidence that is the answer left open to us. So from now on all our plans have also to include beating him. And if I sensed things correctly earlier on, Chris is a very powerful person and he’ll probably be very difficult to beat. And if the clone and Chris have joined forces it could be near impossible to defeat them both. But either way, we have to try. I’d better report this latest setback to Doctor Williamson.’
Liz got her communicator out and was put through to the Doctor right away. After listening to what Liz had to say, he agreed with her. ‘If Chris had now gone over to the other side with the clone, we must now consider him to be an enemy, and a threat to be dealt with accordingly. So I’ll leave that to you to sort out as you see fit Liz, over and out.’ And with that the communicator went dead.
Liz looked away from her comrades, looking out towards the surrounding countryside kind of sad. She had been quite fond of Chris – like a big sister looking out for her little brother – and had been looking forward to helping him with his training. Helping him to hone his powers and other special abilities that he had. To encourage him to become what he was destined to in life. But all that seemed like it wasn’t going to happen anymore. With a big sigh Liz felt drained of all energy. Liz looked sadly out into the distance, out towards the distant hills and out towards the distant caves and towards where the final battle was inevitable, the battle that was to take place between themselves and the forces of the clone, because only the outcome of this battle would decide what was to come. Liz was so deep in thought that she didn’t hear any of the others coming up behind her.
‘I know this is difficult for you Liz’ said Andy ‘But what happened to make Chris switch sides was not your fault.’
‘I should have known that when someone falls asleep’ replied Liz ‘their minds are more vulnerable to suggestion. This must have been what happened last night, whilst we all slept. The clone must have probed his mind and turned Chris against us at time. Damn it, I should have seen it coming, I should have been better prepared.’ Liz suddenly seemed to pull herself together and turning to the others she continued,
‘Right every body, we haven’t got time to feel sorry for ourselves. We’ve a battle to fight, and win. So here’s what we have to do. We can teleport as far as the cave entrance, but because of the interference we’ll need to walk the rest of the way to the inner cave. Once we’ve crept into the inner cave – with our wands drawn ready for action – I know we won’t be able to stun the clone but if he’s left anyone on guard duty, we’ll be able to stun them, the less people we have to deal with the better. Once in the cave our main objective will be to destroy the orb and once we’ve done that, try and take out the clone….. and also Chris. We try and get has close as possible to the clone to use the device on him, and then with any luck we’ll be able to stun him and then take him back through time and bring back the original and swap them around. By the way, who’s got the device?’
Nobody answered her. A sudden dread came over Liz, she remembered giving the device to Chris, but not getting it back from him,
‘Oh no. Don’t tell me that Chris was the last one to have it?’
There were one or two nods of heads,
‘Darn it, by now he’ll have told the clone about it and it’s probably been destroyed. So I don’t think there’ll be any help from that quarter. We’ll just have to make do with what we have. Angie, you and Peter has soon as we enter the main cave dive for the left hand side and stun anyone who gets in your way. Andrew you dive to the right, again stunning anyone who gets in your way. I myself will take the centre of the cave and maybe the combined attack will be enough to catch the clone and Chris off balance. And we’ll also try for the machine as well. Once you’ve all dealt with your targets you are to help the others accordingly. But remember one thing, with Chris joining him, you can be sure that he’ll be stronger than ever and ready for us.’
For a few moments, everyone just stood there, thinking their own thoughts about what’s going to happen, about the outcome of the battle and about what the future was going to bring. I suppose they would have stood there for quite a while if Liz hadn’t spoken up.
‘Okay people, it’s time to go. But remember, this time we either capture the clone or we die trying. So look out for yourselves. Let’s go.’
Each of them thought about the entrance to the cave, and they disappeared. The only other thing you see is an empty and a few areas of trampled grass where they had been standing before they teleported.
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Ten:-Trouble And Pain
About ten metres from the cave entrance, four figures appear out of nowhere. They all drew out their stun guns and slowly advanced towards the entrance whereupon they had to stop just short of the cave. They had found there were two adults at the entrance and they were armed with some sort of weapons that were not, from this time period. Liz and Andrew aimed their wands and fired them at the two adults, muttering stupefy. The adults crumpled to the ground.
Once they had been dealt with Liz and the others entered the main cave. They slowly inched their way forward all the while listening and watching out for each other as they went. After what had happened before, with the failed capture attempts, they were taking no chances. They were being extremely cautious.
Because of the slow progress moving forward, it took them nearly twice as long to get to the inner cave as it did before. They were almost there when they had to stop and hide. They had come across two more guards at the inner cave entrance. They used their wands to stun these two guards as well and once they had been dealt with, they slowly moved up to the inner cave entrance.
At this point Liz signaled the others to stay where they were while she went forward to see what the lay of the land was like. Once she had reached the entrance, she carefully looked around the corner. She saw no one, there wasn’t a soul about. Liz signalled to the others to come forward.
As soon as they had joined her she filled them in, in quiet whispers, about what she’d seen? When she’d finished, Peter said,
‘This is our chance; we can take them by surprise and rush them. They’ll never know what hit them’.
‘Don’t be stupid’ replied Liz ‘We follow the original plan, and nothing else. Got it’. ‘Okay, Okay’ came back the reply in an exasperated voice. ‘Good, now Angie, you go over to the left hand side of the entrance and get ready to move on my say so. Peter, you go to the right, and be ready to move’. With that Angie, keeping low went over to the other side of the cave entrance and everybody poised themselves, ready for the attack as soon as the word was given.
Once everyone was ready Liz gave the go order. ‘Right everyone. Go, Go, Go’, said Liz. Everyone rushed forward with their wands drawn to their designated places within the inner cave area. Everyone had entered the cave but there was still no sign or sound of anyone challenging them.
‘I don’t like this’ thought Liz ‘this is too easy.’
She tried to convey her fears to the others by using her telepathy but was once again unable to get through to any of them; the same interference as before seemed to be blocking their thoughts and possibly their other powers again, just like the last time. Liz tried concentrating on where the others were situated so that she could teleport over to where they were, but soon found out that she was unable to teleport either. Liz looked around her and saw that people were too far apart to shout to them, and even if she did shout she might alert anyone whom just might be listening in, to their presence.
Whilst she was surveying the scene Liz also noticed something else, there was no sign of the machine they had seen before. She looked all around the inner cave area, but could see no sign of it anywhere.
‘Where was it?’ she muttered.
Looking around again she happened to notice the beginnings of a set of steps that were almost hidden from sight behind a wall which seemed to lead up to a large set of metal doors of some sort.
Liz somehow managed to attract the others attention and indicated with her hands where the steps were. They nodded with approval as they also seemed to have realized that their telepathy wasn’t working.
All of them made their way slowly over to where the steps began. Keeping low so that they didn’t attract too much unwanted attention, they dodged from box to box stopping every few feet to listen for any sound that would indicate that they had been heard or seen. But they never heard any sounds or movement, all remained in a state of deadly perpetual silence. The stillness and quietness was beginning to make some of the team uneasy.
By the time they’d reached the steps, they still hadn’t been challenged. Liz told the others about her fears and suspicions that it was all too easy. The others were of a similar opinion.
Andrew even said ‘that he felt like he was being watched, it sort of feels like we’re being herded somewhere.’
‘The only thing we can do is be careful and try and be watchful wherever we go’ replied Liz.
So they made their way slowly and cautiously up, one step at a time. Once at the top they received their first surprise, a green beam of light suddenly hit the wall to the left of the door taking out a large chunk of the stone. Some of the team members let out screams, more to do with shock and surprise rather than being hit by the light beam or any of the debris that came away from the wall.
It had taken them totally by surprise. Then another beam hit the steps behind them causing the steps to be blown away. After that happened, they only had one way to go. So, with no other option available to them, they went forward, opened the door, and went through. They were plunged into pitch-blackness. The door quickly closed behind them with a loud clanging noise and then overhead lights came on.
Once the room had been illuminated the team found that they were in some kind of plastic enclosure, and the door to the enclosure locked shut and they were prisoners. Peter and Andrew flung their shoulders and kicked their feet against the plastic wall in an attempt to break it, they even tried using their wands, but this was to no avail, as the wands appeared to have stopped working, the wall held firmly in place. It didn’t even show any signs of the attempts to break it on its surface.
Whilst the boys were doing all this, Liz glanced around the room. She saw that it contained a lot of terminals and monitors that were certainly not from the era they were currently in. The equipment was most certainly from the future. But who could be providing it for this purpose? It would take a lot of money to set up an operation on a grand scale like this.
Then a voice called out, ‘you’ll never breach the plastic. It’s unbreakable, so you may as well save your energy and be more worried about what’s going to happen to you.’
Liz and the others recognized the voice and looked over towards where it had come from. They saw Chris standing on a rocky ledge, looking down at them with a triumphant smirk on his face.
Liz spoke in a quiet and calm voice, ‘Chris, don’t you remember what you were and what you believed in before you were forced to become a traitor and were turned against us. Remember Chris, I know that the clone hasn’t driven that totally from you. You still care about people, deep down in your sub-conscious mind, and in your heart, you still care deeply about people. You don’t want to really do what you’re currently doing.’
‘Shut up’, snarled Chris, ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about. All I remember is the hardship that I endured while I was sleeping rough on the streets of Edinburgh, and the looks of hatred and fear that I received from people when I tried to help them with the abilities I possess. They never understood I was treated like a leper. Albus has shown me a world that is free from pain and suffering. A world that is free from hunger and disease, a Utopia. A place where people with our abilities will be welcomed and not feared. And I’m going to help bring that about.’
Liz replied pleadingly, ‘What you’re talking about is the clone’s way of thinking, Chris; he only wants to create that kind of world for himself to rule over. It’s not for others, it’s not for the ordinary person like you and I. It’s not your way of thinking. Remember what we’ve all been through over the past couple of days. Remember what we believe in and just remember that we stand for freedom and not slavery.’
‘That’s enough of that,’ said another voice with an evil tone, ‘are you people trying to disrupt the harmony that I have here. These boys are the perfect people to help achieve what I have set out to do and if you attempt to interfere with the plans that I have put in place, you will suffer ten times the feeling of this pain.’
The clone then pressed a button on the front of the console that he was standing beside. Liz and the others screamed in pain as electricity shot through the floor of the see through box they were in, making them jump from foot to foot. After a couple of seconds, he let go of the button.
‘As you can see I hold the power over life and death. What you have just felt are only a few hundred volts of electricity coursing through your bodies. I can turn up the juice gradually and really make you suffer before you burn alive. I could kill you all with one touch off a button if I so wish and puff; you’re dead, just like that. But I give you one chance, and one chance only. Join with me and be part of the New World Order that I’ll be building, but first, before you decide, let me show you what the new future is.’
He pressed another button and the centre of the floor began to open up. Through the floor the orb rose up until it was standing about four metres off the ground. ‘With this orb I can instigate a new order of peace world-wide,’ said the clone.
He then pressed another button on the console and the orb started to pulsate in a light shade of green, a picture then started to show up in the space between the orb and the cave ceiling. The picture that appeared did indeed show a Utopian society, but there seemed to be something missing from it, there were no poor people, no beggars on any of the streets.
‘Where are all the poor people? What have you done with them?’ shouted Liz
‘Let’s just say that they’ll be sent for re-education’ replied the clone. ‘Think about it, no more wars or poverty. World wide peace. What about it? Why not join with me and help usher in a new era of peace.’
‘No chance’ came back the answer from Liz and the others.
‘We want no part in your so-called future for this world. You only want to change things for yourself, not other people. We don’t want to be part of your plans to mass murder part of the population and brainwash the rest. We’d rather be dead than help you.’
‘Well that can easily be arranged,’ said the clone, ‘but after everything you’ve just said I’m afraid it will have to be a slow and very painful death.’
He pressed yet another button on the console, and this time the air was slowly sucked out of the plastic cubicle leaving our heroes gradually gasping for air. With a sneer he also pressed a previous button as well and the pain that shot through them was so excruciating that Liz and the others screamed and were thinking they would surely die this time around. As they screamed more and more and gasping for breath, the remainder of the air was being used up quicker than ever.
While all this was going on Chris had been watching the others suffering and his face was starting to grimace with each jolt of electricity that the clone was sending into his friends and he was slowly beginning to remember one or two things. The good times and laughs that he’d had so far with the rest of the guys. Images, that had been suppressed and forgotten about, started coming and going into his mind. How the team had readily made him feel he belonged in their midst. How he’d been made welcome at T.E.C.H. Headquarters and nobody had minded about where he had come from, and how he’d had to scavenge in dustbins for food. Chris looked down at Liz and the others and saw they were on the verge of dying. He had to clear his head quickly so he shook it from side to side. An inner conflict was going on inside his mind, like a battle between good and evil. Chris’s face became twisted and contorted as if he was in silent pain. Then, all of a sudden he straightened up and a look of peace and tranquillity suddenly came across his face.
Chris realized what he had to do; he moved closer to the clone and approached him until he was quite close. Chris began shouting ‘NO’ and throwing up his hand, palm upwards towards the clone and throwing him forwards with such force that he was sent flying from one end off the cave to the other in one go. The clone lay there for a few seconds, badly winded after hitting the far wall so hard. Then Chris used the same force from his hand and pointed it towards the Perspex looking prison. With what sounded like a sonic boom, the prison that the others were in shattered completely, releasing them all.
Liz and the others fell forward onto the cave floor and lay there puffing and panting trying to regain their breath, sucking in large lungfuls of air.
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Eleven:- Win Or Die Trying.
While this was all going on the clone, who had sensed something before Chris had attacked him, had managed to reactivate the force field spell and this had protected him from most of the impact when he’d hit the rock wall. He had quickly regained his breath and strength and was now aiming the green bolts from his eyes at Chris and screaming ‘you traitor, you’ll die for this.’
‘You can try’ replied Chris in a calm casual voice ‘but thanks all the same, I don’t think I’m ready to die today.’ Chris easily deflected the bolts away from his person with a simple motioning sweep from his hand. At that moment, no doubt alerted by all the commotion that was going on, the clone’s followers came rushing into the inner cave aiming and firing their wands towards Chris, blasting chunks out of the rock wall where the red and green bolts hit. But before any of them could do any real damage to Chris there was a sudden shout of Patrificus Totalise and Stupify and several of them slumped to the ground, unconscious.
The rest of the clone’s followers turned and were confronted by Liz and the other members of the team. The others had by now fully recovered and were joining in the fight and trying to stun the clone’s followers. Computer consoles exploded around them as wand fire from both sides hit them.
After stunning more of the followers, it seemed as if they were starting to get the upper hand, that is until about ten muggles came rushing into the inner cave. The clone had obviously been busy recruiting other followers and they all began taking up firing positions behind jutting out pieces of rock and any other cover that could be found. They started to return fire with the weapons that they had and the clone shouted out instructions to them, ‘kill them all, and let no one escape.’
Liz and her team immediately took cover behind anything they could find, and also returned fire. They had managed to stun some more of the clone’s followers, but the weapons that fired back kept them pretty much pinned down. While this was happening the rest of them started to fire shots towards where Chris was battling with the clone. But the clone shouted out with a mean snarl in his voice,
‘No, this traitor is mine. Nobody touches him but me.’ And with that the clone renewed his attack with such fury that it took Chris totally by surprise. He barely had time to defend himself before the first volley hit, and he hardly had enough time to recover before the clone had launched yet another, and another, attack upon him. Because of this renewed fury, Chris soon started to weaken, he couldn’t keep fending off the clone’s attacks for much longer. More and more of the bolts were getting through and he was ailing fast.
The clone’s anger seemed to make him more and more powerful. Each assault from the clone felt like it was the worst one yet. Chris didn’t know how much longer he would be able to hold out against the ferocious onslaught because he was beginning to weaken more and more with each attack that was thrown at him.
Liz had seen what was happening to Chris and said to the others,
‘We have to help Chris, but there’s not much we can do until we sort out these people,’ nodding her head in the direction of the clone’s adult followers, ‘their shots are starting to become more and more accurate.’
Liz knelt down behind the lump of rock, taking cover, and thought about things for a few moments, and then she said,
‘right, here’s the plan. We’ll try a three pronged attack, all coming in from different directions. Peter, you go down the left-hand side and Andrew you go to the right side keeping to whatever cover you can find and move forward. Angie, you and me, we’ll do the same down the middle, and try not to be seen. If we can set things up without anyone noticing we’ll have the element of surprise.’ And then saying to both Andrew and Peter. ‘Until you both get into your firing positions, Angie and myself will try and divert as much of their weapon fire as we can as we move forward. Once you’re both in position we can let them have it from three sides.’
‘Right’ said everyone, and they moved off to get ready.
At a signal from Liz and under covering fire from both Liz and Angie the two boys set off down opposite sides, keeping low so they weren’t spotted. Things were going well, and both teams were almost in position when, unfortunately, Peter was spotted and some of the clone’s followers opened fire on him. Because of this Andrew broke his cover and started to fire his stunning spells towards the clone’s followers and they of course fired back. Luckily he’d managed to get to ample cover, so he was safe for the time being.
Liz and Angie opened fire again to try and divert some of the pressure off of Andrew and Peter and it partially worked, because some of the followers eased up and fired back at Liz. But several of them kept up the pressure on the other two forcing them to keep their heads down.
But they had stopped moving forward at the first sign of trouble. They were looking back towards Liz who with hand movements was indicating that they should continue creeping forward, which they did.
After another minute had passed by Liz saw that Peter and Andrew had managed to work their way around and were in position ready for the command to open fire on the rest of clone’s followers. They were again looking over towards Liz and waiting for the nod. She gave them the order and Peter and Andrew partially stood up and fired their wands towards the clone’s followers. They managed to stun four people.
The attack had taken the clone’s followers totally by surprise, so much so that all of them had stood up which allowed the rest of the team to stun them as well. That now left Liz and the others with a clear run to destroy the orb. ‘Right you lot’ said Liz, ‘all of you aim your wands at the orb and fire’. This they did uttering incantations, but nothing seemed to happen at first, then the light of the orb started to flicker, and the green light just went out. The orb let out a whine as the power totally shut down, turning the orb off.
Now that the orb was no longer emitting energy Liz and the team suddenly found that their powers had been returned to them. They then turned their attention back to Chris and the clone. They managed to convey, through telepathy to Chris, that the machine was now destroyed.
The clone also suddenly realized that the orb was no more and turned his anger onto Liz and the others. The team found that they had to suddenly dive for cover to once more avoid the green beams of light that were coming from the clone’s eyes. He was now fighting a battle on two sides and the only thing that was preventing his total defeat was the fact that he still had his protective forcefield operating.
They all started to fire their stunners towards the clone although of course it didn’t do much good, just like the last time. But Liz and the others had to try and distract the clone somehow and they had no better ideas at this time.
This idea appeared to be working because the clone seemed to get weary of the stunners and, thinking no doubt that Chris was done for, stopped messing about with him and set his powers against Liz and the others.
The clone subjected them to such a bombardment that they were unable to lift their heads up; he was using his kinetic powers to rip computer terminals and other pieces of mechanical equipment out of the floor and send them flying towards Liz and her team. The clone was laughing insanely. He was allowing the objects to hover over his targets. Suddenly one of the objects fell and hit Andrew, who had been looking up at the time, in the chest and sent him flying. Another hit Angie on the head knocking her out. Yet another dropped on top of Liz, trapping her underneath it.
Despite being exhausted from his battle with the clone, Chris seeing all this happening to his friends, heaved himself up with some difficulty. The clone was oblivious at first to what Chris was doing and kept bombarding the others with any large objects that he could use.
After a few moments the clone became aware of Chris trying to stand up. With a sneering cackle of a laugh he said, ‘Well, well you’re just in time to see the end of your friends. And once I’ve dealt with them, I’ll deal with you once and for all.’
Chris could see the clone heaving and puffing and panting. There was a red light starting to glow around his body and it was becoming brighter and brighter. It was then that Chris realized the clone was building up his energy so that he could release one gigantic magical bolt of power at Liz and the others, which would kill them all outright.
Chris had to do something quick before the clone could unleash whatever he was building up to. But what could he do? He couldn’t think straight; he was still in so much pain from the battle that he’d just fought.
Chris struggled to stand up fully but at the last second just as the clone was about to release the power bolt, Chris let out one almighty shout at the top of his voice ‘STOP’.
It was a good few moments before Chris realized that something had happened. The clone was not moving at all, he was standing perfectly still. Chris limped over and took a closer look and found him to be frozen solid, like a block of ice. Chris looked around him and noticed that it was only the clone that was frozen, everyone else was moving freely. The clone looked like a statue, just standing motionless in a running type of pose, as if he’d been ready to pounce on Chris. The rest of the team although still mobile were very wary at first, as if they couldn’t believe it was finally all over.
Chris looked towards where Liz, Angie and Andrew had fallen. He went across to Angie and using his powers healed her wounds, and then used his Kinetic abilities to lift the object of Liz. Once Angie and Liz had been dealt with Chris went over to Andrew and healed his wounded shoulder.
With everything now sorted Liz took her communicator from her bag and called Doctor Williamson. ‘Team one to time control’.
‘Time control here team one’ came back the reply. ‘Pass your message.’
‘Could you put me through to the Doctor please, time control?’
‘Doctor Williamson here, team one’
‘We finally managed it Doctor, though when I say we, I actually mean Chris, he defeated the clone for us.’
‘Chris?’ replied the Doctor in a surprised sounding voice ‘What do you mean, Chris? Never mind, you can tell me when you return for your debriefing. In the meantime I’ll send the original Albus to your location. Once he’s off loaded from the stasis canister, load the clone up into the same canister and bring him back with you when you return to the future. While you’re making your preparations the clean up crews will be on their way to dispose of any technology that shouldn’t be in that time frame. So, I’ll see you all soon. Doctor Williamson out.’
Minutes later a canister appeared in front of them. It was the stasis canister that the original Albus was in. It was still active and it had a portable power source. The team pressed a couple of buttons and a humming noise could be heard. The figure in the canister started to look less grey looking and began to turn a healthier pink colour. Once the process of the awakening had finished, the team opened the canister and the original Albus was lifted out and laid on the floor. Then Liz and the others managed to pick up the clone, they manhandled him into the now empty canister and sealed it. Once it was activated the clone was in a state of permanent hibernation. After dealing with any minor details, they pressed a button on the side of the canister and it disappeared. Once the canister had vanished the clean up crews, whose job was to wipe away any trace of advanced technology so that everything was as it should be, appeared and took over, allowing Liz and the others to be free to return home. The team pressed the recall devices in their arms and they also disappeared.
~#~#~#~#~#
Epilogue
When the team arrived back in the twenty-fifth century, they were met at the entrance to the Time Machine by Doctor Williamson.
‘Well, good work to you all’, and turning to Chris he said ‘and especially to you Chris. You’ll have to tell us how you managed to defeat the clone.’
‘I’m not exactly too sure of that myself, Doctor’, Chris said with a puzzled expression and an equally puzzled sound in his voice.
‘Well never mind about all that just now, you all deserve a break after what you’ve been through. We’ll endeavour to get the debriefing over as quickly as possible so that you can enjoy a well earned rest this afternoon. If you could all meet outside briefing room one in ten minutes, we’ll begin then.
They all arrived at the meeting room, and found some fresh orange juice on the table and sandwiches and biscuits on plates, which they all dived into without being asked. Doctor Williamson came out and saw each of them individually in the meeting room and each of them gave a detailed account of all that had happened to them.
After a while, Doctor Williamson called Chris into the room and Chris recounted all that he’d seen and done, even when he’d been under the influence of the clone. After he’d finished giving the Doctor all the details that were required, Chris took the chance to ask the Doctor a few questions of his own.
‘Doctor, despite being under the clone’s influence, why couldn’t I stand to see the others being hurt? I mean, while I was under his spell I seemed to believe everything he was saying to me about the perfect world that he was going to create, but at the same time I didn’t believe what he was saying. And also, how was I able to stop the clone when I shouted at him like I did?
The doctor replied, ‘You have a power that has never been seen before. There is something in your voice that sends out some sort of sound waves that enable you to stop time in the area that you shout into. At the moment though, we’re unable to figure out a way to restart time after you’ve stopped it, so please watch what you’re doing while you’re here. I can only assume that this is the first time you’ve used this time stopping power you possess?’
Chris nodded his head.
‘I thought so’ came back the reply. ‘And as to your other question, I think the reason that you couldn’t stand to see the others being hurt was because you were able to do something that the clone wasn’t able to do.’
‘And what was that?’ asked Chris.
‘Well despite all that has happened to you in your life, you still have the ability to care about people, something that the clone was unable to do, because it’s something that cannot be pre-programmed into another living person. You develop and learn to understand that only over time and experience as you grow up. The clone never had that chance because he was pre-programmed, so he could only care about the mission he’d been sent to carry out. Nothing else in life mattered to him but when you saw your friends being hurt, your caring side resurfaced and broke the hold that the clone had over you. Also, we’ve discovered something else about you.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Chris.
And the Doctor continued, ‘Well Chris, when we examined the original Albus Dumbledore that had been put into cryo genic sleep, we had to do some blood tests which helped to confirm his identity. We’d gotten them mixed up with the blood tests that we took from you before you went on the mission. When we realized our mistake, we corrected it and changed over to the other blood sample and it was then that we noticed something peculiar. It would appear that you are related to Dumbledore.’
At this startling piece of news the Doctor paused to allow Chris to absorb what had just been said.
Chris just sat there with a look of total astonishment on his face. And when he finally spoke it was in a quiet stammering voice.
‘Are, are you sure Doctor?’
‘Yes we’re sure Chris. You’re a direct descendent from Albus. You’re descended from him on his mother’s, brother’s side. Which I suppose would make him some sort of great great great, uncle (I’m not sure just how many greats), of yours. And you’re also descended from another powerful wizard; you’re also a descendant of Harry James Potter who defeated an evil wizard called Voldemort about 400 years ago. And if the clone had succeeded in his quest to change history, you could very well have not been born. Alternatively you could have turned out to be a completely different person to who you are now. Anyway Chris, have you decided for definite whether or not you would like to join the team here at T.E.C.H. yet?’
To which Chris replied, ‘Yes, I think I will join the team. But what if something similar to what occurred with the clone happens again? I don’t think I could go through all that again.’
‘Well’, replied the doctor, ‘you’ll be trained on how to block out the type of thoughts that are given out by such people and therefore making you less vulnerable to attack. You’ll also be fully trained to use your powers and abilities to combat this ever happening again. By the way, I should really apologize at this stage. I sent you into a dangerous situation without being properly trained. For that I’m truly sorry. That is one thing that will never happen again. From now on, before you go on any other mission, you will enter into a full training programme.’
‘Not to worry doctor’, said Chris ‘maybe it was for the best that this happened. It just goes to show that we’re not all invulnerable, but I’ll tell you right now, it was really scary not having control over your own actions. But thankfully, it all turned out for the best in the long run.’
Going back with Chris into the briefing room the Doctor said ‘Well you lot, that’s the debriefing over with, but I have a funny feeling that your adventures are just beginning’. And reaching for a glass of fruit juice he continued. ‘So let’s raise a glass, here’s to your next adventure, whenever that is. In the meantime you can all enjoy yourselves in the recreation area. God knows, after what you all have been through, you deserve it. Well Liz, if you could show Chris where our recreational area is.’
Liz rose from the table and led all of them out of the meeting room and along the corridor until they came to a large set of double doors. She opened these doors and Chris walked into the room which appeared to be a vast gymnasium. There was a large screen television, table tennis table, snooker tables and much, much more. At last Chris and the others started to relax and enjoy themselves.
~#~#~#~#~#
That’s the end of this story. Please let me know what you think. And should I try and get it published using my original story and not this one which I adapted slightly for the Potter Universe?[/b]
A/N: - Please note that while this story is fiction, it is based on an actual book that I’ve written. The main characters names and some locations have been changed to accommodate the Harry Potter universe. The original story has also been copyrighted under my own name. Please do not copy in any way, shape or form and publish. Thank you for your time and please read on and enjoy.
Disclaimer: - The Harry Potter name and Hogwarts belong to JK herself.
PROLOGUE
As we enter a house, we see a living room. A plain sort of room with only the basic’s for furniture. A boy suddenly appears out of thin air. Its early morning, and the daylight hours were just starting to dawn outside. The sounds of the birds just beginning their dawn chorus could be heard outside, and no one was awake yet.
The boy looks around for a few moments seemingly trying to get his bearings; has he slowly turns his head he spotted a door at the far end of the room, and started to walk towards it, slowly he turns the door knob and gently opens the door and cautiously exits the room. Once out of the living room he heads for the stairs on his left, and carefully – on tiptoe – crept quietly and slowly to the top, trying to make no noise. One step creaked. He stood still, listening for any sound of moment, but no sound was forthcoming, so he continued to the top of the stairs. Once he’d reached the top, he paused once more continuing to listen for any sounds, but again all was silent. Upon hearing nothing, he crept along a corridor making straight for a door at the end, when he’d reached his destination he slowly and quietly opened it. As the boy peered around the door, we see a boy’s bedroom come into view. He looks around for a few moments when his eyes suddenly came to rest on a lump that’s lying in a bed at the far end of the room against a wall.
‘So this is the subject that I’ve come to replace,’ the stranger could be heard muttering.
The boy walked further into the bedroom and gently closed the door behind him. He turns around and slowly started to walk towards the bed, making as little noise as possible. The lump started to move and moan, the boy stops in mid stride and watches and waits with held breath waiting for any sign that the figure in the bed was about to wake up. But all was well; the lump settled back down and continued to sleep.
Once all had settled down once more, the boy again started to creep slowly forward, and this time as he moved forward he put his hand into the right pocket of the futuristic clothes that he was wearing and removed what appeared to be a long straight piece of wood.
Once he’d reached the bed, he carefully and gently takes a hold of the blankets and slowly began to pull them back, to reveal another boys face. Once the face was exposed, he was looking at an exact double of himself; it was like looking into a mirror. The boy looked intently at the figure in the bed, when all of a sudden, the boy in the bed stirred.
The boy in the bed – as if sensing something – suddenly opened his eyes, and when he sees himself looking down at him he opened his mouth to scream. But the look alike was too quick for him. The look alike quickly pointed the stick at him and could be heard muttering the words Stupefy and the figure in the bed became still.
Making sure that he had remained unheard, he went over to a chest of drawers and pulling out a pair of pyjamas he speedily got changed into them. He laid his futuristic looking clothes on top of the stupefied figure and then waved the wooden stick over the figure, muttering some words. The figure on top of the bed slowly started to vanish, leaving the other alone in the room.
After the boy had vanished, the look alike got into the bed and as he covered himself with the bed covers he could be heard muttering to himself,
‘Later today I set in motion my masters plan for world domination, by brain washing Albus Dumbledores closest family and friends’. And with an evil grin on his face, he fell asleep.
Chapter One:- The Chase
It was a dark and dismal night. And a boy could be seen running through the dank and dismal alleyways of a large futuristic Edinburgh City, he looks about 10 years old. The year is Twenty Four Nineteen; he’s scruffy looking – like he could have done with a good bath – he’s dressed in a dirty Blue jumper, a pair of dirty and frayed Green combat style trousers with holes in the knees, and a pair of old threadbare white trainers and no socks. He appeared to be running for his life. He’s panicking and has a look of extreme terror and fear on his face, and he’s constantly looking over his shoulder, looking back towards the direction that he’d just come from.
Then from around the corner, the reason for his scared look soon becomes obvious; a large group of people was chasing him. No matter which way he turned, there would always be more people waiting for him, it was like the people knew where he’d turn up next and where ahead of him waiting. – And considering the people knew the alleyways better than him, it was no wonder that they were to get the drop on him at each twist and turn -. He was like a scared animal, the crowd were howling, howling for his blood. Each time they caught sight of him they gave an almighty cry. So the boy kept running. By now he was beginning to tire from the chase, he felt like he wanted to curl up and die there and then right on the spot, but instead he kept going.
About twenty minutes before it had been a totally different story. The people had been so thankful for his help; they’d witnessed a phenomenon that they had never seen before. The boy had helped a young girl who’d fallen and hurt herself. It turned out that a little girl of five had fallen from a first floor tenement window and broken her arm and leg, and she was screaming in agony. And mixed in with the child’s screams there was also the sound of a woman screaming and crying as well.
~#FLASHBACK#~
The boy had been passing through an old part of Edinburgh known as the Grassmarket – which used to be an up and coming yuppie area but was now an area occupied by some of the poorest people around. People who’d arrived from the country and other cities in search of work but found no jobs available -. He’d been trying not to draw any attention himself’ he knew from past experience that to draw any attention to the things he could do was just asking for trouble, but when he’d heard the child screaming, he, like everyone else around him had rushed towards the screaming noise’s to see what was happening. He saw a large crowd gathered around something lying on the ground. He pushed his way through the crowd and once he’d reached the front he saw a little girl lying on the ground, howling and crying.
As soon as he saw the injured child lying there with her right leg and arm twisted at odd angles, – he was thinking how easy it would be to just walk away and forget what he’d seen. But not even he could leave child laying on the pavement in agony -, he’d immediately forgotten about keeping a low profile and knelt beside the crying child and laid one of his hands on the girls arm and the other on the child’s leg. He was ignoring the sounds of the crowd milling a round him, muttering.
‘What’s the boy doing?’
‘What’s he up to?’ were some of the questioning sounds.
He closed his eyes and with a fierce determined look on his face he concentrated, hard. After a few moments had passed, in which nothing appeared to happen, a strange green, blue glow had started to emanate from both his hands and started to engulf his and the girls bodies. There was an instant out burst and gasps of amazement from the crowd.
The boy slowly moved his hands back and forth along the broken limbs, concentrating all the time. Whilst all this had been going on the girl’s mother was looking terrified at what was happening, but bit by bit the girl gradually stopped crying until she stopped altogether, as the pains in here arm and leg slowly went away. She tentatively and slowly raised herself to her feet – carefully moving her arm and leg as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
The child looked around and spotted her mother to whom she was able to run tearfully towards and gave her a big bear like hug. The mother was so overjoyed to see her daughter was safe and well that she turned to the strange boy and started to thank him for his help. The crowd had been so amazed at what they’d just witnessed.
‘Ho – ho – ho – how did you do that?’ some of them stammered sounding abit scared.
‘I don’t know’ replied the boy. ‘All I know is that I’ve always been able to do what you’ve just seen,’ but just then a voice spoke up from the back of the crowd, and a man – who appeared to be a religious figure dressed in long flowing black robes and carrying a long decorative wooden staff – pushed and barged his way through to the front of the crowd.
After taking one look at the situation before him shouted out,
‘Who has performed this deed on the injured child?’
And several of the crowd nervously pointed towards where the boy was standing. The man suddenly swung around and stared at the boy with fiery eyes.
‘Come here boy’ the man demanded in a menacing voice.
With the arrival of this man, the mood of the crowd seemed to suddenly change from astonishment to a tense feeling of fear. The people appeared to be more afraid of this man than with what they’d just witnessed when the boy had healed the child.
By now the boy had started to regret stopping to help the child, and he was also becoming very wary of the crowds change of mood, he was also very unsure about this man standing before him. The boy’s self-survival instincts seemed to be kicking in. he wanted to run, but with so many people milling around, he knew it was practically impossible for him to do so, for he’d never be able to run very far. With what seemed like no other choice in the matter, he slowly and carefully made his way over towards where the man was standing. Once he’d reached the man, he was grabbed by his chin, and his head was forced upwards until he was looking directly into the mans face. As he looked into the boy’s eyes, he said.
‘Who are you boy? Who are you really?’
The man seemed to be looking deep into the boy’s eyes. It was as if he was trying to look into his very soul. As he was looking into his eyes, the man’s face started to become twisted and contorted, as if he was in silent pain. And his body had also started to shake as if he was shivering with the cold, when all of a sudden he flinched away from the boy as if a great force had pushed him away. Then with what seemed to be exhaustion the man fell to his knees, almost totally falling to the ground.
When he’d recovered himself, he shouted out to the crowd,
‘This is one of the evil one’s who must be destroyed.’
The mother of the child then spoke up.
‘But he helped my little girl, surly he cannot be evil if he can help another child?’
‘That’s one of their tricks,’ replied the man ‘they pretend to help people so that they can gain their trust and then they strike just when you least expect them to. You must destroy him before he destroys you’.
‘What do they do?’ someone shouted.
‘I can’t say’ came back the reply ‘it’s too horrible to tell, all I can say is that whenever any of his kind turn up, death always follows not far behind. No-one is happy to have these people hanging around. We must kill him.’ The man said again in a more forceful tone.
‘But he’s only a child’ someone else shouted.
‘Child or not, he’s still dangerous, but if you want to welcome him into your community, do so. But remember this’ – sweeping the crowd with his staff – ‘so far I have kept you all safe from danger, but this boy could destroy us all. It’s him or you, you choose. Never let it be said that I ever forced you into doing anything that you didn’t want to do’– he added with a sly sound in his voice –.
The boy heard the crowd murmuring among themselves. Then one of the men said, ‘The Reverend is right, we can’t take the risk. We must be rid of this boy so that no harm befalls any of us.’
And the crowd started to slowly advance towards the now petrified looking boy. The boy heard shouts of ‘burn him’ and ‘witch’. He turned to run, but before he could run far, someone had grabbed him from behind and pinned his arms to his sides.
At the first sign of being grabbed, the boy struggled with his attacker. He was struggling so hard, that his attacker found it very hard to keep a good hold of him; he was wriggling furiously like a snake, kicking his legs and feet in all directions. As the rest of the crowd moved forward the Reverend was shouting out to the man, who was trying to keep a hold of him’
‘Don’t let him get away.’
At these words, several other people moved forward – from the main body of the crowd – and tried to grab the boy’s flailing legs.
But the boy was determined not to let anyone else get a really good hold of him. Since his arms were pinned to the side of his body, whenever someone got to close he lashed out with his feet, hitting two or three people in the stomach and other parts of their bodies.
The boy’s struggles were beginning to pay off though, because the person who had first grabbed him was gradually starting to lose his grip on him, until he was forced to let go and drop the boy to the ground. He fell with a dull thud, and when he realised he’d been dropped, the boy was up and off like a jack rabbit so fast before the crowd had realised fully what had happened. But they soon recovered and were off after him in hot pursuit.
~#END FLASHBACK#~
The crowd had managed to get the boy cornered in a dead end alley. There was only one way in and one way out. When he’d turned around he found that his only way out was totally blocked by a solid wall of people, people whom had such a look of hatred on their faces and there wasn’t anywhere left for him to run. A voice from the crowd shouted.
‘Don’t worry kid we’ll make this as painless as possible.’
The boy backed away until his back came up against a brick wall and there wasn’t anywhere left for him to go. He thought this was the end of him, and has he stood there, defiantly looking at the slowly advancing crowd, he was thinking about what had happened to him to reach the predicament he was now in. When all of a sudden there was to be heard the sound of screeching brakes and the alley was suddenly bathed in bright lights. People armed with some sort of guns emerged from the vehicles that had suddenly arrived on the scene. And through all the chaos and commotion a voice of authority came booming through the air ‘STAY WHERE YOU ARE, DON’T MOVE.’
The crowd halted their advance towards the boy, and instead were now looking over towards where the newcomers had appeared and were looking at them with scared looks on their faces.
The people with the guns barged their way through the crowd pushing the people out of the way, creating a clear path towards where the boy was still standing with his back against the wall, staring at the newcomers with a look of astonishment on his face.
One of the men marched down the middle of the crowd and right up to where the boy was standing. Once the man had reached the boy he came to attention in front of him and saying,
‘Sir, we’ve orders to escort you to T.E.C.H. headquarters, if you’d care to follow me.’ The man turned and started to march back in the direction he come from.
The boy quickly thought it over and came to the conclusion that anywhere was better than being where he was at this moment. So he followed the tall figure to one of the vehicles – the crowd watched him as he walked passed – and the man opened the front car’s back door and he climbed onto the back seat, the door was closed behind him and the vehicle slowly moved away from the kerb side.
~#~#~#~#~#
IMPORTANT A/N. I HAVE THE MAIN CARACTER GETTING INTO A STRANGE CAR TO GET AWAY FROM AN ANGRY MOB. PLEASE REMEMBER NOT TO GET INTO STRANGE CARS YOURSELVES.
Chapter Two:- T.E.C.H. headquarters
Whist he was being driven through the city he was beginning to wonder exactly what he’d let himself in for. Getting into the car had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now his curiosity was beginning to kick in. He glanced towards the driver and leant forward and tapped the glass partition that separated the driver area from the passenger seating. The driver lowered the glass partition and the boy asked him what T.E.C.H. was?
The driver said ‘Sorry sir, but I’m not authorised to give out that sort of information. Maybe it would be better if we just let Doctor Williamson explain things to you after we arrive at headquarters’.
‘Alright’ replied the boy sounding a bit unsure, and sat back in the seat.
‘In the mean time sir there’s some soft drinks in the small fridge and also some computer games for you to play if you’d care to.’ Then dropping his voice to a whisper the driver said.
‘Between you and me, the Doctor likes to play the computer games himself.’
The boy opened various small cupboards and quickly found the games, and also the where the monitor and games console was located for him to play the games on. He chose a game called Alien Annihilator Mega Blaster Turbo and put it in the console and turned on the monitor, and whilst that was loading he’d gotten a can of cola from the small fridge, opened it and settled down to play.
Whilst the boy was doing all this, the driver had raised the glass partition, and continued driving. The car drove on through the streets, along Pinces Street , pasiing the West End and along Gorgie Road . After about twenty-five minutes, the vehicle was approaching Dalmahoy and turned a corner to reveal a large set of iron gates. The car slowed and came to a halt at what appeared to be a security check point, a security guard came out of a hut like building and approached the car, the driver opened his window to talk with him. The boy saw that there was another security guard standing by the hut with a large Alsatian dog on a lead, the driver felt in his pocket, and pulled out a small wallet. He opened it and showed something to the guard who nodded his head and then the guard turned to look into the back of the car and stared at the boy, the driver said something to him and he once again nodded his head.
The guard then went into the hut, and through a glass window I noticed him pressing a button set on the wall and the gates started to slowly open. The driver of the car drove forward and continued to drive along a long winding road that led towards a large old style house that could be seen in the distance was set well back from the road and was surrounded by trees. As the car moved towards the house the boy was able to take in the surroundings in more detail. As well as the trees around the house there were also trees spread out to the back of the house and a large expanse of grass to the front of the house.
During the journey up to the house, the boy also noticed a long Metal fence which had warning signs on it at various sections. The notices had writing on them which said DANGER, ELECTRIC FENCE, DO NOT TOUCH; the fence seemed to go right around the property. The boy also noticed a few more guards with dogs moving about in the grounds. After seeing all this he wondered more then ever about what he might have let himself in for.
The car finally stopped before the house at the foot of some stone steps that led up to a large set of wooden double doors. The boy looked out of the car window and saw that the house looked like something from an old mystery or horror movie. It looked really, really old. There were ugly looking statues that were dotted around the top of the house at various intervals. The driver got out of the car, walked around to the other side and opened the passenger side door allowing the boy to exit. As he emerged from the car, one side of the big doors opened, and a man emerged and walked down the steps.
‘Welcome to T.E.C.H. headquarters Christopher, my name is Jackson .’
When Chris first saw Jackson , he saw an elderly man who had silver grey streaky hair and also a slight stoop in his posture, but at the same time with the way he moved he seemed to be full of virility.
‘How do you know my name?’ Chris asked, in a puzzled sounding voice.
‘We know a lot about you Chris. Probably more than you even know about yourself. Even down to the fact that you like to be called Chris. If you’d care to follow me, I’ll take you to see Doctor Williamson.’
And with that Jackson turned around and quickly walked back up the steps and through the front door, with Chris having to run slightly to keep up with him, following closely behind. Once Chris had walked through the front door, Jackson closed it, but didn’t lock it.
Jackson then turned and said ‘This way please’ and then started to briskly stride down a long corridor, Chris once again had to virtually run to keep up with him. As they went along, Chris was taking in his surroundings. They passed many old paintings of people dressed in old fashioned and weird clothes. They also passed suits of metal, Chris asked what they were, and Jackson explained that they were suits of armour. Once worn by people centuries ago for protection when they went into battle.
They continued along the corridor, turning left and right every so often and up some stairs until Jackson came to a stop in front of a certain door. With the suddenness of the stop Chris nearly ran into Jackson , but managed to stop in time. Chris looked up and looked at the door and noticed a small sign that said private. Jackson knocked and a voice said.
‘come in.’
Jackson opened the door and said,
‘Master Christopher Potter Doctor Williamson.’
‘Thank you Jackson ’ came back the reply.
Jackson stood aside and Chris entered the room.
After he’d entered the room Jackson turned and exited closing the door behind him.
When Chris was alone with Doctor Williamson, the Doctor was silent for a few moments, looking Chris over, then he spoke up.
‘Please take a seat Chris,’ indicating a seat at the front of the desk with his hand. Chris sat down, he felt a bit worried about what he may have let himself in for, but his curiosity about what was going on at this place seemed for now to be cancelling a lot of that worry out and getting the better of him.
After Chris had sat down in the chair, the Doctor was silent for a few more moments. He spoke up and said,
‘You appear to be worried Chris, let me assurer you that there’s nothing what so ever to be worried about, your among friends here. Among people who understand about the abilities that you’ve demonstrated.’
Chris looked as if he didn’t believe him. He had after all been living on his wits for the past several months and was used to fending for himself and also being able to sense what people were feeling, but somehow this felt different.
Then the Doctor spoke,
‘Well Chris, You’ve probably been wondering what all this is about.’
‘Well I had kind of wondered’ he replied in a cautious voice.
Chris had been trying to sum up what he thought of the Doctor. Chris was an intelligent boy and could not be fooled by much. And what he saw was a man who looked as he himself couldn’t be fooled by very much either. Chris tried to reach out with his mind so he could some kind of idea of what the Doctor was like. But he seemed to come up against a brick wall. There was no way Chris could penetrate it.
The Doctor smiled, in an amusing sort of way which seemed to indicate that he knew was Chris was trying to do. And he continued.
‘Well in a nutshell, this is a special institute for gifted people like yourself, people who have demonstrated special abilities, and talents.’
‘I don’t know do you mean’ asked Chris.
And with that, Doctor Williamson pressed a button and with a soft humming sound a large screen dropped down from the ceiling, it startled Chris who jumped with fright at the unfamiliar noise. He pressed another button and a picture appeared on the screen. Chris soon realised that he was watching himself from about four weeks ago, when he’d been in a town on the coast. He’d been walking along a cliff top and had heard a man shouting for help. He’d managed to track down where the person was and realised that he’d fallen down the side of the cliff and was now stuck on a ledge. And to make matters worse, the ledge was starting to crumble bit by bit from under the man. So Chris had realised that he wouldn’t have time to go to the town for help, he’d have to help the man right now. He saw himself using his levitation skills to lift the person up from the ledge – without touching him in any way – without the use of a rope or any other climbing aid. Then the scene suddenly changed to what had happened earlier that day.
‘Well’ said Doctor Williamson. ‘Do you still say that you have know idea what I’m talking about, or should we continue?’
After Chris had been shown the footage, he looked at the Doctor and said nervously,
‘How did you get a hold of this?’
‘We have our ways, just like we also know that your homeless and have been living on the streets for the past several months and foraging in dustbins for stuff to survive, and stealing what clothes you need of clothes lines’ said the Doctor.
‘What do you want?’ asked Chris in a resigned sort of voice.
‘Good I like someone who is direct and to the point. Well simply put, we’d like you to consider joining our little organisation.’
‘And what does this organisation do?’ asked Chris in an, I don’t care sort of voice.
‘Well’ said the Doctor ignoring the tone of voice that Chris had just used. ‘We take specially gifted people like yourself and train them to use their powers wisely. And in return we’d like you to help us combat a particular sort of crime.’
‘And what sort of crime is that?’ asked Chris who’s interest was starting to perk up a bit.
‘You’ll find out later, that is if you decide to join us and develop your skills.’
But before Chris could say anything more, an alarm sounded and the Doctor pressed a button on his desk’
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
A voice replied that there was a problem in the time barrier.
‘What kind of problem?’ he asked.
‘Well it looks like someone or something has been sent back in time, but all the time lines appear to be intact indicating everything or everyone are where they should be.’
The Doctor thought for a few moments then said’
‘Okay, I’ll be right there.’
Turning to Chris he said,
‘Well Chris it looks like you’ll be finding out what we do here at T.E.C.H. sooner than we’d planned, because for security reasons your going to have to come with me.’
With that the Doctor got up out of his chair and walked around his desk and over to the door and opened it, he stood there waiting for Chris to join him.
Chris had remained in his seat, unsure what to do. He’d didn’t know if he should get up or stay where he was. When he noticed that the Doctor was waiting at the door for him to join him, he jumped up out of his chair because by now Chris – though still a bit anxious – was quite curious about what actually went on at this facility, so he needed no more persuasion to join the Doctor at the door and follow him into the corridor.
They walked along various corridors together until they reached a set of lift doors. The Doctor pressed a button and Chris heard the sound of machinery sounding in the distance. Then a loud Tinging noise sounded and the doors opened. The two of them stepped into the lift and the Doctor said.
‘Level minus fourteen.’
Then a metallic sounding voice cried out,
‘INTRUDER, UNAUTHORISED PERSON DETECTED IN MAIN LIFT.’ The Doctor quickly replied,
‘System override, imput emergency override code Alpha, Mike, Golf one, one nine three two one Alpha.’
‘Voice print identification confirmed, override Code accepted,’ replied the voice ‘System resetting, you may proceed.
And the life doors closed, as the lift to move downwards. The Doctor seemed to have an idea and he spoke to the computer.
‘Computer, take a note of the physical form and imprint the voice of the person with me in the lift. He is to have level four security access to the establishment.’
‘System working… physical form of subject logged,’ said the mechanical voice, ‘Require vocal sample of voice to be used for voice print identification.’
The Doctor then whispered,
‘Say something to the computer Chris,’
‘Such as what? Replied Chris out loud.
‘Voice print logged, subject now has level four security access to limited areas in the establishment’ continued the voice of the computer.
It didn’t take long before Chris realised that not only were they going downwards, but they were also moving down underground. Chris could not help but wonder what was going on in this place that it all needed to be done so deep underground. After several seconds had gone by, the lift stopped and the doors opened to reveal a sight that took Chris’s breath away.
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Three:- Start Of The Journey
They had both emerged from the lift into what looked like a massive control room of some sort. There were various assortment of large and small monitors on the walls and also terminals of various sizes dotted around the floor area, and upon closer inspection, they were found to be monitoring heartbeat, blood pressure, brain activity and various other important bodily functions. Other monitors seemed to be monitoring some kind of waves or ripples, but for the moment the Doctor didn’t seem interested in any of this. All he appeared to be interested in for the time being was something at the other end of the control room.
So the Doctor quickly strode over towards where a man was sitting looking at a smaller monitor, Chris had to virtually run to keep step with him, for the Doctor was taking long strides.
‘Ok Steve, what have we got?’ the Doctor asked stopping before a man sitting at a smaller monitor.
‘Well, we seemed to have some sort of spike that seemed to indicate something or someone had gone back in time, but now as you can see – with a sweep of his hand towards the monitor – everything seems to be in its proper place.’
‘Well run an analysis to determine whether or not what you saw was organic or inorganic.’
‘Yes sir Doctor Williamson’ replied the technician.
And with a well practiced hand, the mans fingers zipped over the controls, pressing button after button.
After a few moments of furious activity he stopped doing what he was doing and then said,
‘Ahhh that’s funny.’
‘What’s funny?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Well, the analysis seems to indicate that whatever was sent back in time was organic, but not only that, there also appeared for a few minutes to be two of the same person in the same time frame. Then there was only one of that same person.’
The Doctor then asked, ‘can we pin point the exact year and location?’
‘Yes’ replied the technician, he pressed a few more buttons and replied,
‘The year was Eighteen Ninety-one and the Location appeared to be the village of Godrics Hollow .
Just then, at that moment there was a video call for Doctor Williamson, he went over to a console at another work station and pressed a button, and I noticed a screen lighting up revealing the face of a female. Even from my position across the room, I noticed that the conversation was quite intense, and after a minute or two had passed the Doctor pressed another button and the screen turned off. He came back over to where Chris was standing; he appeared to be deep in thought.
The Doctor stood there silent for a few seconds, and then he began to talk.
‘Who do we know that was famous and lived in that village that showed up on that last spike?’
The technician that was operating the monitor pressed a few more buttons and said,
‘Albus Dumbledore.’
‘Darn,’ said the Doctor ‘I was afraid of that. One of our Special Forces units has just raided a warehouse and found people in who’re in some kind of cryo genic sleep. And we also found evidence of cloning technology. It looks like someone has been cloning people and sending the clone back through time and space, replacing them with the original people. The originals are then sent forward in time to the present day and put into cryo genic sleep, no doubt to stop them from realising that there was anything wrong and to keep them incapacitated. A Ten year old Albus Dumbledore was identified in one of the cryo sleep modules.’
‘But that’s impossible’ said the technician. ‘He was one of the most revered Wizards in Wizarding history. Why would anyone want to clone him and then send his clone back in history to replace him when he was just a boy? It doesn’t really make sense. Anyway we would have picked up something, like a change in the timeline or something.’
‘I think we did pick up a change, remember the spike that you spotted earlier in Godrics Hollow, you spotted two spikes that indicated that there were two of the same person, and then there was only one of that person.’ The Doctor turned away thinking. When he turned back he said,
‘What if the Dumbledore that we know from history was replaced by a cloned copy that was sent back to replace the original version. And the clone was the one meant to start the Second Wizarding War, and kill all those people. We do know after all that the one known as he who must not be named started that war and Albus at the time was a main supporter and active member of the Order of The Phoenix that opposed him and his forces. I can only assume at this juncture that the clone was sent back for some reason, so that he could change history.’
The Doctor – after thinking about what he’d just said – suddenly turned around.
‘Right I think for the moment we have enough information to call a red alert situation. I want team one put together at once. Anyways it’s about time that the rest of the guys met the latest possible addition to their team.’ Turning towards Chris as he said this.
‘Tell the team to meet in meeting room briefing room one in one hour. And Steve, could you stay with Chris for the time being and show him where he’ll be sleeping and make sure he makes the briefing on time.’
‘Sure’ replied Steve.
And with that Doctor Williamson walked slowly away, he appeared to still be deep in thought, going through another door at the far end of the room.
Steve turned to Chris saying ‘Come on, I’ll show you to your room Chris.’ Steve and Chris walked away and both disappeared through the same door that the Doctor and he had entered by earlier.
The two of them entered the lift and Steve said, ‘Level minus seven.’
The lift shot upwards for a few seconds then stopped and opened its doors to reveal a long corridor with doors leading off of it.
Steve lead the way ‘the next three levels are the main living quarters for all the staff within the compound that your in.’ Explained Steve, ‘in other words Chris, your now in the accommodation section.’
Steve continued along the corridor until he came to a door, which he opened by pressing a series of buttons on a display set into the wall on the right side of the door. Then turning to Chris he gave him a slip of paper with a six digit number on it.
‘This is your combination lock code. You’ll need to remember it so that you can get back into your room whenever you come and go.’
When the lock was released, and the door opened, Chris saw his room. He saw that it was very spacious; it had a single bed along with a desk and a wardrobe. The floor was carpeted and the bed had a duvet cover on it. And on the bed Chris saw a new set of clothes. Then Steve spoke.
‘Later on you can decorate the room any way that you want, but for now you’d better get ready for the meeting. You can have a shower through that door’ – indicating a door, which led into a bathroom –, ‘and I see that Jackson has already laid out a complete change of clothes for you to wear.’
Chris noticed that there was also a window that was showing a seaside view, which puzzled him. He turned to Steve saying,
‘I thought we were underground?’
‘We are’ came back the reply.
‘But this window has a view of the outside.’
‘I know’ replied Steve with a smile.
‘But how is that possible?’ asked Chris.
‘Well, you could say that it’s all down to a special holographic technology that we have. It’ll all be explained to you in full later on. But for now, you’d better get ready for the briefing. I’ll leave you to get washed and changed, I’ll be back to get you in about an hour and take you to the meeting room.’
Steve left the room closing the door behind him.
Once Chris was alone, he felt for the first time – since as long as he could remember – that he really finally belonged somewhere. He didn’t even feel out of place here. He’d a strange feeling that he may have finally found a home. He smiled and immediately started to get ready for the meeting. He went into the bathroom and walked over to the shower booth. He turned on the shower, and ran his hand under the water; Chris seemed to revel in the hot water. It had been so long since he’d last had a good hot shower, or even a bath. There hadn’t been much time for such luxuries whilst he’d been on the run.
Chris suddenly got undressed and step into the shower booth. He ran his hands through his hair totally wetting his head, and then he got the shampoo and soap and gave himself a complete clean, feeling refreshed afterwards.
After about an hour, Chris was just finishing getting ready, and was putting the finishing touches to his new attire – tucking the hem of his new light blue T-shirt into the waistband of his new light brown long length shorts – when Steve came back and knocked on Chris’s door.
Chris was surprised when he’d heard the knock, and was even more surprised when nobody had just walked in. When Chris had been with foster parents or in any of the state’s children’s homes – before he’d run away – he’d never ever, gotten any privacy. People had just walked into his – or even anyone’s – room. When the knock came again, he replied
‘Come in.’
Steve entered saying ‘Right Chris, if your ready I’ll take you along to the briefing room.’
‘If you hang on for a minute Steve I’ll just get my new socks and trainers on, and comb my wet hair.’
‘No problem’ Steve replied.
Once Chris had finished getting ready, they left the room and walked down the corridor back towards the lift. As they walked along Chris apologised about the slight delay before he’d said come in, and he explained briefly about how he wasn’t used to all the stuff that was going on, and how he’d never gotten any privacy before.
‘Well Chris, in this organisation we respect everyone’s right to privacy. Sometimes it can be difficult, but we try and give whatever privacy where we can. That’s why I wouldn’t enter your room until you’d replied for me to come in.’
When they’d reached the lift doors, Steve pressed the button to summon it, the doors opened immediately, the both of them got in. Steve then said,
‘Level minus twelve.’
The doors closed and the lift descended to level twelve. They both exited and Chris followed Steve and both of them walked along until Steve stopped in front of a door. Steve opened the door and walked in, with Chris close behind.
The room that Chris found himself in was a plain sort of room with a long table that ran down the centre; the table could sit about twelve people at a stretch. The room was also carpeted with what looked like carpet tiles, and a large white screen attached to the wall, and what looked like an overhead projector attached to the ceiling. There were already a few people in the room when Chris arrived – five in total including Doctor Williamson –, they all turned their faces towards the door when the two of them entered and then the Doctor spoke up.
‘Hello Chris, it’s good to see you again. And – looking him over – you look a bit more presentable this time.’ Then turning to the rest of the people in the room he introduced him, ‘Right everyone, I’d like you to meet Chris, he’ll be joining you as an observer on this mission, and if all goes well he might very well be joining you on the team. Right Chris, let me introduce you to the other people you might be working with. From left to right we have Peter, Angie, Andrew and finally Elizabeth who’s the eldest and is also the team leader, and by the way, be warned, she likes to be called Liz. She doesn’t like to be called Elizabeth, so call her that at your own risk.
The people nodded their heads towards Chris as each of them was introduced and also gave him a welcoming smile, and Chris in turn nodded back to each of them also smiling. Chris was studying his new potential team-mates; Liz looked about Seventeen and had long strawberry blond hair that reached halfway down her back, she also had dark blue kind eyes and a kind face though Chris noticed that her mouth – even though was smiling – had a serious look as if she stood no nonsense from anyone. Peter looked about Fifteen and had jet black hair and brown hazel eyes and looked kind enough though, he looked a bit surly, Chris thought that he’d reserve judgement on him for the time being. Angie looked about Fourteen and had long brown hair which reached just passed her shoulders. She had Emerald green eyes that sparkled every time she smiled. And last but not least, there was Andrew. He appeared to be about Thirteen years old, blue grey eyes, dark brown crew cut hair and
a jolly looking face. If he was to join them he would be the youngest member of the team, being only Eleven years old, Chris liked the look of them. Then the Doctor got down to the serious business about what was happening.
‘Right folks, we have an emergency Eighteen ninety-one England , Godricks Hollow to be exact. We’ve discovered that someone has been cloning various people and sending them back in time and then replacing the originals with them and bringing the originals back to the present day and putting them into cryo genic sleep. And for the benefit of those who do not know what cryo genic sleep is, it’s a form of sleep where it’s like being frozen in time. The ageing process is slowed right down until it almost doesn’t exist, and when your revived later it seems as if no time has past by what so ever. You look the same as when you went into the cryo chamber.’
‘Now one of our Special Forces units has found a warehouse, and in that building we’ve found scientific equipment that’s used in the development of cloning. And as well as the cloning equipment, we’ve also found a Ten year old Albus Dumbledore.’
At the mention of this name there was a collective gasp from the members of the group. Each looking at each other Though not Chris since he’d never heard of the name until now. The Doctor continued
‘But when we checked the time lines everything was as it should be, accept at one point when we saw two blips which seemed to indicate two of the same person in the same era at the same time, but that only lasted a minute or two. So we checked the Albus we’d found and discovered him to be have been jinxed with some spell which after running some tests turned out to be stupyfy and also after various other test it was revealed that he was the original Albus. So all the evidence at this time seems to indicate that there is another Albus Dumbledore in the past, and with everything that we’ve found in that warehouse it looks like he’s a cloned version.’
After the Doctor had said all this he’d paused to let what he’d just said sink in. Then he continued.
‘Now your mission will be to go back to Eighteen ninty-one, find the clone and keep him under observation for the time being and at some point later on you’ll have to swap the two of them back. But in the meantime the clone was sent back for a reason, and if you can find out why it would help tremendously in our investigations.
The boy called Andrew then spoke up,
‘Doctor, why would anyone want to replace someone with a clone of that person?’
Whereas the Doctor replied,
At this time we’re not sure, because we can only surmise at this point that it’s someone who wants to change history for some reason to suit themselves. We also found small electronic devices that are usually implanted into the heads of people, and attached to their brains. These devices are banned because they’re used to control people, and these people are made to do whom evers bidding, and also tests that have been done on these devices have shown that with prolong exposure the implanted person is likely to go psychotic. So for the moment, with the discovery of these devices it leads us to believe that the clone may have such an implant in their head and being controlled by someone to meet their own means. So whilst we’re finding out what that is at this end, you people will need to go back in time and track down the clone and for the time being keep him under observation until we contact you with further instructions. Here are some photographs of the boy – handing photos to each team member. They saw a boy of ten years old with dark coloured hair and dark brown eye’s looking back at them. In fact he looked like any other boy that you’d see walking down the street in the world, any day of the week – so that you’ll know what he looks like when you arrive in his time period. Right folks, you’ll need to go to the Memory Intergration room to do some quick revision of the time period that you’ll be visiting, and then you’ll need to go to the costume department after that.’
Then the Doctor turned to Chris,
‘Just follow the rest and they’ll show you where to go.’
So Chris got up with the rest of the team and followed them out of the door and into a room a couple of doors down from the briefing room. When he’d entered the memory room Chris immediately spotted several chairs – which reminded him of dentist chairs –. A man indicated one of the chairs to Chris; he walked forward and sat down. Then the man lowered something that looked like a pair of glasses over his eyes, the man went on to explain,
‘Don’t worry, this won’t hurt you.’
‘What does it do?’ asked Chris.
‘Well, it’ll help you to quickly absorb and learn the culture and ways of the time period which you’ll be going to, that way you’ll not be to surprised by some of the strange things that you’ll find there. And you’ll also be able to blend in more effectively with the people of that era, if you know about it in advance.’
So a switch was turned on and what looked like small t.v. screens appeared to switch on, on the inside of the glasses, and Chris was able to see images before his eyes, showing him various pictures of Eighteen Nineties England. He saw images of the way people lived – from the poor to the well off – and the way they were dressed. He saw many images that flashed by his eyes. After what seemed a long time – but had been in reality about thirty seconds – the machine was switched off. When Chris emerged from the machine, he was amazed by what he’d just seen, he was heard to say,
‘WOW that was amazing. That was quite a trip, what just happened?’ The guy who had hooked him up replied,
‘You’ve just absorbed twenty years of knowledge in just thirty seconds’ and Chris once more stated
‘Wow.’
‘You now have all the information that you need to pass yourself off in an otherwise alien environment,’ the man concluded.
Once all the others had been put through the memory machines, they exited that room and the group proceeded further down the corridor and into another room, now this room really was big. It was vast. It held rack upon rack of clothes that belonged to many different time periods. There were a couple of women who worked in this area. They appeared to be in charge of all the clothing that was used on the missions that all the teams went on. So once they knew which era they were going to they set about getting the proper attire ready for them.
Chris being the youngest team member was kitted out in a stiff collared white shirt with a waistcoat, a jacket, a large bow tie that looked like a bow on a Christmas present, a air of knickerbocker trousers, a pair of woollen knee length stockings and a pair of sturdy dark brown boots. The older boy’s were kitted out much the same except they were issued with what looked like proper ties and proper trousers instead of knickerbockers. They were also given canvas bags to carry. The girls were issued with what looked like silken colourful dresses and stockings and white shoes for their feet and bonnets on their heads.
After they’d been dressed in the clothes of the time period, Chris was taken to one side and escorted to the infirmary – while the rest of the team went elsewhere –. Where, upon arrival Chris was asked to take his jacket off and roll up his shirtsleeve, which he did. Then a Doctor injected something into his arm – just under the skin –.
‘What was that?’ asked Chris curiously.
‘It’s a recall device, which you press and you’ll automatically be recalled back to the present time.’ Replied the Doctor. ‘ There is also a locator incorporated into it to enable us to track you in an emergency. Now one more thing to take before you put your jacket back on, and that’s a blood sample.’ Once the sample was obtained, Chris put his jacket back on.
While Chris was doing all this, Doctor Williamson had quietly entered the infirmary and said,
‘All finished?’
Startled by his sudden appearance Chris nodded his head.
‘Right, it’s time to get you and the rest of the team on your way. The others are waiting for you in the time departure room.’
Doctor Williamson then led the way out of the infirmary and back down to level minus twelve. When they’d once again reached the control room, the Doctor went over to a door – set in the wall opposite to the door they’d just entered by – and opened it.
They entered a small room that had another door at the far end. The Doctor and Chris had to wait for the first door to close behind them before a security guard would allow them to pull open the next door. Once the other door was released, Chris followed the Doctor and into a very large room, much larger than the main control room. If the control room had amazed Chris before, that was nothing compared to what he was looking at now. What he saw left him totally speechless.
~#~#~#~#~#~
Chapter Four:- The Time Machine
Again, like in the control room he saw a lot of monitors and various other equipment standing around in the middle of the floor and against the walls. But what amazed him even more was the sight of a large cylindrical object in the very centre of the room. And as he looked up, Chris saw that its height seemed to reach right up to the ceiling. – And that in itself was very high up –. The rest of the team were waiting at the foot of a ramp that led up to an open door that was set in the side of the object. Both the Doctor and Chris walked up to the others and the Doctor said,
‘Well everyone, good luck with the mission and come back safe and – turning to Chris – especially to you Chris, good luck on your first mission.’ Then he turned around and exited through the same door that he and Chris had entered by a few moments before and disappeared. With that the team walked up the ramp and entered the object.
At the door Chris hesitated. Liz, – who was just behind him – said,
I know it looks a bit daunting Chris, but don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks.’ And with that encouragement he entered and sat down in one of the seats that were vacant, and watching the others he copied what they were doing. He pulled some straps over his shoulders and up between his legs, and was trying to attach the two sets of straps together across his chest. But as he was having trouble trying to make them both connect up together, the front door was slammed shut with a clang and locked from the outside. At the sound, Chris looked up with some apprehension.
At that moment Liz looked up to check on the progress of everyone, and seeing that Chris was having trouble with the straps. So undoing her straps she went over and helped him out of his difficulties. Then when she’d finished that job – receiving a grateful smile from Chris – and strapped herself back into her seat, she looked around to make sure everyone else was secure and being satisfied, she turned and flicking a switch set into the wall spoke into a microphone and said,
‘Okay control, team one is ready for deployment.’
A voice answered.
‘Roger team one, deployment will commence in t minus one minute and counting.’
Chris’s heart was beating, as if someone was beating a drum very fast. A voice then started to count down from sixty. And as the countdown commenced the object that he was in started to revolve. Very slowly at first, but with every second that passed it picked up speed and went faster and faster. As the object picked up speed, Chris felt himself being pushed back into the seat with the force of the spinning. Chris started to go pale in the face, and also started to feel queasy. He tried closing his eyes, but that seemed to make matters worse. Then he felt someone taking a hold of his hand. He opened his eyes and looked up. Chris saw that it was Liz who was holding his hand and was smiling an encouraging smile at him. He managed to smile back at her.
‘Keep looking at me and it won’t feel so bad.’
Chris had heard Liz say the words, but was sure that he hadn’t seen her lips moving. Chris seemed to have heard the voice in his head. But at that moment Chris had other things to worry about. So Chris kept his eyes on Liz’s eyes and in so doing he seemed to feel strength and encouragement flow into him. By the time the countdown reached zero, he felt nice and calm. He felt a type of peace that he’d never experienced before. When the voice reached zero, Chris felt a sudden lunge and it felt as if his insides were being turned inside out. He felt like he was being torn apart, it was only when the revolving started to slow down did Chris start to feel a bit more like himself.
When the revolving finally stopped, Chris was amazed to find that he was no longer in the object that he’d started out in. instead he found that he was now outside in the open air lying on his back on some grass staring up at a bright blue sky. He sat up and looked around, blinking his eyes in the sudden bright sunshine.
‘Where are we?’ he asked.
But before anyone could reply to his question, Chris suddenly turned over and threw up on the grass.
‘Well look at that,’ said Peter – with a laugh – ‘guess who can’t handle time travel?’
Liz walked over to Chris and put her arm around his shoulders.
‘Don’t worry about it’ she said – casting a vicious look in the direction of Peter – everybody’s sick the first couple of times, it’ll take your body a bit of time to get used to the sudden change.’ And then in a whispered voice Liz said, ‘You should have seen Peter being sick when he’d first time travelled, he’d kept it going for nearly two minutes.’
Chris snorted with laughter at what Liz had just said.
Then she turned and said ‘is everyone else alright?’ Everyone else nodded their heads. Once she’d established all was ok, she took a flat round object out of her bag and pressing a button on the side the lid flipped up. After pressing another button on the inside Liz spoke into it.
‘Team one to control; we’ve all arrived safely and in good condition. No injuries to report.’ After a moment a voice replied,
‘Roger team one, message received and understood.’
‘What’s that’ asked Chris as Liz started to put the device away in her bag.
‘It’s a communication device that allows us to stay in touch with our control room in the future.’
‘Amazing’ he replied. But before Liz had put her communicator fully away another voice could be heard coming from it.
‘Team one this is Doctor Williamson, do you read me, over?’
Liz opened the device and replied
‘Yes Doctor Williamson we read you. Pass your message, over.’
‘New information has been obtained concerning the clone. We’ve found out from records that we retrieved that the clone has been Genetically Engineered with special abilities. It has virtually the same powers and abilities that you all have. So you must be extremely careful. Only defend yourselves if you are attacked, over.’
‘Message received and understood Doctor, over and out.’
Then she let go of the send button and returned the communicator to her bag. Turning to the rest of her team Liz said,
‘Well you heard the man. We only attack when we’re attacked, not before, understood?’
And everyone nodded their heads.
‘Good – looking around her – now the village is about a mile North of us that’s in that direction – pointing –. Were going to have to walk so the sooner we get started, the sooner we get there.’
So they all set out to cross the field that they’d landed in and out of a gate at the far end that led into a country lane. Once they’d exited the field, Liz closed the gate behind them and they set off along the lane.
They soon came to a road, and began to walk along the grass verge. As they walked along, they passed several people, but thanks to the well prepared planning in advance they seemed to pass without drawing attention to themselves. Any people they passed never gave them a second glance. People must have thought they were brothers and sisters. They also kept a sharp look out for any boys that they met and tried to match them up to the description and the photo that they’d committed to memory back at base. But any that they did meet didn’t meet the criteria, so they continued to walk towards Godrics Hollow.
Once they’d reached the village they made for the most logical place to start their search, the village square. When they arrived at their destination Liz said
‘It would be better if we split up, we’ll be able to search the village much more effectively that way. Right Andrew, you search the Eastern side, Peter you search the Northern end, Angie you search the Southern end whilst Chris and myself will take the Western end of the village. Remember to keep in touch through telepathy with your progress, and also if you spot anything, even if you’re unsure get in touch.’ Liz looked at the church clock and saw that the time was Eleven o’clock, ‘Ok, it’s Eleven now, we’ll meet back here in one hour, Ok, lets move.’
Everyone moved off to their designated search areas. Chris and Liz moving towards the Western end of the village and started their search.
Once Chris and Liz had reached the area that they were to check, Liz said
‘Chris, you cross over and check the doors on the other side of the road; you know what were looking for.’
So with a nod of his head, Chris crossed over the road and started looking at the doors for any names or numbers, Liz looked over the doors on her side and found nothing.
They’d been searching for just over forty five minutes and had almost given up hope and were about to head back to the square when all of a sudden Chris spotted a boy who looked just like the photo. He was about the right age and was dressed in a similar way to the way he was dressed. Chris signaled to Liz and she crossed over and joined him. Chris pointed the boy out and Liz said
‘Well done Chris’ and they started to follow him. Then all of a sudden Chris heard a voice in his head.
‘Ok everyone, Chris and I have found him, we’ll follow him and keep you up to date on his movements.’
Chris jumped slightly at the sudden voice that he’d heard and he looked over hurriedly towards Liz and he saw that she hadn’t moved her lips. And Chris remembered that something similar had happened during the trip through time. He’d heard her voice then as well but hadn’t seen her mouth move that time either.
Then Chris heard other voices and realized that it was the other team members replying that they’d await her instructions. Chris looked at Liz and said
‘What were those voices that I heard in my head?’
‘That was me getting in touch with the others to let me know that we’d found our boy.’
‘But how did you do that without the use of a radio? And also without moving your lips?’
‘Through telepathy’.
‘Through what?’ asked Chris in a confused voice?
‘Through telepathy’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’ll explain later, it’ll be part of your training if you decide to join us. But for now we have more important things to worry about. Let’s sort out that clone and find out what he’s up to.’
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Five:- The Green Orb.
The boy version of Dumbledore led them down a side street where he went into a baker’s shop. When he came out he was carrying a loaf of bread; he then retraced his steps and walked back up the road the way that they’d come. He led them up and down quite a few streets before he finally entered a door on a road called Merlin’s Lane. Liz and Chris crept up to the door and walking passed it, noted what the number was which was 9. Liz once again used telepathy to speak to the others, and this time it didn’t quite take Chris by surprise when he heard the voices.
‘Search team one to all teams, have followed the subject to a house at number 9 Merlin’s Lane. There is a small cafe just across the road from the person’s house, meet myself and Chris here and we’ll fill you in on the details.’
After the rest of the other search teams had confirmed the message, Liz and Chris walked across to the café they’d spotted. Liz ordered a coffee and Chris a glass of Orange juice. They took their drinks over to a table by the window, so that they could have a clear view of the house across the road.
After about twenty minutes had passed the rest of the group had arrived at the café and trooped inside. They walked up to the counter and placed their orders for various drinks and went and sat with Liz and Chris. Once everyone was present at the table, Andy asked,
‘Which house does he stay in?’
And Liz pointed towards a door stating,
‘That house across the street, the one with the royal blue door.’
So the Team waited in the café. After about ten minutes had passed by – during which time they had spotted six boys heading up a path at the side of the house – there had been no sign of movement from within the house it self, and there was also none on the outside either. After another twenty minutes the café owner was starting to stare at the group a bit suspiciously. Liz – spotting this – was about to get up and suggest that they move on, when all of a sudden the front door of the house opened and they saw Albus coming out.
He headed away from the house and up the same path that the other boys had gone along, set behind the house. The team got up and exited the café and followed Albus along the path and across open country. There was a danger of being seen, but thankfully the subject seemed intent on watching where he was going. He appeared to be heading towards some steep hills that they could all see in the distance. After about ten minutes they’d indeed reached the a for mentioned hills and observed him entering a large cave. The team halted and waited for a few minutes, when they were sure that he wasn’t coming out again in a hurry, they crept forward to the cave entrance and stopped and listened.
‘Right’ said Liz,
‘I want Andy and Angie to stay here and cover the rest of us while we go into the cave to see if we can discover anything. If you’re attacked remember that you can only stun with your wands.’ So whilst Liz, Peter and Chris entered the cave, Angie and Andy drew their wands and took up defensive positions.
Once Liz and the others had entered the cave, the world seemed to go pitch black, she uttered a word – Lumos – and a light started to glow, lighting up the path ahead. Chris saw that she’d – just like the others – drawn a stick like object and had produced a light from the end. They continued to creep cautiously forward. As they continued to walk further into the cave they came across various other passageways that joined onto the one the main one that they were in. every time they came to a corner they carefully peered around it, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. As far as they could see the cave looked just like any other cave that you’d see anywhere. After about five minutes of walking along dark caverns, they saw a bright green light shining in the distance, and they also heard the sound of voices, they sounded like they were chanting. As they moved forwards, the voices grew louder. When they turned into another corridor they saw the green light shining out of an inner cave entrance, and the light was reflecting of the walls. They continued to move forward and once at the entrance to the inner cave, they peered round the corner, what they saw amazed the three of them. They could not believe what they were seeing; they saw a large shining orb that was green in colour, and emitting a green light, and it was floating about four metres off the ground.
The six boys that the team had observed going up the hill were standing in a circle, and The Albus clone was standing in the centre directly underneath the large green orb. There was a bright glowing line of light coming from the orb and it was coming straight down and going through into the clone and channelled from him to the boys forming the outer circle. The six boys were holding out their arms wide open and the light formed an unbroken circle, going from one boy to the other.
‘Together’ said the clone ‘we’ll rule the known world. We’ll – as we grow – become a big powerful organisation in which no ne will be able to stop us. You my friends will become my trusted lieutenants, and will lead the rest of my followers to total victory, the will be ours. While the norms have a puny war, we’ll be building up a following that will be the ultimate force on this planet, and we’ll rule supreme over everyone else. And when the war to come is over, and everything is in turmoil, we’ll just walk right in and take over.’
And the six boys were chanting and repeating what the Albus clone was saying in slow drawn out voices.
Chris was watching what was happening. And was amazed at what he was seeing.
‘What are they doing’ he asked to no one in particular.
‘It’s a form of brain washing’ replied Liz. ‘The clone is trying to bend the boys will around to his way of thinking. He doesn’t want them to have any free will of their own. Once he’s finished with them, it’ll be like their brains are empty. They’ll only remember what he wants them to, like stuff about their families so that no one will be suspicious. Then he fills up the rest of their minds with mindless rubbish, like, inciting racial hatred towards norms – also known has Muggles –. They’ll be virtually like automatons, doing his bidding.
Liz tried to get in touch with the others at the cave entrance. But for some reason she found that her telepathy was useless, she couldn’t get through no matter how hard she tried.
‘Peter’ she whispered. ‘I can’t seem to get through to the others with my telepathy, see if you can get through using yours.’
So Chris and Liz watched Peter while he tried, and judging by the look on his face – for they thought he was going to burst a blood vessel – he was certainly trying hard. But eventually even he had to give up, sadly looking towards Liz and shaking his head from side to side, he’d been unable to get through.
‘Sorry Liz’ was all he could say.
‘We’d better get out of here and report what we’ve observed to Doctor Williamson. There must be some sort of interference in these caves, which prevents us from using our telepathy.’
They turned back and started to retrace their steps back through the maze of caverns. When all of a sudden Peter stubbed his toe quite hard on a jutting out piece of rock, he let out a shout of pain. He tried to stifle the yell by putting his hand over his mouth but he was to late, for a moment the sound reverberated around the cave. Liz and Chris halted and listened for a few seconds to see if they’d been discovered, but all remained silent. No doubt thinking that they were undiscovered, they continued to walk cautiously away from the inner cave area.
The seven boys in the large cavern had indeed heard him, and slowly turned their heads in the direction from whence the noise had come from. They then turn their faces back towards the clone and awaited his instructions. The Albus clone had also turned his head towards the sound and suddenly there was a glowing green light coming from his eyes. He seemed to be concentrating on the wall; it was almost as if he could see through the solid stone. Then an evil sneer came over his face, he turned to one of the boys and said’
‘Follow who ever that is and report back to me. But do not interfere with them what so ever for the time being. At least not until I say so.’
The boy he’d chosen gave him a brief bow and set off to follow our intrepid heroes. In the meantime, Peter, Chris and Liz – thinking that they were still undiscovered – continued to creep along the caverns – with the boy following closely behind them – until they came to the cave entrance. The others were still waiting there for their return with worried looks on their faces.
‘What happened’ asked Andy.
‘We were worried about you; you were gone for quite a long time. Why didn’t you use telepathy?’
‘I tried, but for some reason I couldn’t get through to you. There was some sort of interference’ Liz and the other two knelt beside their comrades.
‘Have there been any problems at this end since we’ve been gone?’ asked Liz.
‘None’ replied Paul. ‘Why’d you ask?’
‘Because we’ve just witnessed the clone recruiting six boys to be the future leaders of the movement that he’s starting up. And for all we know he may already have other people in on the act already. So we’ll have to be on the look out for anything or anyone acting suspiciously towards us from now on, because anyone could be out to try and stop us. Right lets get away from here, and get in touch with headquarters, this place is starting to give me the creeps.’
So the five of them got up and set off down the same path that led towards the town. But just before they came to the path exit that led into the town, they came across an old derelict house, which they went into. After going into an room that looked like it was more stable that the rest of the house, Liz pulled out the small communicator from her bag and tried to call the Doctor, but for some reason could not make contact. It seemed to be the same sort of interference that had inhibited their telepathic powers.
In the meantime – unknown to them – the boy who’d been sent to follow them had followed them to the house and had over heard their every word. The boy inched forward a bit more, but he’d kicked a small stone and set it rolling along the floor. The team heard the noise and Liz said,
‘Who’s there?’ the boy – realising that he’d been discovered – ran off. Peter saw the boy running away and said
‘It’s only a kid, nothing to worry about, he must have been curious about what was happening.’
‘I hope he didn’t overhear anything’ replied Liz. ‘Right, we have to get away from here and find somewhere away from this interference so that we can get in touch with the Doctor and let him know what we’ve found out.’
So once again they set off down the same path they’d been on earlier and headed back towards the village square. But just before they got to the square, they came across another derelict building. When they looked inside it they found that that there were enough rooms for them to provide uninterrupted conversation with each other, and also allow them to try once again to get in touch with the control room back at base.
They entered the building and Liz immediately got the radio out of her bag and said,
‘Team one to time control, team one to time control, do you copy, over.’ A voice replied
‘Team one this is time control; pass your message, over.’
‘Thank goodness’ said Liz with a thankful sigh ‘We got through to you this time, we couldn’t earlier, time control could you please put me on a secure channel to Doctor Williamson, over.’
‘Stand by team one, putting you through now.’
After a couple of seconds had passed by, they heard Doctor Williamson on the radio.
‘Team one this is Doctor Williamson. What have you managed to find out about our friend? Over.’
Then Liz went into a lengthy detailed report about what they’d witnessed, and at the end of the report wanted to know what to do next about the situation.
‘It sounds to me as if the sooner we get the clone exchanged for the original the better things will be. So your main aim just now will be to immobilise the clone and capture him. Then once you’ve achieved that objective, you get back in touch with me and let me know when he’s under wraps, then we can exchange the two and hopefully there won’t be to much damage to the time line.’
Chapter Six:- Overcoming Obstacles
In the mean time, the boy who’d followed them to the first building had returned to the inner cave and was making a report to the cloned version of Albus, and was telling about everything he’d observed. About the gadgets that he’d seen and anything else.
‘Sooooo, their from the future’ replied the clone in a slow quiet drawn out voice, ‘Well, they’ll soon wish they’d never come back in time to interfere with my plans.’ Turning to the other boy’s he said,
‘Come my friends, we must prepare for any attack that might come our way from these people who wish to stop us full filling our destiny of ruling the world.’ And the clone turned away laughing an evil laugh.
Mean time, we return to Chris and the others.
‘Any ideas?’ asked Liz. No one answered her. ‘Come on people, we have to come up with a plan to immobilise the clone before he does anymore harm to the timeline. If he persists in disturbing things anymore in the past, we might find ourselves not even born. And that could be disastrous for us and the way future events unfold.’
Then Peter spoke up. ‘The way I see it is this, we don’t know exactly what abilities or powers he possesses, so we cannot really think of a way to immobilise or capture him until we have some way to hold him for an indefinite period of time. And to do that we have to have some idea of how powerful he is. Though by all accounts from what we have seen so far, it looks like he’s extremely powerful. And immobilising him is going to be extremely difficult.’ Then Angie spoke.
‘I think that the only way to find out anything will be to do an assault of some sort and see what were up against. Maybe an ambush, that sort of thing.’
‘You might have an idea there,’ said Liz. ‘He might be expecting a frontal assault. So any ideas where we can spring this ambush on him? Bearing in mind that we want to take him totally by surprise.’
‘How about the caves that he goes to’ suggested Angie? ‘There are a lot of places where we can hide ourselves and not be seen.’
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ said Liz. But that plan has one slight problem with it.’
‘What’s that?’ sounded several voices.
‘Well there are certainly more than enough spaces to hide inside the cave, but there is also the strong possibility that we could become trapped inside the cave with no way to escape if things got to hot. I know we can teleport away if we needed to, but that would be dependant on whether or not we could. Remember the failure we had in being able to use our telepathy. Goodness knows how many of our other powers are effected by whatever stopped us using telepathy. But anyway, Chris has only just joined us and doesn’t know how to teleport yet. And I’m certainly not going to leave him behind if I can help it.’
‘I never thought of that’ replied Angie in a disheartened sounding voice.
‘Never mind. It was a good idea; and it might come in handy some other time.’ Then turning back to the others Liz said
‘Any other ideas?’
Then Chris spoke up
‘What about his house? Could we stage some kind of ambush there?’
‘Maybe we could’ replied Liz, thinking.
‘Since we’re able to teleport, we can just teleport into the house. But we’ve no time just now to teach you the finer points of teleportation Chris. Will you be able to open the back door all right?’
‘No problem’ he replied.
‘Okay everyone, that seems to be the best plan for the time being, so let’s move out.’
Everyone left the derelict house and headed off down the road. But this time instead of heading for the Village Square , they headed towards the Western end of the Village, towards Albus’s home, to set up the ambush. As they were walking through parts of the Village, they received a few curious stares from some of the adults. Not many, but it was still a bit daunting to have them – even if it was only a few people – staring at you.
After a few more stare Liz said,
‘I’m beginning to wonder if the clone managed to get to more people than those boys that we saw in the caves. We do seem to be attracting more attention this time round, more than when we first headed up to the caves.’
This worried Liz, but there was no time to worry about it just now, they were approaching the house.
‘Right Everyone’ voiced Liz ‘wands out and make sure that your stunning spells are spot on, I don’t want to take any chances whilst we’re here; I want to be ready for any eventuality.’
Everyone drew their wands and with determined looks on their faces they moved towards the house.
Chris seeing the wands said, ‘What are these?’
‘There called wands’ replied Andy, ‘We use them to stun people, knock them out for a while. There are other things that we could do with them, such as kill, but it’s not in our nature to do that. No matter what, we’re unable to kill another living being, no matter who they are or what they do to us.’
‘I see’ said Chris.
‘Right everyone, I’ll teleport in and do a quick scout around,’ said Liz, ‘Just to make sure that the immediate area is clear. Wait here until I get back, and keep a look out, if anyone comes, let me know immediately.’ And with that Liz disappeared, which startled Chris a bit since this he’d never seen anybody do that sort of thing before.
After what seemed an eternity, Liz reappeared beside the others.
‘No problem’ she said, ‘the immediate area is clear. The rest of you teleport into the living room while Chris and I deal with the back door.’ When the others had disappeared Liz turned to Chris saying,
‘Well come on then, you can show me this trick you have for dealing with locked doors.’
So Chris and Liz crept around to the back door and went quietly up to the door. Chris laid his hands around the lock area, and concentrated. After a few moments, and the green blue light started to emanate from both his hands again and engulfed Chris and feeding down to where his hands were. After another few moments, a clicking noise could be heard, which was the sound of the lock disengaging.
Opening the door Liz remarked with a smile ‘Impressive. You’ll come in handy with that little trick.’
Once they were in the house, both of them made their way into the living room where they met up with the others where upon Liz said,
‘Right everyone, I want a more detailed search of the house done, I only had time for a quick look around. So Peter, you and Angie search upstairs and Andy, you search the rest of downstairs; I want you to make sure that there is no one in the house what so ever. I don’t want innocent people harmed in any way when we spring the ambush.’
So whilst the rest of the house was being searched, Liz was looking around the living area and hallway to try and establish where the best places would be to hide and wait. Whilst she was doing this, her eyes fell upon a note on the mantelpiece. It was addressed to Albus; she picked it up and unfolded it. It said your mother and I have gone to your aunt Gertrude; she’s not feeling to well. Go to your uncle Bruno’s until we get back in a couple of days. Mum and Dad.
‘Perfect’ thought Liz. ‘Now we know for definite that no one will disturb us. And we also know that the only person who’ll come through the front door will be the clone.’
Liz refolded the note and replaced it on the mantelpiece. By the time the others arrived back in the living room and reported that the house was totally empty accept for them, Liz had settled on the hiding places.
‘Right Peter and Angie get behind the sofa, Andrew you go into the hallway cupboard, there’s enough room for you to hide in there,, Chris and I will go into the kitchen. When Albus appears, let him go to the mantlepiece to read the note, and then we’ll strike, then we’ll let him have it with all stunners. We may or may not be in for a long wait, so be on your guard at all times.’
Everyone nodded their heads. And Liz turned to Chris and said ‘Chris, since you don’t have a wand yet, when the shooting starts just keep your head down.’
‘Right’ he replied
While they were waiting, Chris took this opportunity to ask some questions about T.E.C.H. and what the organization did exactly. Liz tried to explain the story as best as she could.
‘T.E.C.H. was formed about Seventy years ago when time travel was first discovered. A professor Mendleson discovered time travel in the year 2345. and once it had become common knowledge, people started to take advantage of time travel to go to the past in order to plunder some of the pasts riches. So professor Mendleson set up an organization in order to combat these thefts, he called the organization T.E.C.H., which stands for Time Enforcement Commission for Hogwarts. The idea was to keep an eye on the time lanes and look out for even the smallest discrepancy that looked out of place. Once any discrepancies were discovered a T.E.C.H. team were deployed immediately to stop the thieves.
In the beginning T.E.C.H. didn’t bother too much about preparation work – like what we did before we came on our missions –, because it was at the time because it was a simple case of in and out before anyone noticed that there was anything wrong or even going on. But as the technology became more sophisticated has time travel progressed; they had to start doing prep work – because sometimes the teams that were sent back had to spend several day’s or so in the era that they were sent back to –, so that the teams that were sent back were better prepared for what was in store for them. And since they had to spend several day’s in that era the teams also had to be able to pass themselves off more easily has people from that era, just like what were having to do at this moment.
Then some of the crooks that went back in time started to use children in some of the thefts, because it was found that children were able to adapt to the new surroundings very easily. So T.E.C.H. started to recruit children to work along side the adult T.E.C.H. personnel since they could not arouse suspicion and were able to round up the children that were sent back. It was difficult at first because the children could pass themselves off as children of that era quite easily and spotting them became a pain in the neck. The thieves were dressing them up in the period clothes of the time. Then about twenty years ago T.E.C.H. discovered several children with certain powers. Powers that enabled them to sense other people who didn’t belong in the same time period that they were in. so they recruited these children, and started to send them back in time – children were used because they could pass themselves off without attracting to much attention –. It was an immediate success; all the children were rounded up and sent to detention centres. Then when the rounding up of the children started to dry up, the T.E.C.H. children were used to work along side their adult counterparts, until more recently when the cloned version of Albus Dumbledore appeared on the scene and the rest you know.
Chapter Seven:- The First Battle.
‘That’s quite a story’ Chris replied. But he never said anymore, because at that moment a key was to be being put into the lock of the front door. They heard someone enter the house, and close the door behind them. Footsteps could be heard walking down the short hallway and a voice called out,
‘Mum, Dad are you in?’
Of course there was no answer. Then the living room door slowly opens and the cloned version of Albus poked his head around the side of the door. Looking around, his eyes settled on the mantelpiece where he noticed the note and he fully entered the room. As he walked over to where the note was; he stopped in the middle of the room, listening. Liz was puzzled as to why he’d stopped; it was almost like he’d heard something, but Liz herself had heard nothing. The clone put his hand up to his chest then dropped it, and then he moved forward again.
Just as he got to the mantelpiece and he had put his hand up to reach for it, Liz suddenly shouted, ‘NOW.’
And everyone – except Chris – came out of hiding and started firing stunning spells. But there was something wrong. The clone did not appear to be effected by the spells that were being fired at him. They just seem to bounce of him. In fact he just started to laugh, and he turned around saying in a cruel snarling voice,
‘Did you really think I hadn’t heard you when I came in? I heard your heartbeats as loud as someone beating a drum. In fact, even above all the noise you’re making just now, I can still hear your heartbeats. Now, this is really starting to get rather tiresome.’
And with that his eyes started glowing bright green and a beam of bright green light shot out towards the sofa, blasting a hole right through the centre of it. There were screams as Angie and Peter cried out in shock. Even the others were shocked at what they’d just witnessed; they hadn’t expected that to happen. They were expecting the clone to use similar powers to the ones they had, but this was something totally new and alien to them. They had no way of defending themselves at this time from the awesome power that the clone was displaying. By now the clone was firing shots towards the living room door and into the hallway – where Andrew was hiding – and he was still firing away with his wand – even if it did seem hopeless –. Suddenly Andrew took a direct hit in the chest and fell to the floor unconscious. Peter had seen what had happened and managed to rush over to where he’d fallen; dodging the clone’s green bolts. Once he’d reached Andrew, he managed to teleport the two of them to safety.
Angie managed to teleport over to where Liz and Chris were and Liz shouted – above the noise – for her to teleport back to where they’d first arrived and to take Chris with her. She’d try and hold him off whilst they got away.
‘NO’ shouted Chris, ‘I want to help you.’
‘At this moment you can help me by getting away from here. As I said before, we don’t leave anyone behind.’
As soon as Liz had said these words Angie grabbed Chris’s arm and Chris had a sensation of flying and also what felt like he was being squeezed through a narrow tube. He saw the living room disappear around him and he found himself once more standing in the middle of the field where he and the others had first arrived. The others were also in the field, but they were gathered around Andrew who was lying quite still on the grass.
Chris immediately went over to where Andrew was lying, and knelt down beside him. He took one look at him and realised that he wasn’t breathing. Chris at once laid his hands on the wounded chest and concentrated harder than he’d ever done before. The same green blue glow once again emanated from both his hands. After a few seconds – where all the others were holding their breaths – had gone by, Andrew’s chest started to heave up and down and he also began to cough and splutter as his lungs started to fill up with oxygen, and looking down at his chest, he saw that the wound had been closed.
‘What happened?’ asked Andy in a weak voice,
‘You were dead, you took a direct hit to the chest’ replied Peter. ‘That is until Chris helped you.’
Turning to Chris Andy said ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem’ replied Chris.
During the time that he’d been attending to Andy, Chris had heard Angie’s voice in his head saying,
‘Everyones away Liz. You can join us now.’
And then Liz appeared in the field along side everyone else. She looked tired and rather worn out.
‘That was to close. How’s Andy doing?’ she asked.
‘Not to bad now, since Chris fixed him up’ replied Peter.
‘But never mind Andy, what about yourself? You’ve hurt your arm. You should let Chris have a look at it.’
Chris took one look at Liz’s arm and saw at once that it was broken in a couple of places. Chris once again laid his hands across the two breaks and managed to weld the two bones back together again with his healing powers.
‘Thanks Chris’ Liz said moving her arm back and forth.
‘Alright, what happened?’ asked Andy.
‘I’m not sure, but it looked like he had some sort of protective shielding around his body’ replied Liz.
‘When he stopped in the middle of the room and put his hand to his chest, he must have activated it then.’ Andy continued.
‘So what do we do now?’ Asked Peter.
‘First things first, I’ll have to get in touch with Doctor Williamson and let him know what’s happened’ replied Liz. ‘Then await further instructions from him’
So Liz once more took her radio from her bag and called the Doctor. When he came on the radio Liz gave a full report on what had happened in the house. After she had finished, the Doctor sounded rather grave about what had happened.
‘Your right, it does sound like he had a protective shield of some sort, probably a shield charm. That can be the only reason that your stunning spells didn’t work on him and bounced off him.’
‘So what do we do Doctor?’ asked Liz.
‘Well…. at the moment our scientists are actually working on something to nullify the effects of what you’ve described to me, and I think their quite close to finishing it. I’ll need to get back to you about that one. But with any luck you won’t have to long to wait, but in the mean time I’m afraid you’re going to have to make out the best way that you can, sorry.’
So the team sat back and looked at each other with what looked almost like defeated expressions. Liz looked around at the surrounding countryside and up at the sky.
‘We’d better look for some shelter, it’s getting dark and it also looks like it’s going to rain.’
Angie spotted some buildings a short way away and pointing towards them said,
‘What about those buildings over there?’
‘Yes, perfect’ replied Liz. ‘You lot teleport over to them and I’ll walk along with Chris.’
So whilst Angie and the others teleported over to the buildings, Liz and Chris walked over the fields and headed for the buildings. They had to trudge over several fields and through several gates before they reached the building which turned out to be half ruined, and looked very old. Part of the building still had half a roof, but was still broken down enough to be unliveable. The team had no choice but to make the best of a bad situation and spend the night where they were. Liz issued her last orders of the day.
‘Andy, you take the first three hours, Angie the next three and Peter the last three. Keep a sharp look out, and if you see or hear anything unusual wake me at once, understood?’
‘Yes Liz’ replied the three of them together in one voice.
So the rest of the team slowly fell asleep – after making themselves as comfy as they could on the bare stone floor – leaving Andy on the first watch. After a while Andy started to walk around because it was the best way that he could think of to stay awake and not fall asleep from boredom. After three hours – which was so boring that he couldn’t wait to get to sleep – he woke Angie and stretching her arms she fought her way to full wakefulness. Whilst she was doing this Andy was saying that all was quiet and there was nothing to report.
‘Very well’ she replied. And Andy settled down to sleep while Angie got to her feet and started to walk around a bit to make sure that she was fully awake.
At one point during her stint on guard duty she thought she’d heard something, but after staying still and listening for a few minutes she heard nothing more and put the noise down to her imagination and didn’t think anymore about it. When her stint was up, she woke up Peter and made her report, stating that all was well – forgetting all about the noise –.
While Peter was standing guard, he also thought he’d heard a small cough coming out of the darkness. He contemplated waking Liz, but after a few minutes of listening he heard nothing further and thought against that idea. He didn’t want to be known has someone who jumps at every shadow or animal noise that the night had to offer, so he also remained quiet.
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Eight:- The Dead Cat Warning.
The next Morning dawned sunny and bright. The birds were singing their usual dawn chorus, and you wouldn’t think that there was anything wrong in the world. But unfortunately, this was the real world and not dreamland.
All of a sudden there was a scream, which startled those that hadn’t woken up yet wide-awake in a blink of an eye. It was Angie that had screamed. Everyone rushed over to where she’d been sleeping and soon discovered the reason why she was upset. There was a dead cat lying in a pool of blood beside where she’d been sleeping. There also appeared to be a note lying beside the cat.
Liz unfolded the note and read the contents out aloud. ‘This is a warning. Do not interfere with my plans or you’ll all meet the same end has this cat. Take heed and live.’ The note was written in red, red like blood, probably the cat’s blood.
Liz was furious with this warning. ‘I’ll not have any member of my team threatened or scared off like this. Not by anyone, not even a jumped up little upstart like this clone.’ And with that she got her communicator out of her bag and immediately got in touch with Doctor Williamson.
‘I hope you have some good news for me Doctor? Because at this moment I’m not in the mood for anything else.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’ asked the Doctor.
And Liz told him about the dead cat warning that they’d received.
‘Well I do have some good and some bad news, the device that’ll render the clone’s powers useless is now ready.’
‘And what’s the bad news’ asked Liz.
‘The bad news is that you have to get within two metres of him for it to be totally effective.’
‘Well never mind,’ replied Liz ‘I’m sure we’ll manage to work it out. Could you send the device to us now Doctor?’
‘It’s already on its way.
And out of nowhere a small round metallic object appeared at their feet in front of them. Liz bent down and picked it up, it could fit snugly into the palm of her hand. There were two buttons on it, one red and one green. Then Liz heard the Doctors voice over the communicator.
‘To activate the device you have to press the green button, and the red button of course deactivates it. Good luck, Doctor Williamson out.’
The communicator went dead.
‘Can I see that?’ asked Chris. And Liz handed him the device without thinking.
‘Right then’ she said ‘we’re going to have to head back into town and head back to Albus’s house.’
At this piece of news there was a fair bit of murmuring.
‘I know that it’s asking a bit much after what happened yesterday, but with this device we can disable the clone’s powers and then we can really nail him. Then we’ll never have to worry about him again.’
‘But what about the distance?’ asked Peter ‘ We have to get within two metres of him to be effective, and I don’t think he’s going to allow us to just walk up to him and say, excuse me do you mind if I just disable your ability to do magic and such like?’
‘I know it’s asking a lot, but have I ever lead you wrong before?’ There was a general shaking of heads at this statement.
‘Right then lets move out and sort this problem out once and for all.’
So they all trooped out of the old farmhouse and headed back towards town. Liz had decided to walk the distance into town. This could be due to the fact that she could think her plans through and get them straight in her mind before they arrived at their destination.
In the meantime the clone had been busy. So as not to attract too much attention from the real Albus’s parents, the clone had used his powers to clean and repair all the damage that had been done to the house. And was even now walking along the street by himself. When he’d reached the Village Square , he sat on the top step of the old war memorial that was sitting in the centre. There he just sat and waited, as if waiting for something to happen. He kept his eyes on the road that led into town.
When Liz and the others had reached the outskirts of the town, it was decided to split up and approach from different directions.
So Liz and Chris approached from the West, Angie teleported to the Eastern end of the Square, Andrew from the North and Peter from the South. Once they we’re all in position they used their Telepathy to let Liz know that they we’re ready to move on her word.
But before Liz could say anything, Chris suddenly collapsed, and he seemed to be in pain. He was writhing around on the ground clutching his head. Liz was on the ground beside him in a trice.
‘What’s wrong Chris?’ She worriedly asked.
‘He’s inside my head’ he cried ‘I can hear his voice; he’s trying tom entice me, trying to get to me. Please make him stop, he’s, he’s hurting me.’
Liz at once laid her hand on his forehead, and spreading her fore finger and thumb to touch both sides of his temple; she concentrated and muttered a few words to herself. After a few seconds had gone by, Chris’s movements began to settle down. Eventually he was in what looked like a deep slumber and free from what he’d experienced.
Liz used her telepathy to tell the others that the attack was cancelled for the time being and everyone was to meet her at the West approach road to town. At once everyone had materialised beside her. When they saw Chris lying on the ground they asked what had happened. Liz said,
‘I’m not sure, one second he was ready for the attack and the next second he was in sever pain, clutching his head saying that he was trying to get to him. I had to calm him down; he was in so much agony. For the time being he’s calm. We’ll teleport back to the farm and see how he is later.’
So Liz took a hold of Chris’s arm and they all teleported back to the farmhouse that they’d slept in the night before.
In the mean time the clone had a satisfied grin on his face. He was muttering to himself,
‘So they have someone who’s not experienced enough to block my powers. He can’t prevent me from probing his mind. And the power that I sensed there was tremendous; he would be a worthy ally to have. But for now he’s beyond my influence, there’s been some sort of mind block erected. I can’t get through to his thoughts at this time. Next time I’ll have to be more careful. But for the time being I can wait, I can wait.
Mean time, back at the desolate farmhouse we find that Chris was still asleep and Liz was trying to explain about what had happened back on the outskirts of town.
‘As I said before, he was alright one second and in agony and rolling about on the ground the next. He was shouting he’s inside my head I can hear his voice and so on. So to calm him down I used an incantation to bring up a mind blocker in his mind. It appears to have worked for now. All we can do for the time being is wait for him to wake up and see what he can tell us.
Mean time the clone had returned to the Dumbledore house, to plan his next move. He wanted the person that he’d sensed; he was more powerful than all the people that were under his control were. He wanted that power joined with his own. With that person’s power and his own combined he would be unstoppable. He kept his mind open, reaching out and feeling for the powerful mind that he’d sensed earlier. He once again came up against the same mind block that had interfered with him the last time. But he could wait, and while he waited he kept up the assault on Chris’s mind, slowly chipping and probing at the block that was stopping him. He slowly probed for any weaknesses that he could exploit. But whoever had erected the mind block had done a very good job with it. But the clone knew that if he kept up a continuous slow bombardment, he would eventually break through. And all the while, whilst he waited for his chance to manipulate that mind around to his way of thinking. He had a look on his face that showed pure greed. And if there was one thing that he was good at, that was waiting. He did after all have all the time in the world at his disposal.
Several hours later we return to the farmhouse. Chris had just awoken, and was having a drink of water; And Liz was asking him questions.
‘What happened back there Chris? We were all ready for the attack, when all of a sudden you collapsed in a heap onto the ground crying out in agony.’
‘I’m not sure’ Chris replied, ‘one moment I was ready to go, then I felt something entering my mind, some kind of strange force. And before I could do anything that force suddenly knocked me for six and I felt intense pain, unlike anything that I’d felt before. And I also heard a voice inside my head promising to stop the pain if I allowed him access to my mind. I felt like I was being enticed to go somewhere, but I’m not sure where. Then the world suddenly went dark and I remember nothing more until I woke up just now.
‘I think it was the clone that was trying to take over your mind. He sensed that you were new and had not yet been trained to block out any invasion or probes of any kind, so you were left vulnerable. I promise you one thing, that will not happen again. From now on there will always be someone with you at all times to help you through this. And that person will be helping to maintain the block that I’ve erected.’
Chris looked relieved, and said ‘thank you.’
‘No need for thanks Chris. As far as I’m concerned, your part of this team now, and we look after each other.’ There was a general nodding of heads from the others at this statement.
It was decided that there wouldn’t be another attempt at catching the clone that day. Liz had decided that it would be better for Chris to rest up for the rest of that day, to help him recover from his ordeal.
But the clone was not going to let Chris of the hook that easily. He kept up a steady bombardment of Chris’s mind. But done in such a subtle way that Chris did not even realise that his mind was being manipulated, the clone was trying to break through any mind blocks that had been imposed by the other team members. He’d realised that it had been a mistake when he’d attacked Chris’s mind directly. Now he was using stealth. But he was only picking away bit by bit with the mind blocks, what he needed was more power. So the clone decided to go up to the cave that night and use the machine to boost his mental powers.
Chris could still feel something in his mind but since there we’re no more voices he never really gave the feelings much thought. He just put them down to being the aftermath of the mind invasion that he’d experienced. The mind blocks that were being used seemed to be keeping the mind that had invaded his mind at bay.
Andrew had lit a fire and someone had produced some cans of food – along with a couple of collapsible Dixie can – out off one of the bags along with a tin opener. And soon the cans were opened and the contents poured into the Dixie ’s and placed on the fire. While the food was heating up Andrew got some plastic plates and cutlery out of another bag and placed the plates on the floor with the cutlery on top of them. Once the food was ready, it was shared out between them and whilst they ate they planned their next move.
By the time night had fallen once again they had decided that the best thing to do would be for one of them to teleport into the house and plant the device somewhere in the living room with it switched on. That way when the clone came within range of it, he would not be able to activate what ever he’d done before to bring up the protective shield. That way the person who planted the device would be an extra hand to help with any attack that takes place.
‘Right everyone, to bed. Goodnight’ said Liz.
‘Goodnight’
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Nine:- Sadness And Preparations
What they didn’t know was that the clone was at this moment heading up to the cave. Once he’d reached his destination he started to hook himself up to the machine that the others had seen him use earlier. Once hooked up he started to think about the mind that he had touched earlier. With the extra boost of power that the machine offered, he was able to easily break through the mind blocks in Chris’s mind and he started to slowly manipulate that mind.
Chris – while he slept – was having dreams. Not nightmares, but pleasant dreams about a perfect world. A world in which he had a hand creating. A world where there was no poverty or hardship. There was also a voice in his head – but this was a different voice to the one that had been there before. This voice was softer and gentler – this voice was saying that only the two of them could make this type of world possible. All he had to do was get up right now and come up to the caves and stand together with him and follow him and his teachings. The voice was so hypnotic; he felt he could not disobey it.
The voice and the visions that Chris had see and heard were so enticing that without knowing it he got up and quietly – without waking the others – walked out of the farmhouse and headed back towards the village and the caves on the other side of the village.
He was now so entranced – with what the machine and the clone were doing to him – that he now appeared to have no will of his own. When Chris got to the caves he found not only the clone, but also the six boys they’d observed earlier. They were all there waiting for him to arrive.
The clone then spoke up.
‘Welcome to the latest follower to the cause.’ Turning to the others he said, ‘This boy will be my second in command. He’s almost as powerful has I am. You will obey him as you would me.’ And there was a joint response of ‘Yes master’ by all the boy’s.
The clone told Chris to stand in front of him, and slowly – without blinking or thinking twice about it – done what was ordered. Then the clone placed both his hands on either side of Chris’s head. Then the same light that Chris and the others had seen during their first trip to the caves was again emanating from the orb that was above the centre platform, and a straight beam fell from the orb and directed itself through the clone and out through the clones hands and into Chris. Chris shuddered slightly from the force of the beam, but eventually he had no choice but to succumb to the beam, drinking it in.
‘Now, my latest disciple, do you promise to follow me and obey me in all matters?’
‘Yes master’ replied Chris in a slow drawl.
‘Then join us in the circle and become the seventh follower within the inner circle.’
So Chris moved forward into the ring and turned to face the cloned version of Albus.
Has Chris joined the circle; Peter had awoken and noticed that Chris was missing.
‘Wake up everybody’ he said, ‘Chris isn’t here.’
Everyone woke up as soon has they heard this. There were questions asked – did anyone see him leave? When was the last time people had seen him? Etc etc – Liz even tried to contact him using telepathy, but to no avail.
‘I just don’t seem to be getting through to him. It’s almost like a barrier has gone up – just like the time we were up in the caves – and is blocking out any way of getting through to him. I’m afraid with him creeping away silently in the night, being careful not to disturb anyone, I can only surmise that he’s gone and joined the enemy.’ There were cries of,
‘No surly not. He’s one of us; he would never do that to us.’
‘I know none of you want to believe it – I for one certainly don’t – but in the absence of any other evidence that is the answer left open to us. So from now on all our plans have also to include beating him. And if I sensed things correctly earlier on, Chris is a very powerful person and he’ll probably be very difficult to beat. And if the clone and Chris have joined forces it could be near impossible to defeat them both. But either way, we have to try. I’d better report this latest setback to Doctor Williamson.’
Liz got her communicator out and was put through to the Doctor right away. After listening to what Liz had to say, he agreed with her. ‘If Chris had now gone over to the other side with the clone, we must now consider him to be an enemy, and a threat to be dealt with accordingly. So I’ll leave that to you to sort out as you see fit Liz, over and out.’ And with that the communicator went dead.
Liz looked away from her comrades, looking out towards the surrounding countryside kind of sad. She had been quite fond of Chris – like a big sister looking out for her little brother – and had been looking forward to helping him with his training. Helping him to hone his powers and other special abilities that he had. To encourage him to become what he was destined to in life. But all that seemed like it wasn’t going to happen anymore. With a big sigh Liz felt drained of all energy. Liz looked sadly out into the distance, out towards the distant hills and out towards the distant caves and towards where the final battle was inevitable, the battle that was to take place between themselves and the forces of the clone, because only the outcome of this battle would decide what was to come. Liz was so deep in thought that she didn’t hear any of the others coming up behind her.
‘I know this is difficult for you Liz’ said Andy ‘But what happened to make Chris switch sides was not your fault.’
‘I should have known that when someone falls asleep’ replied Liz ‘their minds are more vulnerable to suggestion. This must have been what happened last night, whilst we all slept. The clone must have probed his mind and turned Chris against us at time. Damn it, I should have seen it coming, I should have been better prepared.’ Liz suddenly seemed to pull herself together and turning to the others she continued,
‘Right every body, we haven’t got time to feel sorry for ourselves. We’ve a battle to fight, and win. So here’s what we have to do. We can teleport as far as the cave entrance, but because of the interference we’ll need to walk the rest of the way to the inner cave. Once we’ve crept into the inner cave – with our wands drawn ready for action – I know we won’t be able to stun the clone but if he’s left anyone on guard duty, we’ll be able to stun them, the less people we have to deal with the better. Once in the cave our main objective will be to destroy the orb and once we’ve done that, try and take out the clone….. and also Chris. We try and get has close as possible to the clone to use the device on him, and then with any luck we’ll be able to stun him and then take him back through time and bring back the original and swap them around. By the way, who’s got the device?’
Nobody answered her. A sudden dread came over Liz, she remembered giving the device to Chris, but not getting it back from him,
‘Oh no. Don’t tell me that Chris was the last one to have it?’
There were one or two nods of heads,
‘Darn it, by now he’ll have told the clone about it and it’s probably been destroyed. So I don’t think there’ll be any help from that quarter. We’ll just have to make do with what we have. Angie, you and Peter has soon as we enter the main cave dive for the left hand side and stun anyone who gets in your way. Andrew you dive to the right, again stunning anyone who gets in your way. I myself will take the centre of the cave and maybe the combined attack will be enough to catch the clone and Chris off balance. And we’ll also try for the machine as well. Once you’ve all dealt with your targets you are to help the others accordingly. But remember one thing, with Chris joining him, you can be sure that he’ll be stronger than ever and ready for us.’
For a few moments, everyone just stood there, thinking their own thoughts about what’s going to happen, about the outcome of the battle and about what the future was going to bring. I suppose they would have stood there for quite a while if Liz hadn’t spoken up.
‘Okay people, it’s time to go. But remember, this time we either capture the clone or we die trying. So look out for yourselves. Let’s go.’
Each of them thought about the entrance to the cave, and they disappeared. The only other thing you see is an empty and a few areas of trampled grass where they had been standing before they teleported.
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Ten:-Trouble And Pain
About ten metres from the cave entrance, four figures appear out of nowhere. They all drew out their stun guns and slowly advanced towards the entrance whereupon they had to stop just short of the cave. They had found there were two adults at the entrance and they were armed with some sort of weapons that were not, from this time period. Liz and Andrew aimed their wands and fired them at the two adults, muttering stupefy. The adults crumpled to the ground.
Once they had been dealt with Liz and the others entered the main cave. They slowly inched their way forward all the while listening and watching out for each other as they went. After what had happened before, with the failed capture attempts, they were taking no chances. They were being extremely cautious.
Because of the slow progress moving forward, it took them nearly twice as long to get to the inner cave as it did before. They were almost there when they had to stop and hide. They had come across two more guards at the inner cave entrance. They used their wands to stun these two guards as well and once they had been dealt with, they slowly moved up to the inner cave entrance.
At this point Liz signaled the others to stay where they were while she went forward to see what the lay of the land was like. Once she had reached the entrance, she carefully looked around the corner. She saw no one, there wasn’t a soul about. Liz signalled to the others to come forward.
As soon as they had joined her she filled them in, in quiet whispers, about what she’d seen? When she’d finished, Peter said,
‘This is our chance; we can take them by surprise and rush them. They’ll never know what hit them’.
‘Don’t be stupid’ replied Liz ‘We follow the original plan, and nothing else. Got it’. ‘Okay, Okay’ came back the reply in an exasperated voice. ‘Good, now Angie, you go over to the left hand side of the entrance and get ready to move on my say so. Peter, you go to the right, and be ready to move’. With that Angie, keeping low went over to the other side of the cave entrance and everybody poised themselves, ready for the attack as soon as the word was given.
Once everyone was ready Liz gave the go order. ‘Right everyone. Go, Go, Go’, said Liz. Everyone rushed forward with their wands drawn to their designated places within the inner cave area. Everyone had entered the cave but there was still no sign or sound of anyone challenging them.
‘I don’t like this’ thought Liz ‘this is too easy.’
She tried to convey her fears to the others by using her telepathy but was once again unable to get through to any of them; the same interference as before seemed to be blocking their thoughts and possibly their other powers again, just like the last time. Liz tried concentrating on where the others were situated so that she could teleport over to where they were, but soon found out that she was unable to teleport either. Liz looked around her and saw that people were too far apart to shout to them, and even if she did shout she might alert anyone whom just might be listening in, to their presence.
Whilst she was surveying the scene Liz also noticed something else, there was no sign of the machine they had seen before. She looked all around the inner cave area, but could see no sign of it anywhere.
‘Where was it?’ she muttered.
Looking around again she happened to notice the beginnings of a set of steps that were almost hidden from sight behind a wall which seemed to lead up to a large set of metal doors of some sort.
Liz somehow managed to attract the others attention and indicated with her hands where the steps were. They nodded with approval as they also seemed to have realized that their telepathy wasn’t working.
All of them made their way slowly over to where the steps began. Keeping low so that they didn’t attract too much unwanted attention, they dodged from box to box stopping every few feet to listen for any sound that would indicate that they had been heard or seen. But they never heard any sounds or movement, all remained in a state of deadly perpetual silence. The stillness and quietness was beginning to make some of the team uneasy.
By the time they’d reached the steps, they still hadn’t been challenged. Liz told the others about her fears and suspicions that it was all too easy. The others were of a similar opinion.
Andrew even said ‘that he felt like he was being watched, it sort of feels like we’re being herded somewhere.’
‘The only thing we can do is be careful and try and be watchful wherever we go’ replied Liz.
So they made their way slowly and cautiously up, one step at a time. Once at the top they received their first surprise, a green beam of light suddenly hit the wall to the left of the door taking out a large chunk of the stone. Some of the team members let out screams, more to do with shock and surprise rather than being hit by the light beam or any of the debris that came away from the wall.
It had taken them totally by surprise. Then another beam hit the steps behind them causing the steps to be blown away. After that happened, they only had one way to go. So, with no other option available to them, they went forward, opened the door, and went through. They were plunged into pitch-blackness. The door quickly closed behind them with a loud clanging noise and then overhead lights came on.
Once the room had been illuminated the team found that they were in some kind of plastic enclosure, and the door to the enclosure locked shut and they were prisoners. Peter and Andrew flung their shoulders and kicked their feet against the plastic wall in an attempt to break it, they even tried using their wands, but this was to no avail, as the wands appeared to have stopped working, the wall held firmly in place. It didn’t even show any signs of the attempts to break it on its surface.
Whilst the boys were doing all this, Liz glanced around the room. She saw that it contained a lot of terminals and monitors that were certainly not from the era they were currently in. The equipment was most certainly from the future. But who could be providing it for this purpose? It would take a lot of money to set up an operation on a grand scale like this.
Then a voice called out, ‘you’ll never breach the plastic. It’s unbreakable, so you may as well save your energy and be more worried about what’s going to happen to you.’
Liz and the others recognized the voice and looked over towards where it had come from. They saw Chris standing on a rocky ledge, looking down at them with a triumphant smirk on his face.
Liz spoke in a quiet and calm voice, ‘Chris, don’t you remember what you were and what you believed in before you were forced to become a traitor and were turned against us. Remember Chris, I know that the clone hasn’t driven that totally from you. You still care about people, deep down in your sub-conscious mind, and in your heart, you still care deeply about people. You don’t want to really do what you’re currently doing.’
‘Shut up’, snarled Chris, ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about. All I remember is the hardship that I endured while I was sleeping rough on the streets of Edinburgh, and the looks of hatred and fear that I received from people when I tried to help them with the abilities I possess. They never understood I was treated like a leper. Albus has shown me a world that is free from pain and suffering. A world that is free from hunger and disease, a Utopia. A place where people with our abilities will be welcomed and not feared. And I’m going to help bring that about.’
Liz replied pleadingly, ‘What you’re talking about is the clone’s way of thinking, Chris; he only wants to create that kind of world for himself to rule over. It’s not for others, it’s not for the ordinary person like you and I. It’s not your way of thinking. Remember what we’ve all been through over the past couple of days. Remember what we believe in and just remember that we stand for freedom and not slavery.’
‘That’s enough of that,’ said another voice with an evil tone, ‘are you people trying to disrupt the harmony that I have here. These boys are the perfect people to help achieve what I have set out to do and if you attempt to interfere with the plans that I have put in place, you will suffer ten times the feeling of this pain.’
The clone then pressed a button on the front of the console that he was standing beside. Liz and the others screamed in pain as electricity shot through the floor of the see through box they were in, making them jump from foot to foot. After a couple of seconds, he let go of the button.
‘As you can see I hold the power over life and death. What you have just felt are only a few hundred volts of electricity coursing through your bodies. I can turn up the juice gradually and really make you suffer before you burn alive. I could kill you all with one touch off a button if I so wish and puff; you’re dead, just like that. But I give you one chance, and one chance only. Join with me and be part of the New World Order that I’ll be building, but first, before you decide, let me show you what the new future is.’
He pressed another button and the centre of the floor began to open up. Through the floor the orb rose up until it was standing about four metres off the ground. ‘With this orb I can instigate a new order of peace world-wide,’ said the clone.
He then pressed another button on the console and the orb started to pulsate in a light shade of green, a picture then started to show up in the space between the orb and the cave ceiling. The picture that appeared did indeed show a Utopian society, but there seemed to be something missing from it, there were no poor people, no beggars on any of the streets.
‘Where are all the poor people? What have you done with them?’ shouted Liz
‘Let’s just say that they’ll be sent for re-education’ replied the clone. ‘Think about it, no more wars or poverty. World wide peace. What about it? Why not join with me and help usher in a new era of peace.’
‘No chance’ came back the answer from Liz and the others.
‘We want no part in your so-called future for this world. You only want to change things for yourself, not other people. We don’t want to be part of your plans to mass murder part of the population and brainwash the rest. We’d rather be dead than help you.’
‘Well that can easily be arranged,’ said the clone, ‘but after everything you’ve just said I’m afraid it will have to be a slow and very painful death.’
He pressed yet another button on the console, and this time the air was slowly sucked out of the plastic cubicle leaving our heroes gradually gasping for air. With a sneer he also pressed a previous button as well and the pain that shot through them was so excruciating that Liz and the others screamed and were thinking they would surely die this time around. As they screamed more and more and gasping for breath, the remainder of the air was being used up quicker than ever.
While all this was going on Chris had been watching the others suffering and his face was starting to grimace with each jolt of electricity that the clone was sending into his friends and he was slowly beginning to remember one or two things. The good times and laughs that he’d had so far with the rest of the guys. Images, that had been suppressed and forgotten about, started coming and going into his mind. How the team had readily made him feel he belonged in their midst. How he’d been made welcome at T.E.C.H. Headquarters and nobody had minded about where he had come from, and how he’d had to scavenge in dustbins for food. Chris looked down at Liz and the others and saw they were on the verge of dying. He had to clear his head quickly so he shook it from side to side. An inner conflict was going on inside his mind, like a battle between good and evil. Chris’s face became twisted and contorted as if he was in silent pain. Then, all of a sudden he straightened up and a look of peace and tranquillity suddenly came across his face.
Chris realized what he had to do; he moved closer to the clone and approached him until he was quite close. Chris began shouting ‘NO’ and throwing up his hand, palm upwards towards the clone and throwing him forwards with such force that he was sent flying from one end off the cave to the other in one go. The clone lay there for a few seconds, badly winded after hitting the far wall so hard. Then Chris used the same force from his hand and pointed it towards the Perspex looking prison. With what sounded like a sonic boom, the prison that the others were in shattered completely, releasing them all.
Liz and the others fell forward onto the cave floor and lay there puffing and panting trying to regain their breath, sucking in large lungfuls of air.
~#~#~#~#~#
Chapter Eleven:- Win Or Die Trying.
While this was all going on the clone, who had sensed something before Chris had attacked him, had managed to reactivate the force field spell and this had protected him from most of the impact when he’d hit the rock wall. He had quickly regained his breath and strength and was now aiming the green bolts from his eyes at Chris and screaming ‘you traitor, you’ll die for this.’
‘You can try’ replied Chris in a calm casual voice ‘but thanks all the same, I don’t think I’m ready to die today.’ Chris easily deflected the bolts away from his person with a simple motioning sweep from his hand. At that moment, no doubt alerted by all the commotion that was going on, the clone’s followers came rushing into the inner cave aiming and firing their wands towards Chris, blasting chunks out of the rock wall where the red and green bolts hit. But before any of them could do any real damage to Chris there was a sudden shout of Patrificus Totalise and Stupify and several of them slumped to the ground, unconscious.
The rest of the clone’s followers turned and were confronted by Liz and the other members of the team. The others had by now fully recovered and were joining in the fight and trying to stun the clone’s followers. Computer consoles exploded around them as wand fire from both sides hit them.
After stunning more of the followers, it seemed as if they were starting to get the upper hand, that is until about ten muggles came rushing into the inner cave. The clone had obviously been busy recruiting other followers and they all began taking up firing positions behind jutting out pieces of rock and any other cover that could be found. They started to return fire with the weapons that they had and the clone shouted out instructions to them, ‘kill them all, and let no one escape.’
Liz and her team immediately took cover behind anything they could find, and also returned fire. They had managed to stun some more of the clone’s followers, but the weapons that fired back kept them pretty much pinned down. While this was happening the rest of them started to fire shots towards where Chris was battling with the clone. But the clone shouted out with a mean snarl in his voice,
‘No, this traitor is mine. Nobody touches him but me.’ And with that the clone renewed his attack with such fury that it took Chris totally by surprise. He barely had time to defend himself before the first volley hit, and he hardly had enough time to recover before the clone had launched yet another, and another, attack upon him. Because of this renewed fury, Chris soon started to weaken, he couldn’t keep fending off the clone’s attacks for much longer. More and more of the bolts were getting through and he was ailing fast.
The clone’s anger seemed to make him more and more powerful. Each assault from the clone felt like it was the worst one yet. Chris didn’t know how much longer he would be able to hold out against the ferocious onslaught because he was beginning to weaken more and more with each attack that was thrown at him.
Liz had seen what was happening to Chris and said to the others,
‘We have to help Chris, but there’s not much we can do until we sort out these people,’ nodding her head in the direction of the clone’s adult followers, ‘their shots are starting to become more and more accurate.’
Liz knelt down behind the lump of rock, taking cover, and thought about things for a few moments, and then she said,
‘right, here’s the plan. We’ll try a three pronged attack, all coming in from different directions. Peter, you go down the left-hand side and Andrew you go to the right side keeping to whatever cover you can find and move forward. Angie, you and me, we’ll do the same down the middle, and try not to be seen. If we can set things up without anyone noticing we’ll have the element of surprise.’ And then saying to both Andrew and Peter. ‘Until you both get into your firing positions, Angie and myself will try and divert as much of their weapon fire as we can as we move forward. Once you’re both in position we can let them have it from three sides.’
‘Right’ said everyone, and they moved off to get ready.
At a signal from Liz and under covering fire from both Liz and Angie the two boys set off down opposite sides, keeping low so they weren’t spotted. Things were going well, and both teams were almost in position when, unfortunately, Peter was spotted and some of the clone’s followers opened fire on him. Because of this Andrew broke his cover and started to fire his stunning spells towards the clone’s followers and they of course fired back. Luckily he’d managed to get to ample cover, so he was safe for the time being.
Liz and Angie opened fire again to try and divert some of the pressure off of Andrew and Peter and it partially worked, because some of the followers eased up and fired back at Liz. But several of them kept up the pressure on the other two forcing them to keep their heads down.
But they had stopped moving forward at the first sign of trouble. They were looking back towards Liz who with hand movements was indicating that they should continue creeping forward, which they did.
After another minute had passed by Liz saw that Peter and Andrew had managed to work their way around and were in position ready for the command to open fire on the rest of clone’s followers. They were again looking over towards Liz and waiting for the nod. She gave them the order and Peter and Andrew partially stood up and fired their wands towards the clone’s followers. They managed to stun four people.
The attack had taken the clone’s followers totally by surprise, so much so that all of them had stood up which allowed the rest of the team to stun them as well. That now left Liz and the others with a clear run to destroy the orb. ‘Right you lot’ said Liz, ‘all of you aim your wands at the orb and fire’. This they did uttering incantations, but nothing seemed to happen at first, then the light of the orb started to flicker, and the green light just went out. The orb let out a whine as the power totally shut down, turning the orb off.
Now that the orb was no longer emitting energy Liz and the team suddenly found that their powers had been returned to them. They then turned their attention back to Chris and the clone. They managed to convey, through telepathy to Chris, that the machine was now destroyed.
The clone also suddenly realized that the orb was no more and turned his anger onto Liz and the others. The team found that they had to suddenly dive for cover to once more avoid the green beams of light that were coming from the clone’s eyes. He was now fighting a battle on two sides and the only thing that was preventing his total defeat was the fact that he still had his protective forcefield operating.
They all started to fire their stunners towards the clone although of course it didn’t do much good, just like the last time. But Liz and the others had to try and distract the clone somehow and they had no better ideas at this time.
This idea appeared to be working because the clone seemed to get weary of the stunners and, thinking no doubt that Chris was done for, stopped messing about with him and set his powers against Liz and the others.
The clone subjected them to such a bombardment that they were unable to lift their heads up; he was using his kinetic powers to rip computer terminals and other pieces of mechanical equipment out of the floor and send them flying towards Liz and her team. The clone was laughing insanely. He was allowing the objects to hover over his targets. Suddenly one of the objects fell and hit Andrew, who had been looking up at the time, in the chest and sent him flying. Another hit Angie on the head knocking her out. Yet another dropped on top of Liz, trapping her underneath it.
Despite being exhausted from his battle with the clone, Chris seeing all this happening to his friends, heaved himself up with some difficulty. The clone was oblivious at first to what Chris was doing and kept bombarding the others with any large objects that he could use.
After a few moments the clone became aware of Chris trying to stand up. With a sneering cackle of a laugh he said, ‘Well, well you’re just in time to see the end of your friends. And once I’ve dealt with them, I’ll deal with you once and for all.’
Chris could see the clone heaving and puffing and panting. There was a red light starting to glow around his body and it was becoming brighter and brighter. It was then that Chris realized the clone was building up his energy so that he could release one gigantic magical bolt of power at Liz and the others, which would kill them all outright.
Chris had to do something quick before the clone could unleash whatever he was building up to. But what could he do? He couldn’t think straight; he was still in so much pain from the battle that he’d just fought.
Chris struggled to stand up fully but at the last second just as the clone was about to release the power bolt, Chris let out one almighty shout at the top of his voice ‘STOP’.
It was a good few moments before Chris realized that something had happened. The clone was not moving at all, he was standing perfectly still. Chris limped over and took a closer look and found him to be frozen solid, like a block of ice. Chris looked around him and noticed that it was only the clone that was frozen, everyone else was moving freely. The clone looked like a statue, just standing motionless in a running type of pose, as if he’d been ready to pounce on Chris. The rest of the team although still mobile were very wary at first, as if they couldn’t believe it was finally all over.
Chris looked towards where Liz, Angie and Andrew had fallen. He went across to Angie and using his powers healed her wounds, and then used his Kinetic abilities to lift the object of Liz. Once Angie and Liz had been dealt with Chris went over to Andrew and healed his wounded shoulder.
With everything now sorted Liz took her communicator from her bag and called Doctor Williamson. ‘Team one to time control’.
‘Time control here team one’ came back the reply. ‘Pass your message.’
‘Could you put me through to the Doctor please, time control?’
‘Doctor Williamson here, team one’
‘We finally managed it Doctor, though when I say we, I actually mean Chris, he defeated the clone for us.’
‘Chris?’ replied the Doctor in a surprised sounding voice ‘What do you mean, Chris? Never mind, you can tell me when you return for your debriefing. In the meantime I’ll send the original Albus to your location. Once he’s off loaded from the stasis canister, load the clone up into the same canister and bring him back with you when you return to the future. While you’re making your preparations the clean up crews will be on their way to dispose of any technology that shouldn’t be in that time frame. So, I’ll see you all soon. Doctor Williamson out.’
Minutes later a canister appeared in front of them. It was the stasis canister that the original Albus was in. It was still active and it had a portable power source. The team pressed a couple of buttons and a humming noise could be heard. The figure in the canister started to look less grey looking and began to turn a healthier pink colour. Once the process of the awakening had finished, the team opened the canister and the original Albus was lifted out and laid on the floor. Then Liz and the others managed to pick up the clone, they manhandled him into the now empty canister and sealed it. Once it was activated the clone was in a state of permanent hibernation. After dealing with any minor details, they pressed a button on the side of the canister and it disappeared. Once the canister had vanished the clean up crews, whose job was to wipe away any trace of advanced technology so that everything was as it should be, appeared and took over, allowing Liz and the others to be free to return home. The team pressed the recall devices in their arms and they also disappeared.
~#~#~#~#~#
Epilogue
When the team arrived back in the twenty-fifth century, they were met at the entrance to the Time Machine by Doctor Williamson.
‘Well, good work to you all’, and turning to Chris he said ‘and especially to you Chris. You’ll have to tell us how you managed to defeat the clone.’
‘I’m not exactly too sure of that myself, Doctor’, Chris said with a puzzled expression and an equally puzzled sound in his voice.
‘Well never mind about all that just now, you all deserve a break after what you’ve been through. We’ll endeavour to get the debriefing over as quickly as possible so that you can enjoy a well earned rest this afternoon. If you could all meet outside briefing room one in ten minutes, we’ll begin then.
They all arrived at the meeting room, and found some fresh orange juice on the table and sandwiches and biscuits on plates, which they all dived into without being asked. Doctor Williamson came out and saw each of them individually in the meeting room and each of them gave a detailed account of all that had happened to them.
After a while, Doctor Williamson called Chris into the room and Chris recounted all that he’d seen and done, even when he’d been under the influence of the clone. After he’d finished giving the Doctor all the details that were required, Chris took the chance to ask the Doctor a few questions of his own.
‘Doctor, despite being under the clone’s influence, why couldn’t I stand to see the others being hurt? I mean, while I was under his spell I seemed to believe everything he was saying to me about the perfect world that he was going to create, but at the same time I didn’t believe what he was saying. And also, how was I able to stop the clone when I shouted at him like I did?
The doctor replied, ‘You have a power that has never been seen before. There is something in your voice that sends out some sort of sound waves that enable you to stop time in the area that you shout into. At the moment though, we’re unable to figure out a way to restart time after you’ve stopped it, so please watch what you’re doing while you’re here. I can only assume that this is the first time you’ve used this time stopping power you possess?’
Chris nodded his head.
‘I thought so’ came back the reply. ‘And as to your other question, I think the reason that you couldn’t stand to see the others being hurt was because you were able to do something that the clone wasn’t able to do.’
‘And what was that?’ asked Chris.
‘Well despite all that has happened to you in your life, you still have the ability to care about people, something that the clone was unable to do, because it’s something that cannot be pre-programmed into another living person. You develop and learn to understand that only over time and experience as you grow up. The clone never had that chance because he was pre-programmed, so he could only care about the mission he’d been sent to carry out. Nothing else in life mattered to him but when you saw your friends being hurt, your caring side resurfaced and broke the hold that the clone had over you. Also, we’ve discovered something else about you.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Chris.
And the Doctor continued, ‘Well Chris, when we examined the original Albus Dumbledore that had been put into cryo genic sleep, we had to do some blood tests which helped to confirm his identity. We’d gotten them mixed up with the blood tests that we took from you before you went on the mission. When we realized our mistake, we corrected it and changed over to the other blood sample and it was then that we noticed something peculiar. It would appear that you are related to Dumbledore.’
At this startling piece of news the Doctor paused to allow Chris to absorb what had just been said.
Chris just sat there with a look of total astonishment on his face. And when he finally spoke it was in a quiet stammering voice.
‘Are, are you sure Doctor?’
‘Yes we’re sure Chris. You’re a direct descendent from Albus. You’re descended from him on his mother’s, brother’s side. Which I suppose would make him some sort of great great great, uncle (I’m not sure just how many greats), of yours. And you’re also descended from another powerful wizard; you’re also a descendant of Harry James Potter who defeated an evil wizard called Voldemort about 400 years ago. And if the clone had succeeded in his quest to change history, you could very well have not been born. Alternatively you could have turned out to be a completely different person to who you are now. Anyway Chris, have you decided for definite whether or not you would like to join the team here at T.E.C.H. yet?’
To which Chris replied, ‘Yes, I think I will join the team. But what if something similar to what occurred with the clone happens again? I don’t think I could go through all that again.’
‘Well’, replied the doctor, ‘you’ll be trained on how to block out the type of thoughts that are given out by such people and therefore making you less vulnerable to attack. You’ll also be fully trained to use your powers and abilities to combat this ever happening again. By the way, I should really apologize at this stage. I sent you into a dangerous situation without being properly trained. For that I’m truly sorry. That is one thing that will never happen again. From now on, before you go on any other mission, you will enter into a full training programme.’
‘Not to worry doctor’, said Chris ‘maybe it was for the best that this happened. It just goes to show that we’re not all invulnerable, but I’ll tell you right now, it was really scary not having control over your own actions. But thankfully, it all turned out for the best in the long run.’
Going back with Chris into the briefing room the Doctor said ‘Well you lot, that’s the debriefing over with, but I have a funny feeling that your adventures are just beginning’. And reaching for a glass of fruit juice he continued. ‘So let’s raise a glass, here’s to your next adventure, whenever that is. In the meantime you can all enjoy yourselves in the recreation area. God knows, after what you all have been through, you deserve it. Well Liz, if you could show Chris where our recreational area is.’
Liz rose from the table and led all of them out of the meeting room and along the corridor until they came to a large set of double doors. She opened these doors and Chris walked into the room which appeared to be a vast gymnasium. There was a large screen television, table tennis table, snooker tables and much, much more. At last Chris and the others started to relax and enjoy themselves.
~#~#~#~#~#
That’s the end of this story. Please let me know what you think. And should I try and get it published using my original story and not this one which I adapted slightly for the Potter Universe?[/b]
