Missy - Temporal Rift permits time travel

Missy’s mind was awhirl. How could she recover the dematerialisation circuit? ‘That brat took it with him through the void, and who knows if that’s survivable. When the TARDIS crash-landed out of the Time Vortex, it weakened the fabric of reality close to it. A glitch in time. A temporal portal …’

***

Outside, a street cleaner was attempting to remove the fly-poster from the scaffolding. She batted him away with her parasol, to get a better look.

The Tesori della laguna poster had changed too. The object in the photo was still caked in mud and barnacles. But it wasn’t a candlestick any more.

It was her dematerialisation circuit.

***

Antonia’s nose wrinkled at the smell. Missy swiftly hooked her around the elbow with the curved handle of her furled parasol, before pushing her around the corner of the confessional and into the Vortex void.

The girl uttered a dismayed little scream, and vanished into the whorl of soft colours.

Missy studied the nails on her free hand. Counted to ten. Then tugged on the parasol.

Antonia burst back into the aisle, and bumped into Missy. She hugged her, until she felt Missy tense up.

‘Seems to be safe.’ Missy detached herself from the girl.

Antonia was blinking with disbelief. ‘I saw light and water and people! Is that where Mario is? We have to find him!’

The girl was interrupted as a grubby figure stepped out of the void behind her. His clothes were torn scraps, and beneath a filthy face his neck bulged with ugly blisters. Well, that explained what was wrong with all these other people in the cathedral: the Black Death. Fourteenth-century bubonic plague.

***

The Missy Chronicles: The Liar, the Glitch and the War Zone