Specters

[Sarah Jane]

"I certainly appreciate your trust, Chris. Jim. I believe it's well placed. I do believe that ultimately, we all have the same goal here."

Only, you suck at it, she thought, what is the use of preserving the human race, if we loose our humanity along the way?
It was exactly what had happened to the Cybermen and the Daleks in the first place as they took harsh measures to preserve their own species. It was not the time to say this, the time would come, but it was not now. They wouldn't understand it yet.

The most important thing that Jim said was what was classified, and what was not. Clear evidence of what they ultimately felt guilty about. However, it was not time to speak of this either.

"Chris, I'm certain your aware that your own FDA's process for the approval of a new drug takes anywhere from ten to fifteen years. I see that after a development and trial period of less than three years for any advances that included the use of Alien Technology, that you've chosen not only to treat men who have suffered the traumas of violent multiple amputations and a shocking list of other critical injuries, but you've also chosen to take those same wounded souls and return them to the battlefield in some of the most deadly hardware to be found in the Universe.

Is that entirely wise? Are you certain that you can control them? And if you are, how exactly are you imposing your will upon them? Say for instance, one of them decides he wants to quit the army and go make harps? Would you allow that? Or what if one of them has a flashback in . . in" She struggles for an American company name, "Walgreens?"

[The First Doctor]

"I certainly appreciate your trust, Chris. Jim. I believe it's well placed. I do believe that ultimately, we all have the same goal here."

Chris leaned forward, eyes moving from Sarah to Doctor Sambur to Jim and back. "I think it's more a matter of having goals that happen to overlap, but I won't argue the point."

"Chris, I'm certain your aware that your own FDA's process for the approval of a new drug takes anywhere from ten to fifteen years. I see that after a development and trial period of less than three years for any advances that included the use of Alien Technology, that you've chosen not only to treat men who have suffered the traumas of violent multiple amputations and a shocking list of other critical injuries, but you've also chosen to take those same wounded souls and return them to the battlefield in some of the most deadly hardware to be found in the Universe."

"It's not quite the same thing, Ms. Smith," was Doctor Sambur's reply. "But your analogy of FDA testing isn't far from the mark. If we extend that analogy, the SPECTERS represent Phase IV clinical trials. The civilian applications would currently be Phase I."

And we are volunteers, Sarah," Jim added. "Volunteers who have been through a battery of psychological tests, not to mention mandatory counseling." He looked out the window. "I mean, I won't deny that I still have nightmares about what happened, once in a while." His voice trailed away for a moment, and he stared at his artificial hand through his artificial eyes. Then he looked back at Sarah. "But I'd rather be here, doing this, than back in the hospital."

Chris didn't speak. But his eyes narrowed, and he stared at the bracelet around Sarah's wrist.

"Is that entirely wise? Are you certain that you can control them?"

"Control!" Chris' voice was sharp, angry and indignant. "Control them? They're men, Sarah, not Mondasian-"

"No," Jim said, laying a hand on Chris' arm. "Let her finish."

Jaw clenched, eyes hard, Chris leaned back in his chair.

"And if you are, how exactly are you imposing your will upon them. Say for instance, one of them decides he wants to quit the army and go make harps? Would you allow that? Or what if one of them has a flashback in . . in" She struggles for an American company name, "Walgreens?"

Chris started to say something, face twisted with rage, but Jim squeezed him on the shoulder. "It's okay, I've got this." He looked at Sarah and smiled as best he could. "That's a fair question, ma'am. It's the sort of question that every society has struggled with, all the way back to when the first city-state assembled the first standing army, and realized that it had a professional class of trained killers."

He made a snorting sound, self-deprecating laughter. "And, when you strip away all of the bull... I mean, all of the appeals to patriotism, to honor, to love of and defense of country, that's what we are. That's what any soldier is. A trained killer."

"The difference here, of course, is that we - the SPECTERS - are trained killers with integral weapons."

Chris leaned back, face hard, thoughts light-years and centuries away.

The transduction barriers had been shattered. The Citadel had been breached. Overhead, igniting the atmosphere of the Shining World with the ravening fury of their destructive energies, Dalek saucers dueled with Battle TARDISes and black hole carriers.

Rassilon had gone mad, declaring that he would preserve the Time Lords by taking them down the path of Mictlan, consuming the universe to power their transformation to beings of pure conception. The Doctor, swearing to prevent this, was missing.

"So there are a few precautions. The first, and most obvious, is that a SPECTER can't just quit to go making harps. Like any soldier, we've signed up for a set tour of duty, six years minimum for the project. Unlike civilians, we don't get to just quit our jobs if we don't like them."

He knew - knew all too well - what the Doctor was planning. And so he ran, dodging the Chancellary Guard and the regen-inf soldiers, waging a desperate, failing battle against the advancing Dalek army. He ran, because he couldn't, wouldn't leave without her.

The looms were aflame. The creches were still, shockingly still, and he couldn't bring himself to look too closely at the burning shapes within. He stood silently, unable to accept what he was seeing.

"A second factor," added Doctor Sambur, "is the nature of the civilian models. They are simply not built to military specifications. They are robust, certainly enough, but they are designed to be no more powerful and have no additional functionality beyond what natural parts of the body would have."

"Most crippled soldiers," Jim continued, "would receive standard production model prosthetics. If they were going to return to active duty, they might be considered for the SPECTERS program if it expands, or for temporary milspec upgrades. But any discharged soldier would be discharged with civilian grade prosthetics."

He leaned back. "Are they still dangerous? Sure. But more dangerous than other discharged soldiers, simply because they've got an arm or a leg with fiberglass bones and myoelectric muscles?" He shook his head. "No. I don't think so."

He heard the clanking of metal on stone, footsteps. "Birthing chambers sanitized, CyberLeader," the first of the metal men said as it rounded the corner. "Proceeding to-"

With an inarticulate cry of rage and despair, sombra y corta in hand, he threw himself at the Cybermen.

"And there's another factor to consider," Chris said, his voice a dark whisper. "Earth will not be another Mondas."

[agentx]

The Sentinel opened up his cell phone as he got in the limo. He began punching in the numbers as he jotted down some last minute notes. When he was done, he put the phone to his ear. The Sentinel waited for the man he was calling to pick up, then said "Doctor Sambur? Are you there?"

[Sarah Jane]

Mondasian. Mondasian.

How did Mesler know that name? Had he found a way to question a Cyberman after the Year of Ghosts? Did he know through the U.S.Military who might have done said same? How did one water board a Cyberman, with an eyedropper of gold dust? Or had the creature simply bragged? Had they downloaded it? Perhaps the Americans knew more about Cybermen and the greater Universe than she had guessed. Or maybe just the hot-headed Christopher Mesler did.

As she built a profile in her mind of the man, the flying paper crane incident stood out to her in the same way that this this mention of the Cyberman's race of origins.

To keep herself from trembling, Sarah Jane had had to swallow hard when Mesler lost his temper. She was thankful of Dr.Sambur's intervention.

"Well then, Jim, Chris, I'm glad to see you have it all worked out." Sarah Jane summed up dryly. "Now, gentlemen, I'm very curious as to how you would define your goal with the formation of the Majestic 12. It would be an asset to me to learn in what ways our goals overlap. It certainly would be a load off my back to know that the U.S. of A can keep a fair vigil on their side of the Earth."

[The First Doctor]

"Well then, Jim, Chris, I'm glad to see you have it all worked out." Sarah Jane summed up dryly.

"Oh, no, ma'am," Jim answered. "I wouldn't say that at all. Right now we're just applying what's worked in the past, and doing our best to anticipate what might happen." He flexed his hand again, apparently a nervous habit he had when talking about his prosthetics. "The SPECTERS, these new cybernetic limbs and organs, they're all at least as revolutionary as, say, the internet. And nobody was really prepared for what happened with that."

He shifted in his seat. "Now, I'm not saying that to worry you, or to make it sound like we're half-assing this - uhm, pardon my language." He leaned forward, hands spread just a bit. "Far from it. I'm saying it because I want you to understand, to really understand, that we're taking this as seriously as we possibly can. And we're well aware that we have a brand new technology, and that we cannot predict how transformative that will be."

Another stiff attempt at a smile. "All we can do is take what precautions we can, and then trust in our own humanity for the rest."

"Now, gentlemen, I'm very curious as to how you would define your goal with the formation of the Majestic 12. It would be an asset to me to learn in what ways our goals overlap. It certainly would be a load off my back to know that the U.S. of A can keep a fair vigil on their side of the Earth."

"I would be delighted, Ms. Smith," Doctor Sambur answered with a warm smile. "Majestic-12 is the old name of the..." His phone rang. "One moment, please." He produced a sleek new-model Blackberry. "Hello? Yes, this is he... oh. Yes, of course. This is not a secure line, though."

He muted the phone. "I'm afraid that I have to take this call. Would one of you mind?"

As Doctor Sambur returned to the call, Jim shifted uneasily. 'Uhm, yeah. I've got nothing, here. All I really know is that the SPECTERS are a joint OEI/DOD project."

Chris brooded for a moment, then sighed. "It's all right. I've got it. Hang on a moment, though." Leaving his cane balanced on its point, he dug around in a bag and extracted a large steel thermos. As he opened the cap, the odor of strong coffee filled the van. "Would anyone else like a cup?"

After pouring himself a cup - a process that consisted of emptying what appeared to be packets of salt and pepper into the mug, followed by a dash of tabasco sauce - he drank deeply and settled back. "As I understand it, and bear in mind that I'm not actually an official member of any organization here. I'm freelance, officially referred to as the OEI's 'scientific advisor'."

Another swallow. "But I'm starting to get off track, so let me try to focus. You're dealing with the United States Office of Extraterrestrial Intelligence which, I understand, is officially under the umbrella of Homeland Security."

"That is correct," Doctor Sambur said in a distracted tone of voice.

Chris topped off his mug. "Majestic Twelve was created by Harry Truman in 1947, to investigate and determine how to deal with aliens. Well, what humans would call aliens, anyway. They filled a role similar to that of UNIT, although far more covert. More like the GRU SV-8, I suppose, or your own country's Capital Laundry Services, or even Torchwood."

Another swallow. "Anyway, covert was always a bad way for your governments to handle this sort of thing. There were a dozen existential threats to humanity between 1970 and 1985, any one of which could have wiped your entire species out. And then there's been the past few years."

He smiled. "An alien vessel crashes into Big Ben, live on the BBC, and then a few days later the Slitheen kill most of your Cabinet. Torchwood destroys a Sycorax warship as it's leaving Earth's atmosphere. The Year of Ghosts. The 'Christmas Star' appearing over London. And on, and on, and on, and on."

Whatever rage he may have felt earlier was gone, lost in a child-like excitement. "The 21st century. It's amazing. I've told you that before, right Jim?"

"Uhm, yeah," Jim agreed hesitantly. "You keep saying that-"

"That this is when everything changes," Chris finished with a broad grin. "This is when you take your first serious steps out into the greater universe, when you lot finally do more than wade a few steps out into the cosmic ocean."

"You're getting off topic, Chris."

Chris looked irritated, then drank more coffee. "Bah. All right. Back to parochial power politics, then. So, the United States government saw all of this, and realized that it couldn't keep trying to pretend that there weren't any aliens. So, it rebranded Majestic Twelve with a public face as the Office of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, gave them a lovely little office in Arlington, and assured the voting public that they were safe and protected."

Next to him, wobbling a little as the van turned, the cane continued to stand upright.

[Sarah Jane]

The old adage was correct. Technology to a non-technological society seemed like magic, she thought, watching that cane out of the corner of her eye. As long as she was thinking in cliches, her next choice was 'beyond the pale'. Such was the aspect of Christopher Mesler, Traveler, of that she was now certain. Human or not, she could not yet tell. Christopher's colleagues may think him simply an incredibly clever Human, but Sarah Jane knew space stuff when she saw it. Her ideas as to what species Chris was were still brewing, but she had unfortunate suspicions. She could not entirely rule out Human yet, though.

Sarah Jane had been unable to bring her Detector Watch, and she was sorely feeling it's absence now. She had already brought the Detector she'd scavenged from the Alliance of Shades, that being the only way she could figure out how to conceal her Sonic through tight airport security. Even if she'd had her Detector Watch it, she could hardly whip it out now. It sounded too much like kicking a hornets nest, here in this van in the middle of desert country, and young Lutessa to think of as well.

The picture was coming clear. Doctor Sambur was a politician clearly more interested in what the U.S.A appeared to be doing than what it was actually doing. Christopher Mesler was from Elsewhere, and Jim was essentially collateral damage. Sarah Jane became suddenly aware of that fact that the meat and brains of a Human named Jim sat across from her. Not a Mondasian, a Human, or what was left of him, anyway. She looked hard into his inadequately tracking eyeballs, wanting to reach the man within. Boldly she reached out and put her hands around one of his that fret so, willing her body heat into that cold, hard construct.

"You're a good soldier, Jim. I can see that. You've been a good soldier."

[The First Doctor]

"You're a good soldier, Jim. I can see that. You've been a good soldier," Sarah said, clasping his hands.

The reconstructive surgery had left him incapable of blushing. But a distinct scarlet flush touched Jim's neck where it was exposed by the collar of his uniform. "Uhm," he said, suddenly lost for words. "Uh, well, I do my best. Thank you."

Chris seemed to relax a little at those words as well. "Well said."

There was a moment of silence - not precisely awkward, but fragile. Finally, Chris cleared his throat. "So, that's the OEI in a nutshell. And I guess that makes it our turn to ask you a question. Since the good Doctor is engrossed in his conversation, I'll throw it out."

He paused, and smiled. "Tell me about the dinosaurs of London. I've always been curious about that, and I understand from your writings that you were an eye witness."

[Sarah Jane]

She let go of Jim's hand and sat back up in her chair, fingertips moving to the scar high on her forehead on the right side. The slightest ridge in her skin still lingered from the day she met a Tyrannosaurus Rex up close and personal. Much too close and personal. She touched there not only because it was such a visceral memory, but because this was the particular key to this memory for her. Hence it's choice, though her memory devices were as likely as not to be a name or a number as a scar. This key had simply presented itself so neatly. Sarah Jane stored vast quantities of information in her brain, and therefore had to have a very deliberate filing system in there.

If it were anyone else but military men, she'd look intently at the pair to make sure they were paying attention. This stuff was important. However, she had no doubt they would listen, so she let herself look out the windows at the exquisite desert rolling by.



"I saw one Pterodactyl. It was like a great big rubber chicken from hell with a long maw of teeth. It must have been about 22 kilos. I don't know how it stayed in the air. It made a sound like a man being beating slowly with a baseball bat." A little shudder went through her remembering the the thing lunging at her and catching her, and having to wrestle it off herself on her own.

"Don't ever take flash pictures of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. They hate that. They really hate that. Especially when your right up close to their eyes.." She let out a long slow breath. It had been a close call. "It was even worse when it was standing up." Her eyes snapped into focus, and landed on Jim's thousand yard stare. "You know how dinosaurs ran, like chickens do? All stretched out head to tail?" She asked, miming the shape with her hand a moment, then she went back to leaning back in the comfortable, over-sized bucket seat, remembering.

"The Rex I saw wasn't doing that. A scientist told me once it was probably because it was much too cold in London, and the Dinosaurs were slowed down like any cold blooded thing out of it's climate would be. It seemed just unreal, two stories tall, standing on it's back legs and crashing right through a brick building when I saw it. Well, first I heard it," She said, her gaze even more distant. It had been utterly, terrifying in a primal fashion. Her voice dropped softer as she let the memory surface, and sorted for important information.

"I heard it first, of course, and felt it's footsteps through ground. When I first saw it I swear, all I could do was freeze. As soon as I could inhale though, I sprinted away as fast as I could. I wasn't even trying, It was effortless, the adrenalin was so strong." Now, the slightest flash of a smile as she looks back to Jim, knowing he will understand the thrill. "The poor thing was drooling and lumbering. It would have been pitiful if it hadn't been so terrifying. Their spore is as big as a smart car, and smells a little like the dumpsters at McDonald's" She flashed them both another grin.

"There were at least a hundred of them who came from the Jurassic Period, popping up like a water coming to a boil over the course of a few days in London, 1970. Each Dinosaur would appear for half an hour or so, then disappeared again. It all came to a boil eventually until they choked the streets, making even the Army fall back.

When the Dinosaurs were temporally displaced, it made a Time Eddy. You could see it. It looked like perfectly straight lines of mist and clarity radiating out from a dark, swirling, reddish center that was like the eye of a storm. It made a sound like a hundred, angry, tenor crickets, and then whatever in the middle of it would seem to just disappear. I also got this really great pair of blue pants."

Her last sentence was mumbled. It was her exit memory, and the end of her memory thread, but she'd got a grip on it now.

"In the end, I recommend a stunner. Dinosaurs can be herded or killed by large projectiles, but it's tough on the infrastructure. Your main advantage is over their walnut sized brains." She summed up. Then she looked over at Lutessa to see if she was alarmed enough that she should hold the girl's hand something for a minute.

[The First Doctor]

When Sarah completed her tale, Jim looked shocked. Or, at least, as shocked as his reconstructed face could manage. "Seriously? London had a dinosaur problem in the Seventies?" He laughed, a little self-consciously. "I mean, it's usually just rats and roaches." He grinned, stiffly. "Are kids just flushing them into the sewers?"

"They still do," Chris informed him.

"What?"

"Yeah. Starting about five years ago. They've got this outfit - the Anomaly Research Center - that's been working on it. It got folded into UNIT's UK branch, around the time Prime Minister Saxon vanished."

Jim stared at him for a moment, then laughed. "I get it. You're messing with me, right?"

Chris gestured with the thermos, offering refills, then topped off his own mug. "Not at all. I did some work for them last year." He looked at Sarah. "The phenomena that brings them through is different from the Time Eddies you described, though. More of a crystalline, fractal-looking thing. Distorts the electromagnetic spectrum." He sipped at his coffee. "Did you happen to notice if the Time Eddies you encountered had any magnetic properties? The ARC and UNIT have things reasonably under control now, but I promised Captain Magambo I'd let her know if I found anything else out about them."

He added a little more Tabasco sauce to the mug, and sipped at it. "Hey, Martin!" he called, to Jim's obvious embarrassment. "You done with that call, yet?"

[Sarah Jane]

The coffee was quite good, and a comfort after remembering dinosaurs up close. She watched Lutessa out of the corner of her eye, wondering what choices the girl would make about the coffee, and ready to let those choices ride.

"I haven't had a chance to see the ARC files on the characteristics of the time phenomenon they've been studying. I'm afraid not only do they think I'm a whack job over there, they are also aware of some of the capabilities of my computer and have taken measures. Apparently they got the idea of storing everything on a computer that is not hooked up to the Internet. So simple. So inaccessible. I wonder where they got that idea?" she said, casually admitting to having tried to hack the ARC systems, and dropping a clue to anyone paying enough attention that Sarah Jane was aware that the Majestic 12 employed the same tactics. As she recalled, Chris's work with ARC coincided quite nicely with Sarah Jane loosing access to ARC's fledgling data base.

Now she closed her eyes, trying to recall details. She dug deep.

"When I saw it, the soldiers had guns, and all their gear on. There was large artillery, ground and truck mounted. None of it seemed effected." She opened her eyes, looking over at Chris. "However, it could have been because time was running backward in that moment;the Eddy. Even if there had been an electromagnetic effect, I don't know that I would be able to recognize it under those conditions, being as I'm only human." She grinned. "To sort out the Heterodyning waveforms of time, mass, and electromagnetic force, not to mention being able to deduce how that would express it's effects from a Newtonian point of view, it might just take a Time Traveler, don't you think, Chris?"

Especially if there was a Tyrannosaurus Rex looming over you at the time, she thought.

[Archetype2]

She sat there, silently listening to the conversation, captivated by Sarah Jane's stories, like a six year old to a Disney movie, or a first-time camper to a campfire...a moth to a flame. That was a cleche...a good one but still!! She wanted to know more, to ask questions, thousands of htem over and over, she wanted to see these things for herself...travel around to places this type of thing happened to.

Coffee was offered around so she took some, it would be rude to refuse right? It was an odd flavour that was for sure but still, nice...and warm.

Emeral eyes latched themselves onto the cane, how could it stay up like that in a moving and jolting car...was it an alien cane? Did it have a sword in it maybe? no, that wouldn't make it stand up all the time, it had to be an alien cane.

She sat there, memorizing every turn, every stop on their rout. It was an oddly long feeling car ride. She shifted a little, becoming board of sitting down and eyed the men in the car, listened to their words and tried to understand the more complicated stuff. Something stuck out, if they had a public office studying aliens, wouldn't people be displeased that their tax money was gonig to something they couldn't fully prove was real?

[The First Doctor]

"I haven't had a chance to see the ARC files on the characteristics of the time phenomenon they've been studying. I'm afraid not only do they think I'm a whack job over there, they are also aware of some of the capabilities of my computer and have taken measures. Apparently they got the idea of storing everything on a computer that is not hooked up to the Internet. So simple. So inaccessible. I wonder where they got that idea?"

Jim shrugged. "It's pretty much standard operating procedure for classified documents, although it doesn't always get followed. The DoD's been doing that since the internet was DARPANet."

"When I saw it, the soldiers had guns, and all their gear on. There was large artillery, ground and truck mounted. None of it seemed effected." She opened her eyes, looking over at Chris. "However, it could have been because time was running backward in that moment;the Eddy. Even if there had been an electromagnetic effect, I don't know that I would be able to recognize it under those conditions, being as I'm only human." She grinned.

Chris waved a hand, dismissively. "Don't worry about it," he said with a roguish grin. "We can't all be perfect."

"To sort out the Heterodyning waveforms of time, mass, and electromagnetic force, not to mention being able to deduce how that would express it's effects from a Newtonian point of view, it might just take a Time Traveler, don't you think, Chris?"

His roguish grin widened into an expression of pure delight. "I like you," he said. He looked at Jim. "Have I said that yet? I like her. 'Heterodyning waveforms of time, mass, and electromagnetic force'. That is beautifully put."

He leaned back in his chair, considering her statement. "I don't think it would require a time traveler, Sarah. But a time traveler would certainly be more likely to recognize the distinctive signature effect that temporal displacement has on localized spacetime." A pause. "Don't you agree?"

[Sarah Jane]

She took a moment to sip hot coffee, still looking at the Mad Scientist through dark lashes over the rim of her cup. So. They were going to toy with this right in front of the others, eh? So be it. It was almost fun. Besides, Dr.Sambur was still on the phone, and she expected the finer points would go right over Chris's metal head. She cradled her coffee in her lap again.

"Chris, I would say that experience, in time travel and the like would be more useful than a thousand reports to be read, or any number of mathematical equations studied. Perhaps you can help me argue the point of experience over study with your Dr.Sambur when he gets off the phone. I suspect he finds me a bit dotty. All I'm trying to do is help keep him from having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, when it comes to Extra Terrestrial contact."

She looked over at Lutessa, profoundly grateful she was keeping an eye on the road. It gave her mind room to play this dangerous game.

[The First Doctor]

"Chris, I would say that experience, in time travel and the like would be more useful than a thousand reports to be read, or any number of mathematical equations studied. Perhaps you can help me argue the point of experience over study with your Dr.Sambur when he gets off the phone. I suspect he finds me a bit dotty. All I'm trying to do is help keep him from having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, when it comes to Extra Terrestrial contact."

"Reinventing the wheel does get tedious, yes," Chris agreed. "But as far as finding you dotty, well, I don't think he's a fool. And since I'm sure he's read your Majestic-12 file - I did, when I heard you were coming..."

Jim palmed his face in irritation. "Chris," he said with slow patience, "you know that's classified material, and that you're not cleared for-"

Chris laughed, long and loud. "Not cleared? Me? I am a security clearance, last I checked. MAJESTIC BLUEBOX LONELYGOD COYOTE, isn't it? Surely, if I'm classified, then I'm code-word cleared for all of that as well?"

"I don't think you understand how this works."

Chris waved his free hand dismissively, and sipped his coffee. "Oh, I understand. I just don't really care."

His face softened at the stiff, stricken expression Jim gave him. "All right, all right," he said soothingly. "Since you're asking, I'll be good. But..." and here he glanced at Sarah with a knowing look and a sly grin, "I suspect our guest knows more about that particular codeword set than Majestic-12-"

"The OEI," Jim interjected.

"Yeah, yeah, the OEI. Whatever. I suspect she knows more about that particular codeword set than anyone in US intelligence."

Jim started to ask a question, then stopped and looked at Sarah. "Really?" Then he shook himself, managing to twist his features into an extremely stiff look of embarrassment. "I mean... that is... I don't mean..." His voice trailed away. "Ah, hell," he said ruefully. "I'm bad at all this spook stuff. I need to get back in the field, and stop making a fool of myself."

"Stop trying to be good at it," Chris advised. "It'll just turn you into a politician, and then your family would be ashamed of you." He drank more coffee. "But yes. I'm quite serious. So you'll want to make sure Martin plays nice."

[Sarah Jane]

She froze for an instant when Chris said "I suspect our guest knows more about that particular codeword set than Majestic-12-"

'MAJESTIC BLUEBOX LONELYGOD COYOTE', Chris was referring to with a sly grin to her. She was caught by that gaze, and in that moment they had, at least in part, each others measure.

A shudder went through her that she could not suppress. She was forced to clutch awkwardly as first her coffee tilted, and then it wobbled as tapped it even more off course trying to make a quick recovery. Third time was a charm. She didn't spill it.

Chris knew exactly who she was, and Sarah Jane knew herself to be outmatched. She hoped Lutessa's presence would be enough to help tip the balance. Sarah was now almost certain she'd landed herself into the same van and the same extra terrestrial plot as a Time Lord. And she had no idea which one. No idea at all.

Before she could get a grip on herself, her mouth gave the slightest tremble as well, and she had to swallow hard. Her voice her voice did not sound as strong as she would like it to as she changed the subject, speaking to the other available adult human in the van, now finding his eyes somehow reassuring. She knew there was a human in there, somewhere, seeing her.

"Jim, why don't you call it 'The Majestic Twelve' like the rest of the American Public? Or why not 'M - 12' for short? May I ask why the two separate names? And why you call it 'OEI' internally?"