STEALING EDEN Part Three (Continued)

Julie Craig had been sitting at her desk looking over some of the early work done for the next edition of the Junior Gazette. Kevin's photos had been developed; stories were being planned dealing with the misreporting of Lynda's death, the hazards of overburdened electrical outlets, and the future of the Junior Gazette; and then there was the sticky problem of how to deal with Lynda. Lynda's story would have to be part of the next edition, but how to tactfully get her to tell it when she had been sent home in disgrace was a bit of a problem. Most of the staff had gone home. A few of the street reporters who had been out working late had come back to the office and were preparing to depart. Tiddler was still around, too. Julie had needed someone to step in as assistant editor, and Tiddler had offered. Truth be told, Julie would have chosen Spike, but Spike was in the unenviable position of having to try and keep Lynda occupied, and Lynda would make everyone's life miserable if Spike was editing and she wasn't. Tiddler it was, then.

Matt Kerr strolled into the temporary Junior Gazette headquarters and headed for the meeting room. He motioned Julie and Tiddler to join him. Julie nodded her assent. They entered the meeting room and closed the door.

"What's the news?" Julie asked.

"Bobby Campbell's breathing a little easier now that Paul Marriner doesn't want to take his empire apart piece by piece.."

"Marriner backed down?" Tiddler asked.

"Yes and no," Kerr replied. "Marriner decided he wanted to take his offer off the table and pursue some different options. He put up a new offer that Campbell accepted."

"And the new offer?" Julie asked.

"Marriner wants the Junior Gazette very badly. Campbell decided it wasn't worth the aggravation not to let him have it. Bobby thinks he wanted the Junior Gazette all along and would have bought the whole of the company just for that one bit."

"Why would you buy a whole company just to get control of us?" Tiddler asked. "We're not even a big money-maker for Bobby Campbell."

"Bobby asked him that. Marriner said that he saw a lot of potential in the Junior Gazette as an educational tool and the current staff clearly impressed him."

Tiddler frowned at this. "I wonder if he's looking at going back to how the paper was originally designed? Before Lynda and Kenny put together the deal to take us commercial."

"Wouldn't surprise me if he did, but he could be thinking of running the paper as a non-profit, too. You'll just have to see." Kerr then allowed himself a smile. "You haven't asked who your new boss is."

"Not Marriner?" Julie asked.

"Not directly," Kerr said. "He's a military guy, not a publisher. So he found himself someone familiar with publishing. Sarah Jackson is part owner and managing director of the new Junior Gazette." This caught both Julie and Tiddler by surprise.

"How in Heaven's name did she do that?" Tiddler asked.

"Just lucky, I guess," Kerr shrugged. "They happened to ride the train back to London together and got to talking about the Junior Gazette. She offered some opinions, he liked them, he hired her. End of story."

  "Matt, how do you explain Marriner being reported as dead?" Julie inquired.

Kerr shifted uneasily in his chair. "We were told it was a mistaken report. Marriner's credentials are all in order--the American embassy said so."

"And the fact that the dead Marriner and the living one don't look at all alike?" Tiddler asked him.

"Is a problem, I'll admit," Kerr answered. "Look, we're dealing with somebody who is hip deep in military secrets as far as the US Government is concerned. There aren't a lot of answers anyone will give you, no matter how good a reporter you are."

"Matt, this is a story, and it is going to get killed because the target is willing to buy the paper to shut us up," Julie exclaimed. "Doesn't that strike you as ominous?"

"You don't think Sarah will defend you?" Kerr asked.

"I don't think Sarah can defend us," Julie sighed. "Lynda would fight to her last breath, but Sarah? I just don't know."

Spike had nodded off on the couch watching the evening news on television. When he awoke, it was past midnight and the light was still on in the bedroom. He got up and walked over to the bedroom, peeking nervously in. Lynda was still awake--running on adrenaline, he assumed, as she had been awake the whole night previously. He knocked at the door. Lynda turned, and seeing Spike there in the doorway, smiled.

"Spike, if you don't get some sleep, you're not going to be much use to me tomorrow."

"In case you hadn't noticed, Boss, you're in my bedroom. I can't very well sleep while you're hard at work."

"Never stopped you in the newsroom," she gently reminded him.

"True," he conceded, "But you need your rest, too. Have you even slept at all in the past twenty-four hours?"

"No," Lynda said. "And its been closer to forty-eight that I've been awake. Too much is happening, Spike. Too much, too fast."

Spike happened to see her notebook computer beside her and looked at what she was doing. She had dialed up the web page of an underground newspaper called "The Truth." "Truth" was not a secret--it was occasionally mentioned in passing, but usually as a joke because it promoted the idea that aliens were real and were actively trying to take over the Earth.

"New career venture?" he asked.

"Don't be silly," she said. "There's a lot of foolishness here, but I'll bet some of these stories could be true. I've even read interviews of people who claim to have met the Doctor. Take this article," she said, pointing to the computer. "Career soldier, gets transferred into a secret United Nations division, and runs up against some killer mannequins. The Doctor foils the alien intelligence behind the plot."

"A story written anonymously to protect the writer's identity. Very credible." Spike said dismissively. His eyes happened to catch sight of something disturbing as they flicked across the page.

"UNIT," he said.

"United Nations Intelligence Taskforce," Lynda said. "Very hush-hush. They're mentioned now and again in the underground press."

"Sarah told me UNIT was involved with the Marriner Group. She wanted to warn you."

Spike then told Lynda of Sarah's telephone call and what she'd related.

"So I meet up with an alien, and UNIT wants to meet up with me. No, doesn't make sense. The Doctor is known on Earth; why should anybody find my having met him any big deal?"

Spike frowned at this. "Lynda," he said, "You took something from the Doctor, remember?"

"Yeah, a book....about the future." Lynda suddenly realized what Spike was driving at. "No, Spike, nobody knows of it but you and I and the Doctor and Peri. Nobody could know."

"Would the Doctor try and get the book back?"

"Not like this." Lynda gave Spike a hug. "Spike, stop worrying. You want to protect me and hide me out someplace until all this blows over. That's exactly what they'd want you to do to me, so that they could say I was despondent and just disappeared when nobody was looking. The best thing to do is hide in plain sight and let everybody know we are alive and kicking. If anybody is trying to get me, they can't do it in front of the world."

"Can't?" Spike raised an eyebrow.

"Well, it will make it damned hard to do so, at any rate."

"So now what do we do?"

Lynda thought for a moment. She closed the file she was working on and shut off the computer. "First thing to do is get some sleep, then tomorrow we go tell the world you're going to be Lynda Day's fiancé."

"And that solves the problem?" Spike asked.

"As Tiddler once told me, they've all been following this dopey story from page one. Let's give them something new to keep them thinking of us."

"You aren't going to go back to your apartment all by yourself, are you?" Spike asked as Lynda put her computer away.

"I should stay here with you?" Lynda chuckled. "That would be rather unseemly of me, wouldn't it? People might get the wrong idea about us."

"It would be safer, Lynda. That's all I'm saying. I'll sleep on the couch."

"Do I get a good-night kiss?" Lynda asked innocently. Spike leaned over to oblige, and Lynda hit him with a pillow. One pillow fight later, they collapsed in each other's arms and fell asleep in each other's company.

Somewhere in the night, Julie Craig dreamed of dead men walking. Bobby Campbell dreamed of being sold as a slave by someone with the power to control the world. Spike and Lynda dreamed of each other. Billy Homer watched a bus bear down him for the thousandth time. Kate and Kevin watched in the dark as the lights of New York City greeted their plane. Julie had sent them off to discover what had happened at an Independence Day parade in 1989, without telling Matt Kerr a word of her intentions. As for Sarah Jackson, she was watching the sun set on the horizon of a deserted Australian beach after spending the day swimming and sunbathing with Paul, Sophie, and Laura. She was too awake to dream, but wondered as the night fell whether her life was now a dream come true, or if Paul was dreaming for her now. The Sarah Jackson who stepped on a train car in Norbridge was fast disappearing, and she wasn't sure whether she should feel afraid or liberated.

On To Part Four