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NOTHING STAYS THE SAME
By Steve Lake
Lloyd Armstrong stepped down from the bus and on to the pavement. He stood for a moment, staring down at the cracks in the paving stone. The same cracks that had been there every time he got off the bus before. And every time he got on in the morning to go to work. Sure, they'd got a little larger over the years (twelve it was, now, he'd lived there - if you could call it living) but a crack was crack. Pavement was pavement. Just stone. Cold stone.
He sighed, heavily.
Behind him, the pneumatic doors of the bus hissed shut with a faintly asthmatic wheeze. Just like always. And then the bus pulled away into the road with the same rumble and same lingering cloud of blue oily smoke as always. And as always, Lloyd Armstrong stood, mouth closed, waiting for the cloud to vanish, so he wouldn't breath in any of the pollution. It was more instinctive than anything else. Really, he couldn’t have cared less. But he did it anyway - just like he always did.
Then, he looked up from his feet, and down the street, towards his home. An unremarkable home, a low, squat gray bungalow, just like all the other homes on the street. Fronted by the same square of lawn, and backed by the same larger square of lawn, though some folk in the neighbourhood had laid down a patio, or a pond, or maybe, for those with the time or inclination, a garden. But not Lloyd. He no longer had the time nor the inclination.
For anything. Neither had he for a long time. It was all pointless. All so very pointless. Nothing job. Nothing home. Nothing inside to go back to. No one inside to go back to. Never had been. Never would be.
Lloyd sighed again.
"Nothing changes," he murmured. And then plodded home.
Just as always.
* * *
Dinner was the same as always. Well, there was a different picture on the front of the box it came in, sure, but it took the same length of time in the microwave, and it smelt the same, and it tasted the same.
And same as always, he scraped most of it into the bin.
Television was also the same. News - the usual sour blend of political wrong doing, natural disasters, wars, famine, recession; the weather - not promising. A sitcom - not funny. A chat show - people he’d never heard of or not wanted to hear from. A movie - seen it before.
Not that he really watched much of it. Most of the time, his attention was focussed on the photo he'd taken carefully from his wallet. He looked at it every evening, and had done every evening for some time. It showed him, a lot younger, and slimmer, and with more hair (and that hair was blonde, not gray), and he was happy, laughing. So was the girl beside him. Only, what made this picture special, was that she was laughing with him, not at him. A rare occurrence in Lloyd's life - so he'd always imagined, anyway.
That was what made her special. Twenty three years on since that picture was taken, she still was, and he guessed she always would be, special. Even though it had been eighteen years since they'd last met. Last spoke. Last laughed. Eighteen years... he wondered if she were still laughing, wherever she was. He wondered who was making her laugh...
At that point, Lloyd would shudder softly, replace the picture carefully in his wallet, and go back to not watching the TV. He did so that evening as well. Same as usual.
He yawned at eleven, and got up and switched the set off then went to his bedroom. He stood in the doorway for a moment, and a small frown creased his face. He stared towards the dresser in the corner.
"Maybe," he murmured. "Maybe this time..."
He went to the dresser, and pulled open a drawer. Stared down at what was inside for a moment, then reached in and picked it up.
A revolver.
He held it up for a moment, turning it in the light, seemingly fascinated by the way it glinted off its black chrome finish. Something seemed to pass across his expression, and he opened the chamber. It was empty, but for a single bullet. Lloyd stared at it for an instant, then snapped the weapon back up. Spun the chamber. Waited for it to stop.
"All I want," he whispered. "All I ever wanted..."
He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. Pressed the barrel of the pistol to his forehead. He stood for a moment, like a statue, and then...
-click-
The hammer fell on nothing.
Just as always.
Lloyd's shoulders slumped. He drew in another breath, deeper, more ragged. Then, opened his eyes, and tossed the pistol back into the drawer and closed it up. He stood, head bowed, breathing deeply.
"Once," he sighed. "Just once... just once let… let it be different."
Then he went to bed.
"Nothing changes," he whispered, as he switched off the light, and turned over and went to sleep.
Just like always.
* * *
But...
* * *
Change.
Dramatic. Violent. Terrifying.
To begin with, the day had begun exactly as normal. Lloyd hadn't had high hopes.
And then... chaos.
Lloyd never found out exactly what happened, or how it started. The Powers That Be certainly never said. It was that sort of situation; the sort of situation Lloyd usually associated with movies but not with real life. This was government stuff; no, more than that, even. Important, surely. Crucial, certainly.
World changing? Definitely.
Especially to Lloyd’s.
* * *
Working where he did, Lloyd had always been aware of the possibility of some sort of attack on the plant. Demonstrators, saboteurs, terrorists... yeah, they'd had scares in the past, and plenty of training of what to do in the event of such occurrences.
That training didn't quite cover what to do about alien invaders though. Oh no.
Of course, Lloyd never knew for 100% sure that they were alien invaders - the Powers That Be definitely never said, and it never got on the news, which surprised Lloyd, because he always thought nothing got past them - but enough people at the time were screaming that they were, and Lloyd took them at their word.
Especially when he saw them himself.
Tall, silver giants, with huge helmeted heads and blank expressionless masks for faces. Some sort of weird chest device on their fronts. Sleek and well muscled. At first, Lloyd thought they were just silver-sprayed wet suits, until one of the security guys opened up on them with his sidearm, and the bullets pinged off it like the security guard had been shooting at steel plate.
Needless to say, the security guys weren't shooting very long. The silver giants took care of that. They had weapons of their own, torch like instruments that sizzled electronically and spat fat blue sparks that turned a person to a crisp on touch. Lloyd saw a few people go up like that. He had nightmares about it for years afterwards.
But they didn't get Lloyd. Oh no. He ran. He was no guard, and he had no gun here. So he ran, and he hid, and he waited. He was good at hiding. He’d been doing it all his life. What else could he do?
There was a lot more firing. A lot more screaming. Explosions. Sirens. Engines. Big ones, too. Tanks, maybe. Certainly helicopters. The works.
Then it died down a bit, and went quiet for a while. Lloyd came out of hiding. Well, he wasn't really that afraid. He thought he'd stopped being afraid of anything some time ago - so he always liked to believe. But those silver giants, and their weapons... well, Lloyd didn't quite fancy going out like that.
There was dying, and there was dying.
* * *
Lloyd made his way cautiously along the corridors, trying to find a way out. It wasn’t easy. The place was a mess. Looked like a war had hit it. Broken glass, debris, fallen masonry, holes in the walls and ceilings, smoke... bodies. Oh yeah. Lots of bodies. Some of them he recognised, and though Lloyd wasn’t close to anyone in the plant - wasn’t close to anyone at all - the sight… effected him, nonetheless. In fact, he was quite surprised at how much it did all effect him. He didn’t think anything ever could anymore, but this…
This was different.
Lloyd even came across the bodies of a couple of the silver giants. In death, they were almost as frightening. Thick green goo oozed from their shattered limbs and dribbled down the cracked faces of their helmets. Faces that no longer looked so expressionless. They looked... agonised, instead. Almost human.
That was the most horrible thing about it, though he didn’t quite know why. He had nightmares about that, too.
But most of all, he found he was still afraid, after all.
* * *
The way out he was intending to use was blocked - the ceiling had caved in somehow - so he had to go round. And in order to go round, he had to go through the Control Centre. Pretty dangerous. Lloyd figured if that was where there was going to be action, it was going to be there.
He was right - but it wasn't quite as he'd expected.
There were only two people - well, beings, then - in the chamber. One, was one of the silver giants, only this one looked taller than the others Lloyd had seen, and its helmet was black.
The other was a slim young man with long curly brown hair. Not a guard, or a cop, or a soldier, as Lloyd might have expected, nor anyone who worked in the plant. His clothes were too bizarre for that. A long green velvet coat, silk cravat flapping at his neck beneath an old fashioned wing collar. His lean, handsome face was twisted into an expression that seemed half desperate and half defiant. He was scurrying round the chamber, darting between the control banks, trying to avoid the crushing embrace of the silver giant. It was growling at him in deep electronic tones, and from time to time the young man would snap a retort as he dodged and weaved. Lloyd could only watch breathlessly from the doorway as the chase went on. What could he do? And then...
The young man slipped, went down his back. The silver giant fell on him in an instant, steel gauntlets reaching to close like claws around the young man's throat. Lloyd yelped, though neither he nor the struggling pair seemed aware of that fact. Lloyd knew if those steel fingers closed, the young man would die.
But the slip had been deliberate. As the silver giant loomed down, the young man rolled over and over and away to safety. As he did, he seized something on the floor and bounced up onto his knees, facing the silver giant that had recovered from the surprise of the young man’s feint with an agility Lloyd could scarcely believe, and it turned to reach out to seize the young man once again. The young man thrust forward, as if to meet that grasp... and ducked beneath it! As he did, he jammed what he held in his hands into the chest unit of the silver giant...
Lloyd recognised it in an instant. High voltage electrical cable! But what could -
Instantly there was a roar of power and a crackle of blue sparks. The silver giant convulsed and let out an almighty electronic howl. Strands of electricity seemed to sizzle and play about its mighty frame and it staggered backwards a couple of steps before crashing down to the floor on its back. It lay there, twitching, while the same goo Lloyd had seen on the other fallen giants oozed from its chest unit - now blackened and scorched - its joints and its helmet.
At that, the young man flung aside the smouldering cable and flung his head back in a silent scream, tucking his hands beneath his arms. Lloyd bet it hurt! You didn't touch that sort of gear without gloves. Jeez, that guy was going to be hurting for some time…
Yet incredibly, the guy leapt to his feet and ran over to one of the consoles, hands still tucked painfully beneath his arms. He hunched over the console and emitted a thin whistle of annoyance through clenched teeth. Lloyd took a tentative step closer and tried to peer round the young man. There seemed to be some sort of bulbous device implanted into the console - the main bank, in fact. It throbbed and glowed a dull green, pulsing with sinister purpose. It certainly shouldn't have been there, and looked unlike any piece of machinery Lloyd had ever -
"Hey! You!"
Lloyd tore his gaze from the console with a start and realised the young man was staring at him. Not just staring, either. He was talking to him as well.
"Erm," said Lloyd, backing away.
"No no no no!" the young man yelped, bounding forward with athletic grace and somehow getting between Lloyd and the door before Lloyd knew what was happening. And equally, before he knew it, the young man was steering him towards the console - and the device - with surprising strength and rapidity. Twice as surprising considering he wasn't using his hands to do it.
"You can't leave!" blurted the young man. "We have to disarm the Cybermen's control unit! I can't do it! Look!"
And he held out his hands. They were charred and blackened. Quite useless for anything, let alone -
"Disarm the WHAT?" stammered Lloyd.
"The control unit! THE CONTROL UNIT!" The young man made to touch the device, then seemed to realise he couldn't and had to settle on kicking the side of the console instead. The device buzzed ominously at that, and Lloyd winced. The young man swallowed nervously, then swung back to Lloyd and said rapidly "Look, that thing is bombarding neutrinos into your main reactor at a staggering rate and if it isn't stopped SOON this place and several hundred miles around it will be turned into a cloud of super-heated vapour!"
Lloyd stared at the device, then back at the young man. "But I can't -"
"Yes you can yes you can!" The young man bobbed his head with frantic eagerness, long hair flopping around his face. "You're Lloyd Armstrong, general maintenance technician second class, should be first class but you've never had the confidence to go for the promotion you so eminently deserve. Never had the confidence to do anything... have you?"
Lloyd blinked in astonishment, and found himself shivering slightly. How did he know all that? Especially about... "Look, erm, mister -"
"Doctor!" The young man jabbed at Lloyd with his elbows. "No time for explanations! Lloyd, trust me on this - YOU CAN DO IT! Especially with my help! Now come on!" He jerked his head towards a bulky steel case on the floor nearby. "Grab that toolkit and lets get cracking!"
Lloyd obeyed. He couldn't help it. He didn't know who this guy was, or what the hell was going on - or what the hell he was doing - but he did it. There was just something about the guy that... made him.
"Screwdriver. No no, Philips, man, Philips! Is it demagnetised?"
"Um -"
"No no, doesn't matter, not with this generation, at least I hope not... now, slide that panel away. That's it. Good. Now, don't suppose you have a finklegruber in there? No? No. Well, never mind. Use that wrench. No, no, wait - THAT wrench. Yes! Brilliant! It fits! Whew! Now's the tricky bit..."
To Lloyd, it was all a tricky bit. Then, everything always had been. He hesitated, staring down at the alien contraption, the wrench in his hand feeling clammy and odd, like he’d never held one before. A horribly familiar, cold, hated tide began to well over him again, as it so often did.
Self doubt. Self pity. Self loathing.
"I can’t do this," he heard himself whisper.
"Yes you can," whispered the young man, practically in his ear. "Yes you can. I believe you can, Lloyd. And I know, deep down inside, you know it too. Don’t you?"
Lloyd closed his eyes. Opened them again.
"Yes," he said finally. "Yes, I do."
The wrench didn’t feel funny anymore. And that horrible feeling seemed to drift away. All Lloyd became aware of was the young mans’ gentle voice, guiding his fingers, working at his mind. And then -
* * *
"YOU DID IT! WOO HOO!"
The young man clapped Lloyd delightedly on the back, that delight turning to anguish when he hurt his injured hand. Lloyd barely noticed, simply blinked down at the device, the pliers clutched in his sweating hand still trembling in the midst of the coil of wires nestling in the centre of the device; which was now perfectly still and inactive. No more pulsing. No more glowing. It was dead.
"Is it..." croaked Lloyd through a parched throat, "is it...?"
"Over?" The young man nodded and sighed, relief now replacing exuberance, standing up and pulling Lloyd with him. "Yes Lloyd, it is. You did it! You saved the plant, and several hundred miles of countryside." He grinned. "Well done!"
"Yeah, but -"
"But nothing! You did it, Lloyd. You helped save the day. You made a difference! Isn't that what you always wanted?"
"Um..."
The young man narrowed his eyes, and his expression altered subtly, to something... older. Darker, even. He dipped his face closer to Lloyd’s' and Lloyd found himself flinching, so intense was the look in that face, and the light in those eyes... it was almost frightening. They seemed to look through Lloyd, to the very core of his being...
Then he spoke again, and his words too cut through to the very core of Lloyd's being.
"And if that gun had fired last night, Lloyd, you wouldn't have been here to do it. The day wouldn't have been saved. Millions would have died. You see?" The young man smiled, face losing all trace of that intensity. It was a wonderful smile, so warm and wise and full of... hope?
"Nothing stays the same, Lloyd," he continued softly. "Nothing. No matter how bad things seem... they always change. Always. I'm not saying it's ever easy, but..." the young man shrugged and pulled a face as if to say, 'c'est la vie'. That was life. Life... yeah.
Lloyd opened his mouth to say something in reply when sirens began to suddenly blare again, making him jump, only this time; they were sounding an all-clear. Then the sound of boots rumbling and clattering, and raised voices in the distance - but not far distance. People were coming. The Powers That Be.
Before Lloyd knew it, the young man was scampering across the room towards the door - but away from the sound, leaving Lloyd gaping in his wake.
"I'll let you take the credit then!" he called over his shoulder as he ran. Then he paused on the threshold, turned, grinned and winked. "Who knows, you may get that promotion after all!"
And then he was gone, leaving Lloyd alone with his thoughts.
But only briefly.
* * *
The young man had been right. Lloyd did get the credit - well, most of it. The Powers That Be are never THAT generous. But he did get his promotion. More than that, even.
Much more. Much, much more...
* * *
The revolver remained in the drawer, untouched.
Lloyd Armstrong had found something better instead.
Change.
Purpose.
Hope.
He was never the same again.