Prologue
Citizen 36 sat back in his recliner, lifting off his fedora and throwing it over to his pile of fake identification cards. He eased himself into the chair, feeling the faux-leather gently mould itself to his shape: average, or, as he preferred to think of it, ideal. The dark wallpaper on his apartment wall was stained with the leftovers of the cup of coffee he’d thrown at it a few days ago. He was surprised GOD-FORSAKEN DOME wasn’t stencilled into it instead; with the sheer fury he’d been thinking it.
He turned the radio on, after rummaging around for the remote-control, and wished more than ever he’d bothered with a decent sound system. The thing blasted harsh, clanging waves at him; a cacophony he’d once have called music, and a song he’d once liked – Hey Jude, by the Beatles. The song played constantly now, doing rounds in his mind when it wasn’t on the radio. Putting it on at least gave him some sense of sanity. He preferred the voices in his head taking form, even if they were becoming exhausting. That was the problem with the radio – it was just a Greatest Hits compilation. How mainstream.
The phone rang and he got up, leaving a shape in the recliner he’d later be able to sink back into with ease. He picked it up, waiting for a response, as had become convention for him.
“Robert,” said the voice. Citizen 36 recognised it instantly. “We’ve got a late one for you. Progress.”
“Who says?”
“Well that’s exactly the point.” The voice paused. There was a muffle; that was just the line. “They aren’t citizens at all.”
Citizen 36 peered down at his address book, squinting to read his own handwriting. “Address five,” he responded. “Ten minutes.” He slammed the phone down and picked up his trench coat and fedora, heading out into the night, his radio still singing about Jude, whoever the hell she was.
It was a dark night tonight. He didn’t understand how the nights changed down here. That was another reason to question his sanity. And still, he felt oppressed. Others – like the old, the shallow, the high – described it as peaceful; safe. But how was it safe? The pressures of the ocean were pushing down on them, relentlessly and frustratingly calmly, at every moment of the day or night. The dome was the roof over their heads but it was their prison too, and outside of that prison was a force that no government could control. He envied it.
Citizen 36 walked on into the night, ignoring the curfew, and staring up at the glass above him, the ocean behind it, and – he hoped – a new world beyond. Perhaps those visitors had come to save them.
He chuckled at the absurdity of his own theory. Who’d save us?
He turned the radio on, after rummaging around for the remote-control, and wished more than ever he’d bothered with a decent sound system. The thing blasted harsh, clanging waves at him; a cacophony he’d once have called music, and a song he’d once liked – Hey Jude, by the Beatles. The song played constantly now, doing rounds in his mind when it wasn’t on the radio. Putting it on at least gave him some sense of sanity. He preferred the voices in his head taking form, even if they were becoming exhausting. That was the problem with the radio – it was just a Greatest Hits compilation. How mainstream.
The phone rang and he got up, leaving a shape in the recliner he’d later be able to sink back into with ease. He picked it up, waiting for a response, as had become convention for him.
“Robert,” said the voice. Citizen 36 recognised it instantly. “We’ve got a late one for you. Progress.”
“Who says?”
“Well that’s exactly the point.” The voice paused. There was a muffle; that was just the line. “They aren’t citizens at all.”
Citizen 36 peered down at his address book, squinting to read his own handwriting. “Address five,” he responded. “Ten minutes.” He slammed the phone down and picked up his trench coat and fedora, heading out into the night, his radio still singing about Jude, whoever the hell she was.
It was a dark night tonight. He didn’t understand how the nights changed down here. That was another reason to question his sanity. And still, he felt oppressed. Others – like the old, the shallow, the high – described it as peaceful; safe. But how was it safe? The pressures of the ocean were pushing down on them, relentlessly and frustratingly calmly, at every moment of the day or night. The dome was the roof over their heads but it was their prison too, and outside of that prison was a force that no government could control. He envied it.
Citizen 36 walked on into the night, ignoring the curfew, and staring up at the glass above him, the ocean behind it, and – he hoped – a new world beyond. Perhaps those visitors had come to save them.
He chuckled at the absurdity of his own theory. Who’d save us?
The Eighth Doctor Adventures
Series 2 - Episode 6
THE CLOUD BENEATH THE SEA
Written by Janine Rivers
“Now this is interesting.” The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, hopping up and down on the spot. “This is very interesting.”
Chris walked out of the TARDIS, awestruck, his eyes wide open, but his mouth shut, managing at best a mumble.
“You’re right.” Autumn poked her tongue out and took a deep breath, looking a bit like an excitable puppy. “You can taste it. Like… the air’s got a flavour.”
“It looks American.” Tommy nodded to a large memorial garden behind them, a graveyard full of words, statues and frozen memories.
“Yes, I think it probably is interesting.” Robin pointed up at the sky, which the others had failed to notice. The Doctor had probably looked up at it and not even noticed, so used to it from his own home – the city was enclosed in a mighty dome, perhaps larger than Gallifrey’s.
The sky above it had a crystal aspect, like a filter, like…
The sea. Autumn clicked her fingers, proud to have been the one to work it out. “It’s the sea. We’re under the sea.” She shuddered. That was a claustrophobic thought.
“What are all those little dots moving around?” asked Robin.
The Doctor pulled out a pair of binoculars and gazed up at the top of the dome. “Fish!” he beamed. “They’re fish. About your size I’d say, so I wouldn’t encourage swimming around this area. Ah, they’re lovely.”
“Can I have a look?” Tommy borrowed the binoculars. “They look… different.”
“Well, they are different. This is somewhere in your future, no doubt we’re quite a way down a new evolutionary path. Change, I love it…”
“Me too.” Tommy gave the binoculars back. “But there’s something about those fish. They’re… weird. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“How…” Chris choked on his words. “How far does this go on?”
“Miles and miles,” murmured the Doctor, unable to offer a precise measurement.
That much was right, though – the dome stretched so far, the curvature of it was almost hard to make out. The place was packed, and Tommy was right; American right to the core – skyscrapers increasing in height around the centre of the dome, bridges stretching over streets, the streets themselves layered, one on top of the other; effective, compact housing. They could be layered no further. This was the extent of the dome’s capacity. But it was the benches on the edge of sidewalks, the lights, the pride, which Tommy had identified as being intrinsically American.
“Oi! You lot!”
Heads turned to a policeman patrolling the other side of the street, suddenly enraged. As he crossed over, another figure in black – this one a woman – ran up behind him, stabbing him from behind with something small and obviously efficient, as he fell down in seconds.
The woman approached the team and lifted off her balaclava.
“But…” she studied them. She had curly ginger hair and a midland American accent. “You’re not… how…”
“Did you just kill that man?” asked the Doctor. Autumn rolled her eyes at his priorities.
“Stunned,” answered the woman, composing herself. The Doctor noticed she was little over twenty. “He’ll wake up in about an hour, but in that time the Cloud will be transmitting a false feed based on his recent memories – little trick to help people like us.”
“The… Cloud?” The Doctor raised a questioning eyebrow. Chris hoped he wasn’t talking about something like 3G, considering the world’s recent luck where that was concerned.
“Jeez, you really are from out of town.” The woman tried to gain a few inches, studying the Doctor, much to his discomfort. “So you’re surface guys, huh? Want to tell me – us – what the heck’s going on up there?”
“Surface?”
“The surface. Where you came from. Don’t pretend like you don’t know.”
“Well, I suppose we did, in a way. We came from a surface. That surface there.” The Doctor pointed at the TARDIS. “We’re travellers.”
“Travellers from the surface,” completed the woman.
“Travellers from the past,” explained Chris, though wondered straight after if this was definitely the future. The Doctor glared at him.
“Think we’d have heard about you if you were.”
“We’re not from the surface,” clarified Autumn, making up the best and vaguest lie she could. “Well, not your surface anyway, a bit further on, hence our confusion. We are capable of long-distance, hyper-speed travel and wanted to investigate this part of society.”
“You mean… there were other survivors on the surface?”
“Just us. Now I’m sure you can understand our desire to explore.” She offered a handshake. “I’m Autumn Rivers, and I’m the representative for our group.” The Doctor exchanged an amused look with Chris. “May I ask your name?”
“Citizen 37,” said the woman, rushing through introductions. “You talk like you don’t know anything about us down here.”
“That’s because we don’t.”
“Then I have one question for you, just one.” Citizen 37 turned around to make sure she wasn’t being watched. “Will you help us?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to start speaking but Citizen 37 interjected him-
“-I don’t mean our government, or even our society. I mean us. The freedom fighters.”
“Sounds impressive,” admitted the Doctor.
“Sounds like a terrorist organisation,” added Robin.
“Yes,” answered the Doctor, looking straight at Citizen 37. “The best way to find out about a society – its opposition.”
***
“This is our president – Leader 12.”
“Not even the leaders have names?” That was a shock to Autumn.
The room they were in was dark and dingy; a hideaway, a sort of low-budget action movie base, with walls that could fall in any minute. An old computer screen flashed on, lines of interference skewing the image of a smiling, chubby-faced man with slick black hair. He reminded Autumn of Lord Dalta.
“The leaders are leaders. That separates them from the citizens.”
“Two classes. That’s…” Autumn looked for a positive. “Easy to remember.”
“You say two,” said Citizen 37, “but you can then break down the citizen classes. Citizens 1-412,000 are a lower citizen class. Citizens 412,000-1,000,000 are upper citizen class. But it’s an unofficial system, which can then be broken down into further categories.”
“You’ve got a set of classes and sub-classes,” remarked Chris. “I..” he considered, thinking like a teacher. “Actually, Tommy. Tell me what I’m thinking.”
“You’re thinking I was wrong about this being American. The class system is typically, well, British.”
“Exactly.”
“And even though people are given numbers, the class system is too staggered, too open, to be Communist like it seems. Nothing here is how it looks.”
The Doctor nodded, admiring the intellectual discussion between his companions.
“For a while, the Cloud was a public service,” explained Citizen 37. “A connection shared by all of us in the dome – and we could access it through any device or through our own minds, because it operates on a psychic level, too. It was left alone most of the time – we just exchanged files with each other.”
“But Leader 12 did something?” asked Robin.
“Ten years ago, when he came to power. He privatised the Cloud, sold it off to… people who really shouldn’t have got their hands on it. He still operated it centrally and to monitor communications across the Cloud and ensure all businesses were using it fairly, he took a stricter stance. Now he watches everything that goes on, and who knows, controls it. That’s where we come in.”
“The freedom fighters,” recalled the Doctor.
“We discovered a while ago that our connection was weaker. We had trouble file-sharing. It manifested itself in other ways – doubt being the main one. We were able to see what other people couldn’t.”
“And what’s he like as a president?” asked Tommy. “Leader 12, is he any good? Apart from the whole cloud privatisation thing.”
“If you’re one of the upper citizens, sure.” Citizen 37 reconsidered. “He’s alright, sure. No one dying on the streets because of him, no wars or public executions. But that only makes him more dangerous.”
“How?” asked the Doctor, intrigued.
“Because no one listens to his opposition,” said Tommy. “Am I right?”
“Spot on.”
“We want to take the Cloud back and restore it to what it used to be. And we want to find out what else he’s been using it for.”
“Centre of control?” asked the Doctor.
“Two miles north.”
“I’m coming with you. Tonight.”
“We can’t. If we get any closer, the Cloud-“
“-won’t register you, because I’ll put a perception filter around you, and I’m not even on the Cloud. I’m a stranger, so they’ll want to know what I’m doing here.”
“We go in the morning.”
The team turned around to identify the voice. It was that of a tall, dark-haired young man in a fedora and trench coat, also American. Autumn eyed him up for later.
“And what the hell do you go tell them you’re Citizen 37 for, Emily?”
Citizen 37 – or Emily as she was apparently called – took a step back.
“We have names, remember?” The new man scanned the group. “They called me Citizen 36 because it was easier to say so do you know what I did? I called me Robert. So does everyone else round here, because I want them to, and they call Emily Emily, because it’s the name she chose, because we’re people, not numbers. Got that?”
The group nodded.
“Now I got one question for you, and whoever can answer this gets my handshake of support.” Robert took off his fedora. “Who the damn hell is Jude?”
Morning
“It’s harder to manage a larger group,” said the Doctor.
“There’s only two of us,” replied Robert.
“I meant my group. Okay… which one of you two is going to the dome?”
“Me,” decided Emily.
“Oh I’m sorry,” complained Robert, “there I was thinking this was democratic.”
“You’re just worried about me. You get to do everything.”
“What is it with you two?” asked Robin. “You’re like a brother and sister.”
The pair turned their heads to Robin. “We are,” they said in unison.
“Ah.”
“I want to meet Leader 12,” said the Doctor. “But I need one of you to stay here and one of you to check out the society, just go out and live; tell me about it, in case I have to make any difficult decisions.” He considered. “Or would that be more than one of you? It was so simple back in the day. One companion at a time. Ace and Grace…”
“Not the time to get the old photo albums out,” interjected Autumn. “I’ll come with you, it’s usually the wisest option.”
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, feeling flattered.
“That leaves me here, then?” inquired Tommy.
“You’re a people person.” That was Autumn’s excuse.
“And us?” asked Robin.
“You’re the ones who have a look around. Get to know this world, tell me about it. Here.” The Doctor chucked them a wallet. “Psychic paper. Get yourself somewhere interesting. Try a school.” He turned back to Emily and Autumn. “Right, ladies. Day out. Let’s take down the government.”
***
“The Cloud’s effect is weaker for us, naturally,” explained Emily, as she walked along the street with the Doctor and Autumn. It was morning, and people were beginning to show up on different levels, collecting washing off the railings, cleaning their windows and putting out their bins; small metal boxes brimming with putrid household waste. “Biological phenomenon. We got lucky. Or unlucky, depending on which way you look at it. When you look at how happy these people are to be oppressed…”
“Ignorance is bliss,” added Autumn. “I never really understood that.”
The Doctor sighed. “I should never have let her watch The Matrix.” Emily chuckled. The Doctor smiled. Good movies hadn’t been forgotten by this society, at least.
“The dangerous thing is the fact that we live on the threshold between ordinary and morally-atrocious, and no one can see over the top. Take the justice system. Absolutely corrupt, but the man in charge of it is a buffoon – hilariously so. Whenever someone challenges him, he walks into a door or trips over a rock. We end up laughing into our own graves.”
“Clowns make the best bullies,” observed the Doctor. “Still, I’ve seen worse societies.”
“Where do you come from, then?” asked Emily. “Just between us.”
Autumn and the Doctor exchanged a glance. Shall we?
“We’re from off-world,” explained Autumn. “We’re travellers through space, but we landed in the ocean. We haven’t got a clue of what life on the surface is like.”
Emily shrugged. “That’s not unreasonable. Did you descend from the Andromeda lot?”
“Er…”
“It doesn’t matter. The less you know of our past – your past – the better. We went to war, because of our arrogance. We didn’t imagine war, any of us – we thought it was like a quick bit of target practise; throw a few bombs in the right places and shut people up. But it wasn’t. That was always the problem with our warfare. Airstrikes? Literally. We were bombing thin air. It became a war because we weren’t expecting it to.”
“And your city was chosen to survive?”
“More or less. They built this place in secret. We were taken down, in ships, those of us who chose to be. Yes, you’re in a city of conscientious objectors. Technically at least – that was what we were once upon a time. Nowadays, new generations with new ideas.”
***
“You’re earlier than usual, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“Well…” Robin glanced at Chris, sharing an inside joke. “Ofsted like to catch you on a normal day.”
The classroom was square and concrete, with small windows and busy walls, like a prison cell for children: on the one hand, it was cramped, damp and dark; yet on the other, it was full of warmth and passion – displays of work on the wall, and a half-finished game of hangman on the blackboard. A class of seven year-olds sat silently in expectation, some giving Robin and Chris wary looks.
“I’d kill for a class this quiet,” whispered Chris. Robin nudged him.
“Today we’re going to learn to multiply surds,” said the teacher, a young blonde woman in a white shirt and black cardigan, apparently called Miss Parker. She seemed nice. That was the conclusion Robin and Chris had reached. But Miss Parker was only one aspect of the system; one cog within the machine. “Have any of you ever worked with surds before?”
There were a few murmurs, but no raised hands.
“Surds?” whispered Robin. “I’ve never heard of them. Is that a future thing?”
“It’s a maths thing,” answered Chris. “I was in a Year 10 class the other day and they were covering it. Top set. This lot are way too young to be covering this kind of thing…”
“That’s weird…”
“It’s not an alien mystery, if that’s what you’re thinking Robin. It’s just the way things are – the world makes them grow up earlier. Over the course of the centuries, ‘children’ will become extinct.”
***
“You look unimpressed.”
“Me?” Tommy chuckled. “I’m in a dark room with a revolutionary. When I was in sixth form they asked me where I saw myself in three years’ time. It wasn’t here, though I definitely wanted it to be.”
“What’s your society like?” asked Robert, intrigued about life on the surface. He always wondered what it was like to rebuild after a war you didn’t start. The hatred and resentment you must feel for those who put you there – and the relief that it’s over. The lessons you’d learn. The relationships you’d build. Not like here. Not like the cowards who hid under the sea with their cloud.
Tommy scrolled through the files on Robert’s computer; the images, the news reports, the opinion articles, the comments (made directly from the mind, apparently). The liberals among bigots, on pages full of empty promises. A society so full of wonderful ideas, with the progressives being talked down. Uniqueness labelled as sickness. ‘Truth’ defined by some obscure passage in an ancient text. And just occasionally, a thread full of good, decent people.
“My society?” Tommy reflected. “Well, in a way, it’s just like this.”
“And your role in it?”
“I never thought I had one. But now... well, if an outsider can do this… what if I do?”
“What do you mean?” Robert thrived off of Tommy’s ambition.
“Maybe it’s my job to stop the sea from falling in and drowning us.”
***
The centre of control was a tower; a beanpole structure expanding in length as it gained height, overlooking the city. It was in the centre of the Dome: from the seabed to the tip of the glass, and potentially, the Doctor supposed, beyond, like a pillar of support. Not something he’d be in any hurry to crush. He took out his screwdriver and scanned it over a panel. The automatic doors opened, leading him into a lush lobby.
“They never let you in that easily”, remarked Emily, worried.
“My technology is beyond yours,” bragged the Doctor. “Besides – I’m a special guest.”
“Intruder,” corrected Autumn.
“It all depends on your perspective.” The Doctor gestured to the lift. “Shall we?”
***
“What are the league tables like?” asked Robin. “Assuming you still have them.”
“Poor, overall.” Miss Parker got a chart up on her computer.
“The league tables have caused more damage to schools than vandals,” muttered Chris. “They’re the bane of my life.”
“You’d think they’d learn from their experience on the surface, wouldn’t you?” asked Miss Parker. “We thought that was where Leader 12’s education reform was going. But he just brought us back; back to before we made any mistakes, like some sort of second attempt. Anyone with any brains would have realised that the system was the mistake the whole time.”
“What’s that one?” Robin pointed to a label on the screen. “That category, I mean.”
“That? That’s class size.”
“That’s…” Robin squinted at the picture. “That’s not right. The class sizes have been the same for the last hundred years. I thought you hadn’t built any new schools?”
“We haven’t,” replied Miss Parker, bewildered.
“Then where are the new students going? If your class sizes are exactly the same, that would mean every set of parents would have two children and leave it at that. Statistically… you’d be going up. Almost definitely.”
“You’re…” Miss Parker’s eyebrows danced as she tried to wrap her head around it. “You’re right. How have I never noticed that before? How has no one ever noticed that before?”
“Because you’re all tuned into the Cloud.” Chris frowned at the class. “This city has a secret, and someone’s keeping it hidden from you all.”
***
“Leader 12.”
As the lift doors opened, there stood Leader 12, looking just like he had on the screen, except a bit older, and his face a bit rounder. Behind him were several rows of computers, all attached to the redbrick walls. The room was bare – for some reason the Doctor had expected a glass tower, enclosing a hub of modern technology, but this place resembled the rest of society.
Leader 12 shook the Doctor’s hand. “It’s such an honour to have you here. We’ve waited so long. Just to be absolutely sure – you are from the surface, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” The Doctor smiled. “And this citizen here,” he added, gesturing to Emily, “was kind enough to protect me and guide me to you. She deserves a reward, or something along those lines.” The Doctor stepped out of the lift and examined the room. “Now, that tone was unmistakably the tone of a man looking for help. So what can I do for you?”
“Is it safe? To return to the surface?”
“Yes. In good time. But first, we need to talk. Citizen… thingy,” started the Doctor, looking to Emily. “Go downstairs.”
“But-“
“Go,” he ordered more firmly, before adding, sotto voce: “I won’t need you, but someone else might.” Emily nodded and stepped back into the lift. “This is my friend Autumn, by the way,” clarified the Doctor, bringing Autumn forward. “She’s very helpful but if you humiliate her you won’t live long enough to say ‘is she your assistant?’.”
“The surface,” pressed Leader 12.
“Oh yes, that’s right. The thing.” The Doctor glanced over at the computer screens. “You know what the thing is. The question is, are you going to admit it?”
“I… don’t.”
“That’s a no then. Leader 12, this place is ancient. Falling apart. Just like the whole city.”
“We have a renovation proj-“
“Besides the point,” said the Doctor, gesturing for Leader 12 to be quiet. “When you plan, you plan for the amount of time you imagine something will take. If the place is falling apart, that means you’ve been under the water a good few thousand years more than you hoped.”
“No-“
“No contact with the surface,” interjected the Doctor. “Yes, I get it. But your population has hit a perfect figure. It should be falling apart, there should be emergency measures… so what’s happened that you’re not telling the people about?”
“Well…”
“No Cloud, remember,” said Autumn. “So you can’t click ‘forget’ on us.”
“I didn’t think…” began Leader 12. “I didn’t think this would need to be discussed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was only following orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“Your orders!” retorted Leader 12. “The orders the surface gave and the orders which were passed down through government until me!” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “When I came to power, the population was out of control. We were left instructions, but no one was willing to follow them. I decided it was time.”
“Just to be clear,” murmured the Doctor, “to be absolutely one hundred percent clear… what were your instructions?”
“Use the lift.”
Autumn shivered.
“There’s a lift running up this tower. Not the one you travelled in – another one. It goes through the glass dome, and if necessary can be ejected into the sea, where it opens. The instructions told us to use the lift mechanism by the time the population became overfull. We knew what they meant. We just didn’t want to say it.”
“I don’t understand…”
The Doctor did understand. Perhaps a better response would have been that he didn’t want to understand; that he wanted to understand something else, or that he didn’t understand how anyone could possibly make or follow such an instruction.
“Then I have no choice but to show you.” Leader 12 pressed a button on the wall and the ceiling gave way, revealing the top of the glass dome. Fish swam past, now closer-up, and Autumn studied them carefully: they were the size of people, long and grey, with wide, blue eyes and paper-thin fins. She had never seen fish like them before.
“You mean… oh my God.” Autumn backed away. “You mean the fish eat the people?”
“No. Worse.” Leader 12 tapped at a screen next to the switch. “I’m turning off the Cloud in this area. The Cloud affected you too – your friend told you that, correct? Though you’re not integrated, you’re still a part of its fundamental mechanisms.”
“Yes.”
“This is a fundamental mechanism.” He pressed a touch-screen button.
As the room went dark, the Doctor and Autumn looked up, studying the fish. They changed shape; their grey shapes adopting different, dark tones; their eyes expanding to form heads independent of their bodies, each a different shape, each withered, decomposing, in their own way.
Bodies. Human bodies.
“It was the only choice. We took from the homeless, the lonely, the surplus. Anyone who wouldn’t be missed. That way it was easier to edit them out – we only had to tamper with a few memories on the Cloud, as opposed to whole lives.”
“You murdered them,” uttered the Doctor.
“As opposed to what? Letting the whole of society fall to ruin? This place was overfull!”
“Alright, yes!” bellowed the Doctor, angrier than Autumn had ever seen him before. “Yes, you let society fall to ruin!” His voice fell now, and he spoke in a breathless whisper. “You let this place crash and burn, you stupid man, because at least then you can all crash together. You don’t pick on the weak and the vulnerable.”
“And you?” Leader 12 turned to Autumn. “I sense you’re a bit more pragmatic than your friend. Don’t let him cloud your judgement. What do you think?”
“I think,” began Autumn, considering. “I think no leader on the planet Earth I’d heard about would ever leave an instruction like that to be carried out. Doctor – I think I know what you’re thinking.”
“Really?” The Doctor seemed impressed, and jumped on the spot.
“The floor.”
“Exactly.” The Doctor smiled darkly. “Your instructions weren’t to use extermination, they were to use the lift.” The Doctor spread his arms out, gesturing to the whole Dome. “This whole place is built on a mechanical lift! I thought I sensed an odd misbalance when I arrived. Your dome literally lifts up and can return to the surface, where I’d imagine construction materials were left for you in a safe area.”
“No… those weren’t the instructions.”
“The instructions you were given were muddled,” explained Autumn. “You enforced the Cloud, and it even messed with your own head. This is a dictatorship where even the dictator is under control. You took it in your cynicism and your bloody stupid fundamentalism to mean a good old cull whereas actually, Leader 12, in reality it was your salvation!” Angrily, Autumn pulled a computer tower off a desk. It smashed on the floor, and a few officials pushed to the side in their office chairs, suddenly intimidated.
“You might think I’ve made mistakes but don’t underestimate my government,” threatened Leader 12. “We picked up on your little friend. They’re paying a visit to her school right now. Maybe then we can reach an agreement.”
“I’ve just shown you that you’ve committed an unnecessary genocide,” spat Autumn, “and now you’re threatening us?”
“I’m a leader. Do you know what that means? I try to do the best and sometimes I make mistakes. When that happens, it’s my job to cover them up. And you’re going to let me.”
***
“Excuse me, miss?” Miss Parker nudged Robin as she was inspecting a child’s work. “Someone wants you outside.”
The Doctor, thought Robin. That was quicker than the usual time it took him to dismantle a civilisation. She was led out into a brick corridor, down a hall full of currently empty classrooms. No Doctor – just a couple of emotionless men in black suits.
No, wait. There was the Doctor – on a screen on the wall; a projection of some kind.
***
The projection was good quality, Autumn noticed; the woman on the other side was indistinguishably Robin Moon.
“Agree,” instructed Leader 12, holding out his hand to make a deal. “Or we’ll hurt her in front of you.”
“Why do you assume we’re even friends?” asked the Doctor.
“Because I know what sort of man you are.” Leader 12 extended his hand further, luring the Doctor in. “An agreement of silence. No bloodshed – just one secret kept between us.”
The Doctor staggered backwards. There she was: his old friend, looking back at him. She wasn’t saying a word, but he knew she could see him. He recognised that face. From someone else it might have been help me, Doctor, or please, or I know you’ll save me. But not Robin. Robin always understood.
It was the face that said do what you have to.
The Doctor responded, not with words, but with a face Robin recognised – a face he realised, now, he’d used one too many times: I’m sorry.
“No.”
“We will hurt her if you refuse to comply.”
Autumn raised an eyebrow at the Doctor’s response, wondering if he’d been aiming for another word.
“We’ll kill her if necessary.”
“No.” The Doctor took a step forward, swiping Leader 12’s extended arm away. “It will always be no.”
Leader 12 looked past the Doctor and to the guard on the other side of the screen, standing next to Robin in front of a dull, grey wall.
“Go.”
As the guard extended an arm to Robin’s stomach, Autumn interjected.
“Stop!”
Leader 12 turned.
“Not the stomach. Anywhere but the stomach, please.” The Doctor looked to her and nodded, understanding.
“She’s pregnant,” added the Doctor. “Now I know a father when I see one, Leader 12, please. Human decency. I don’t think even you would kill a child.”
“I am a father, to one child,” confirmed Leader 12. “But that’s one less than I was expecting. My wife miscarried on her first attempt.”
“Then you know,” pleaded the Doctor. “You understand.”
Leader 12 put his hand to his eye. Was he wiping a tear? Perhaps that was all anyone ever saw of him – a quick reaction to crushed emotions before they emerged. A fast hand. He lifted his intercom, which was connected to the projector, and held it to his mouth.
“Aim for the stomach,” he whispered.
“No!” shrieked Autumn, as, concurrently, the guard swung and attacked Robin, knocking a wire on the wall. The screen went dead. Autumn kneed Leader 12 in the groin and secured a hand around his neck, slamming his head against the wall. Some blood splashed onto her hands, and as the men around her stood up to restrain her, she noticed the Doctor, out the corner of her eyes, entering the lift and descending unnoticed – exactly what she’d planned.
With her other hand, counting down the seconds before the men were able to restrain her, Autumn dug her finger – which currently had a long, blue-painted nail – straight into Leader 12’s left eye, grimacing at the sight as she did it. The next thing she knew, she was thrown to the floor, secured against a post.
Some paramedics were gathered around Leader 12 by this time, addressing his eye as he helplessly waved his arms around, trying to work out what hurt the most.
“You’re idiots,” said an older woman with medium-length blonde hair, wearing a blue necklace. “The police will be onto your friend before he’s even out of this building.”
“You haven’t seen him angry,” retorted Autumn, taking the woman aback not out of belief but just through her sheer bravery. “He’ll go straight to his ship, then onto the school to save his friend, and then…” Autumn grinned at the woman.
“And then what?”
There it was. Alien to the others, a conditioned stimulus to Autumn, as her heart skipped a beat. Wheezing, groaning, and at first, a faint shift in the air. Then a police public call box, appearing right in the centre of the room, and a man with a leather jacket and satchel stepping out, a man older than this entire civilisation and vastly more intelligent.
“Robin’s in the sickbay; Tommy, Chris, and the TARDIS are caring for her, which is better than any paramedic team,” said the Doctor, rushing through the recapitulation as he raised his sonic and unfastened the ropes securing Autumn. “I’ve suspended the functions of your lift so I’m afraid it’s just us. Well, no, not really just us, since I’ll be off to help my friend soon. Autumn, would you mind doing the honour?”
“It’d be a privilege.”
“Good.” The Doctor chucked her a small brown parcel out of his satchel. Autumn smiled to herself, knowing what it was. “It was lovely meeting you. I’ll leave you in the capable hands of the finest justice system in the universe.” He stepped back into the TARDIS and closed the door behind him.
Autumn knew she would have to make it quick, so did, standing up and whipping the gun out of the parcel. Immediately, hands raised in surrender throughout the room: an unconditioned response. It reassured Autumn to rationalise this in her mind, to understand that these people were just a set of knee-jerk psychological reactions.
“Your society has done terrible things. You targeted the vulnerable. You eradicated the inconvenient. And you committed genocide in the name of stability. I’ve done some pretty bad things, but that… that really takes the biscuit.” Autumn moved her finger over the trigger.
“The Doctor wouldn’t mind if I killed you. I’d probably enjoy it. But that’s not how I roll – he gave me this gun for a reason and I’m going to show him that I understand. I can’t make a judgement about the punishment you deserve, not because I’m a product of any culture but because I am scared of death.” She smiled sadly at her suffocating phobia. “Absolutely terrified. I go to kill because that’s the worst thing I can inflict on my enemies – but what if it isn’t? That’s what I’ve realised today. I can abide by the law and pursue truth – and with that, I can go one worse.”
Autumn raised her gun and a few men winced, but opened their eyes more as they saw where she was aiming it: the central computer terminal attached to the ceiling. She steadied her shaking hand, tried to control her breathing. “This will be the worst thing I ever do in my life. I’m so sorry.”
“No!” yelled one of the men, realising. “You can’t! You’ll destroy everything!” The others joined in.
“Then,” uttered Autumn, to herself more than to the others. “We all burn together.”
She pulled the trigger and fired at the computer terminal. Sparks flew off it and each individual computer screen died. Lights went off. And outside, in the city, it started, worse than Autumn had ever expected. The screaming. The howling. The cries of terror, and worst of all, realisation.
“No! It can’t be!”
“They’re…”
“They aren’t fish.”
Autumn closed her eyes as a tear crept under her eyelid.
“This is the price,” she said, unaware of whether anyone could hear her. “This is the price you will always pay, the price no one can ever escape from – truth.”
***
Robin woke up, her eyes adjusting to a vaguely familiar place. The TARDIS infirmary. The Doctor was standing over her; everyone else too, but a blur.
“Robin…”
Robin knew what to expect next, but it didn’t come. Perhaps the Doctor understood at last – he understood that she knew what he would say. He always knew. Unconditioned responses, Autumn would say. The Doctor knew this time that Robin had heard it one too many times. Maybe he could bear it even less than her. ‘I’m so sorry.’
As Robin’s eyes welled up, another shape moved towards her, and the familiar smell of Lynx Peace: Chris McKnight. Both the man she wanted to see most and least in the whole universe right now. The man she wished would never see this – but the only man she needed.
Reaching out to embrace him through her pain, Robin stole the Doctor’s line, knowing it was all she had left.
“I’m so sorry.”
***
The TARDIS – Console Room
The Doctor leant back against the console. His legs were tired and he wanted to sit down, but felt like standing would be an appropriate punishment to start with. The console room was dark; the Doctor had switched on ‘night-mode’, as he’d just christened it – or dimmed the lights, in technical speak. Tommy entered the room and stood next to the Doctor.
“Robert and Emily were as shocked as the rest. I don’t know what else they expected but they’re one of the many citizens running around and trying to form some sort of new order. People can forgive what they can’t see, but when a government’s mistakes are drifting past them in the water, suddenly it’s wrong.” He chuckled sadly. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t looked for answers.”
“Looking for answers. That’s just who you are, Tommy Lindsay.” The Doctor stood up and brought an image up on the TARDIS screen. “They’re using the lift mechanism now. They’ll start again on the surface. Even we don’t know how that war ended – maybe civilisation rebuilt itself. Or maybe it’s a nuclear wasteland. At least then they’d be trying to survive someone else’s mistakes.”
“Today was terrible.” Tommy looked at the image the Doctor had brought up. “Some days are productive, or mixed, or a pile of good and bad things. But not today.” He breathed heavily and held himself together. “Today was the worst day of my life.”
“Robin…” the Doctor bit his tongue. No crying. You don’t have the right.
“What do you think she’ll do?”
“I think she’ll stay with me. Maybe. I don’t know. She’s understood for a long time what it means, which means no, before you ask. I’m not sending her away. She can make her own decisions. She has that right.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.” Tommy sat back, nearly drifting off. Everyone was so tired. Chris had fallen asleep next to Robin in the infirmary. And Autumn…
“You gave that gun to Autumn. Did you expect her to do what she did?”
“I hoped she would. But it was wrong.” The Doctor looked down to the floor. “I put that on her conscience.”
“I suppose it was.”
That was what the Doctor liked about Tommy – the same thing that had drawn him to Autumn and Robin; their one and only common, unchanging trait – he was always honest.
It made sense. Without honesty, thought the Doctor, truth becomes our enemy. He clicked up his documents on the screen, opening up the code – the code Autumn had given him when she tricked the Master. Every day, every second, he worked away at it, but never shared it with any of his team. Maybe that would come back to bite him one day. Maybe truth would be his enemy too.
Or maybe, just maybe, it would forgive him.
Chris walked out of the TARDIS, awestruck, his eyes wide open, but his mouth shut, managing at best a mumble.
“You’re right.” Autumn poked her tongue out and took a deep breath, looking a bit like an excitable puppy. “You can taste it. Like… the air’s got a flavour.”
“It looks American.” Tommy nodded to a large memorial garden behind them, a graveyard full of words, statues and frozen memories.
“Yes, I think it probably is interesting.” Robin pointed up at the sky, which the others had failed to notice. The Doctor had probably looked up at it and not even noticed, so used to it from his own home – the city was enclosed in a mighty dome, perhaps larger than Gallifrey’s.
The sky above it had a crystal aspect, like a filter, like…
The sea. Autumn clicked her fingers, proud to have been the one to work it out. “It’s the sea. We’re under the sea.” She shuddered. That was a claustrophobic thought.
“What are all those little dots moving around?” asked Robin.
The Doctor pulled out a pair of binoculars and gazed up at the top of the dome. “Fish!” he beamed. “They’re fish. About your size I’d say, so I wouldn’t encourage swimming around this area. Ah, they’re lovely.”
“Can I have a look?” Tommy borrowed the binoculars. “They look… different.”
“Well, they are different. This is somewhere in your future, no doubt we’re quite a way down a new evolutionary path. Change, I love it…”
“Me too.” Tommy gave the binoculars back. “But there’s something about those fish. They’re… weird. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“How…” Chris choked on his words. “How far does this go on?”
“Miles and miles,” murmured the Doctor, unable to offer a precise measurement.
That much was right, though – the dome stretched so far, the curvature of it was almost hard to make out. The place was packed, and Tommy was right; American right to the core – skyscrapers increasing in height around the centre of the dome, bridges stretching over streets, the streets themselves layered, one on top of the other; effective, compact housing. They could be layered no further. This was the extent of the dome’s capacity. But it was the benches on the edge of sidewalks, the lights, the pride, which Tommy had identified as being intrinsically American.
“Oi! You lot!”
Heads turned to a policeman patrolling the other side of the street, suddenly enraged. As he crossed over, another figure in black – this one a woman – ran up behind him, stabbing him from behind with something small and obviously efficient, as he fell down in seconds.
The woman approached the team and lifted off her balaclava.
“But…” she studied them. She had curly ginger hair and a midland American accent. “You’re not… how…”
“Did you just kill that man?” asked the Doctor. Autumn rolled her eyes at his priorities.
“Stunned,” answered the woman, composing herself. The Doctor noticed she was little over twenty. “He’ll wake up in about an hour, but in that time the Cloud will be transmitting a false feed based on his recent memories – little trick to help people like us.”
“The… Cloud?” The Doctor raised a questioning eyebrow. Chris hoped he wasn’t talking about something like 3G, considering the world’s recent luck where that was concerned.
“Jeez, you really are from out of town.” The woman tried to gain a few inches, studying the Doctor, much to his discomfort. “So you’re surface guys, huh? Want to tell me – us – what the heck’s going on up there?”
“Surface?”
“The surface. Where you came from. Don’t pretend like you don’t know.”
“Well, I suppose we did, in a way. We came from a surface. That surface there.” The Doctor pointed at the TARDIS. “We’re travellers.”
“Travellers from the surface,” completed the woman.
“Travellers from the past,” explained Chris, though wondered straight after if this was definitely the future. The Doctor glared at him.
“Think we’d have heard about you if you were.”
“We’re not from the surface,” clarified Autumn, making up the best and vaguest lie she could. “Well, not your surface anyway, a bit further on, hence our confusion. We are capable of long-distance, hyper-speed travel and wanted to investigate this part of society.”
“You mean… there were other survivors on the surface?”
“Just us. Now I’m sure you can understand our desire to explore.” She offered a handshake. “I’m Autumn Rivers, and I’m the representative for our group.” The Doctor exchanged an amused look with Chris. “May I ask your name?”
“Citizen 37,” said the woman, rushing through introductions. “You talk like you don’t know anything about us down here.”
“That’s because we don’t.”
“Then I have one question for you, just one.” Citizen 37 turned around to make sure she wasn’t being watched. “Will you help us?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to start speaking but Citizen 37 interjected him-
“-I don’t mean our government, or even our society. I mean us. The freedom fighters.”
“Sounds impressive,” admitted the Doctor.
“Sounds like a terrorist organisation,” added Robin.
“Yes,” answered the Doctor, looking straight at Citizen 37. “The best way to find out about a society – its opposition.”
***
“This is our president – Leader 12.”
“Not even the leaders have names?” That was a shock to Autumn.
The room they were in was dark and dingy; a hideaway, a sort of low-budget action movie base, with walls that could fall in any minute. An old computer screen flashed on, lines of interference skewing the image of a smiling, chubby-faced man with slick black hair. He reminded Autumn of Lord Dalta.
“The leaders are leaders. That separates them from the citizens.”
“Two classes. That’s…” Autumn looked for a positive. “Easy to remember.”
“You say two,” said Citizen 37, “but you can then break down the citizen classes. Citizens 1-412,000 are a lower citizen class. Citizens 412,000-1,000,000 are upper citizen class. But it’s an unofficial system, which can then be broken down into further categories.”
“You’ve got a set of classes and sub-classes,” remarked Chris. “I..” he considered, thinking like a teacher. “Actually, Tommy. Tell me what I’m thinking.”
“You’re thinking I was wrong about this being American. The class system is typically, well, British.”
“Exactly.”
“And even though people are given numbers, the class system is too staggered, too open, to be Communist like it seems. Nothing here is how it looks.”
The Doctor nodded, admiring the intellectual discussion between his companions.
“For a while, the Cloud was a public service,” explained Citizen 37. “A connection shared by all of us in the dome – and we could access it through any device or through our own minds, because it operates on a psychic level, too. It was left alone most of the time – we just exchanged files with each other.”
“But Leader 12 did something?” asked Robin.
“Ten years ago, when he came to power. He privatised the Cloud, sold it off to… people who really shouldn’t have got their hands on it. He still operated it centrally and to monitor communications across the Cloud and ensure all businesses were using it fairly, he took a stricter stance. Now he watches everything that goes on, and who knows, controls it. That’s where we come in.”
“The freedom fighters,” recalled the Doctor.
“We discovered a while ago that our connection was weaker. We had trouble file-sharing. It manifested itself in other ways – doubt being the main one. We were able to see what other people couldn’t.”
“And what’s he like as a president?” asked Tommy. “Leader 12, is he any good? Apart from the whole cloud privatisation thing.”
“If you’re one of the upper citizens, sure.” Citizen 37 reconsidered. “He’s alright, sure. No one dying on the streets because of him, no wars or public executions. But that only makes him more dangerous.”
“How?” asked the Doctor, intrigued.
“Because no one listens to his opposition,” said Tommy. “Am I right?”
“Spot on.”
“We want to take the Cloud back and restore it to what it used to be. And we want to find out what else he’s been using it for.”
“Centre of control?” asked the Doctor.
“Two miles north.”
“I’m coming with you. Tonight.”
“We can’t. If we get any closer, the Cloud-“
“-won’t register you, because I’ll put a perception filter around you, and I’m not even on the Cloud. I’m a stranger, so they’ll want to know what I’m doing here.”
“We go in the morning.”
The team turned around to identify the voice. It was that of a tall, dark-haired young man in a fedora and trench coat, also American. Autumn eyed him up for later.
“And what the hell do you go tell them you’re Citizen 37 for, Emily?”
Citizen 37 – or Emily as she was apparently called – took a step back.
“We have names, remember?” The new man scanned the group. “They called me Citizen 36 because it was easier to say so do you know what I did? I called me Robert. So does everyone else round here, because I want them to, and they call Emily Emily, because it’s the name she chose, because we’re people, not numbers. Got that?”
The group nodded.
“Now I got one question for you, and whoever can answer this gets my handshake of support.” Robert took off his fedora. “Who the damn hell is Jude?”
Morning
“It’s harder to manage a larger group,” said the Doctor.
“There’s only two of us,” replied Robert.
“I meant my group. Okay… which one of you two is going to the dome?”
“Me,” decided Emily.
“Oh I’m sorry,” complained Robert, “there I was thinking this was democratic.”
“You’re just worried about me. You get to do everything.”
“What is it with you two?” asked Robin. “You’re like a brother and sister.”
The pair turned their heads to Robin. “We are,” they said in unison.
“Ah.”
“I want to meet Leader 12,” said the Doctor. “But I need one of you to stay here and one of you to check out the society, just go out and live; tell me about it, in case I have to make any difficult decisions.” He considered. “Or would that be more than one of you? It was so simple back in the day. One companion at a time. Ace and Grace…”
“Not the time to get the old photo albums out,” interjected Autumn. “I’ll come with you, it’s usually the wisest option.”
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, feeling flattered.
“That leaves me here, then?” inquired Tommy.
“You’re a people person.” That was Autumn’s excuse.
“And us?” asked Robin.
“You’re the ones who have a look around. Get to know this world, tell me about it. Here.” The Doctor chucked them a wallet. “Psychic paper. Get yourself somewhere interesting. Try a school.” He turned back to Emily and Autumn. “Right, ladies. Day out. Let’s take down the government.”
***
“The Cloud’s effect is weaker for us, naturally,” explained Emily, as she walked along the street with the Doctor and Autumn. It was morning, and people were beginning to show up on different levels, collecting washing off the railings, cleaning their windows and putting out their bins; small metal boxes brimming with putrid household waste. “Biological phenomenon. We got lucky. Or unlucky, depending on which way you look at it. When you look at how happy these people are to be oppressed…”
“Ignorance is bliss,” added Autumn. “I never really understood that.”
The Doctor sighed. “I should never have let her watch The Matrix.” Emily chuckled. The Doctor smiled. Good movies hadn’t been forgotten by this society, at least.
“The dangerous thing is the fact that we live on the threshold between ordinary and morally-atrocious, and no one can see over the top. Take the justice system. Absolutely corrupt, but the man in charge of it is a buffoon – hilariously so. Whenever someone challenges him, he walks into a door or trips over a rock. We end up laughing into our own graves.”
“Clowns make the best bullies,” observed the Doctor. “Still, I’ve seen worse societies.”
“Where do you come from, then?” asked Emily. “Just between us.”
Autumn and the Doctor exchanged a glance. Shall we?
“We’re from off-world,” explained Autumn. “We’re travellers through space, but we landed in the ocean. We haven’t got a clue of what life on the surface is like.”
Emily shrugged. “That’s not unreasonable. Did you descend from the Andromeda lot?”
“Er…”
“It doesn’t matter. The less you know of our past – your past – the better. We went to war, because of our arrogance. We didn’t imagine war, any of us – we thought it was like a quick bit of target practise; throw a few bombs in the right places and shut people up. But it wasn’t. That was always the problem with our warfare. Airstrikes? Literally. We were bombing thin air. It became a war because we weren’t expecting it to.”
“And your city was chosen to survive?”
“More or less. They built this place in secret. We were taken down, in ships, those of us who chose to be. Yes, you’re in a city of conscientious objectors. Technically at least – that was what we were once upon a time. Nowadays, new generations with new ideas.”
***
“You’re earlier than usual, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“Well…” Robin glanced at Chris, sharing an inside joke. “Ofsted like to catch you on a normal day.”
The classroom was square and concrete, with small windows and busy walls, like a prison cell for children: on the one hand, it was cramped, damp and dark; yet on the other, it was full of warmth and passion – displays of work on the wall, and a half-finished game of hangman on the blackboard. A class of seven year-olds sat silently in expectation, some giving Robin and Chris wary looks.
“I’d kill for a class this quiet,” whispered Chris. Robin nudged him.
“Today we’re going to learn to multiply surds,” said the teacher, a young blonde woman in a white shirt and black cardigan, apparently called Miss Parker. She seemed nice. That was the conclusion Robin and Chris had reached. But Miss Parker was only one aspect of the system; one cog within the machine. “Have any of you ever worked with surds before?”
There were a few murmurs, but no raised hands.
“Surds?” whispered Robin. “I’ve never heard of them. Is that a future thing?”
“It’s a maths thing,” answered Chris. “I was in a Year 10 class the other day and they were covering it. Top set. This lot are way too young to be covering this kind of thing…”
“That’s weird…”
“It’s not an alien mystery, if that’s what you’re thinking Robin. It’s just the way things are – the world makes them grow up earlier. Over the course of the centuries, ‘children’ will become extinct.”
***
“You look unimpressed.”
“Me?” Tommy chuckled. “I’m in a dark room with a revolutionary. When I was in sixth form they asked me where I saw myself in three years’ time. It wasn’t here, though I definitely wanted it to be.”
“What’s your society like?” asked Robert, intrigued about life on the surface. He always wondered what it was like to rebuild after a war you didn’t start. The hatred and resentment you must feel for those who put you there – and the relief that it’s over. The lessons you’d learn. The relationships you’d build. Not like here. Not like the cowards who hid under the sea with their cloud.
Tommy scrolled through the files on Robert’s computer; the images, the news reports, the opinion articles, the comments (made directly from the mind, apparently). The liberals among bigots, on pages full of empty promises. A society so full of wonderful ideas, with the progressives being talked down. Uniqueness labelled as sickness. ‘Truth’ defined by some obscure passage in an ancient text. And just occasionally, a thread full of good, decent people.
“My society?” Tommy reflected. “Well, in a way, it’s just like this.”
“And your role in it?”
“I never thought I had one. But now... well, if an outsider can do this… what if I do?”
“What do you mean?” Robert thrived off of Tommy’s ambition.
“Maybe it’s my job to stop the sea from falling in and drowning us.”
***
The centre of control was a tower; a beanpole structure expanding in length as it gained height, overlooking the city. It was in the centre of the Dome: from the seabed to the tip of the glass, and potentially, the Doctor supposed, beyond, like a pillar of support. Not something he’d be in any hurry to crush. He took out his screwdriver and scanned it over a panel. The automatic doors opened, leading him into a lush lobby.
“They never let you in that easily”, remarked Emily, worried.
“My technology is beyond yours,” bragged the Doctor. “Besides – I’m a special guest.”
“Intruder,” corrected Autumn.
“It all depends on your perspective.” The Doctor gestured to the lift. “Shall we?”
***
“What are the league tables like?” asked Robin. “Assuming you still have them.”
“Poor, overall.” Miss Parker got a chart up on her computer.
“The league tables have caused more damage to schools than vandals,” muttered Chris. “They’re the bane of my life.”
“You’d think they’d learn from their experience on the surface, wouldn’t you?” asked Miss Parker. “We thought that was where Leader 12’s education reform was going. But he just brought us back; back to before we made any mistakes, like some sort of second attempt. Anyone with any brains would have realised that the system was the mistake the whole time.”
“What’s that one?” Robin pointed to a label on the screen. “That category, I mean.”
“That? That’s class size.”
“That’s…” Robin squinted at the picture. “That’s not right. The class sizes have been the same for the last hundred years. I thought you hadn’t built any new schools?”
“We haven’t,” replied Miss Parker, bewildered.
“Then where are the new students going? If your class sizes are exactly the same, that would mean every set of parents would have two children and leave it at that. Statistically… you’d be going up. Almost definitely.”
“You’re…” Miss Parker’s eyebrows danced as she tried to wrap her head around it. “You’re right. How have I never noticed that before? How has no one ever noticed that before?”
“Because you’re all tuned into the Cloud.” Chris frowned at the class. “This city has a secret, and someone’s keeping it hidden from you all.”
***
“Leader 12.”
As the lift doors opened, there stood Leader 12, looking just like he had on the screen, except a bit older, and his face a bit rounder. Behind him were several rows of computers, all attached to the redbrick walls. The room was bare – for some reason the Doctor had expected a glass tower, enclosing a hub of modern technology, but this place resembled the rest of society.
Leader 12 shook the Doctor’s hand. “It’s such an honour to have you here. We’ve waited so long. Just to be absolutely sure – you are from the surface, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” The Doctor smiled. “And this citizen here,” he added, gesturing to Emily, “was kind enough to protect me and guide me to you. She deserves a reward, or something along those lines.” The Doctor stepped out of the lift and examined the room. “Now, that tone was unmistakably the tone of a man looking for help. So what can I do for you?”
“Is it safe? To return to the surface?”
“Yes. In good time. But first, we need to talk. Citizen… thingy,” started the Doctor, looking to Emily. “Go downstairs.”
“But-“
“Go,” he ordered more firmly, before adding, sotto voce: “I won’t need you, but someone else might.” Emily nodded and stepped back into the lift. “This is my friend Autumn, by the way,” clarified the Doctor, bringing Autumn forward. “She’s very helpful but if you humiliate her you won’t live long enough to say ‘is she your assistant?’.”
“The surface,” pressed Leader 12.
“Oh yes, that’s right. The thing.” The Doctor glanced over at the computer screens. “You know what the thing is. The question is, are you going to admit it?”
“I… don’t.”
“That’s a no then. Leader 12, this place is ancient. Falling apart. Just like the whole city.”
“We have a renovation proj-“
“Besides the point,” said the Doctor, gesturing for Leader 12 to be quiet. “When you plan, you plan for the amount of time you imagine something will take. If the place is falling apart, that means you’ve been under the water a good few thousand years more than you hoped.”
“No-“
“No contact with the surface,” interjected the Doctor. “Yes, I get it. But your population has hit a perfect figure. It should be falling apart, there should be emergency measures… so what’s happened that you’re not telling the people about?”
“Well…”
“No Cloud, remember,” said Autumn. “So you can’t click ‘forget’ on us.”
“I didn’t think…” began Leader 12. “I didn’t think this would need to be discussed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was only following orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“Your orders!” retorted Leader 12. “The orders the surface gave and the orders which were passed down through government until me!” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “When I came to power, the population was out of control. We were left instructions, but no one was willing to follow them. I decided it was time.”
“Just to be clear,” murmured the Doctor, “to be absolutely one hundred percent clear… what were your instructions?”
“Use the lift.”
Autumn shivered.
“There’s a lift running up this tower. Not the one you travelled in – another one. It goes through the glass dome, and if necessary can be ejected into the sea, where it opens. The instructions told us to use the lift mechanism by the time the population became overfull. We knew what they meant. We just didn’t want to say it.”
“I don’t understand…”
The Doctor did understand. Perhaps a better response would have been that he didn’t want to understand; that he wanted to understand something else, or that he didn’t understand how anyone could possibly make or follow such an instruction.
“Then I have no choice but to show you.” Leader 12 pressed a button on the wall and the ceiling gave way, revealing the top of the glass dome. Fish swam past, now closer-up, and Autumn studied them carefully: they were the size of people, long and grey, with wide, blue eyes and paper-thin fins. She had never seen fish like them before.
“You mean… oh my God.” Autumn backed away. “You mean the fish eat the people?”
“No. Worse.” Leader 12 tapped at a screen next to the switch. “I’m turning off the Cloud in this area. The Cloud affected you too – your friend told you that, correct? Though you’re not integrated, you’re still a part of its fundamental mechanisms.”
“Yes.”
“This is a fundamental mechanism.” He pressed a touch-screen button.
As the room went dark, the Doctor and Autumn looked up, studying the fish. They changed shape; their grey shapes adopting different, dark tones; their eyes expanding to form heads independent of their bodies, each a different shape, each withered, decomposing, in their own way.
Bodies. Human bodies.
“It was the only choice. We took from the homeless, the lonely, the surplus. Anyone who wouldn’t be missed. That way it was easier to edit them out – we only had to tamper with a few memories on the Cloud, as opposed to whole lives.”
“You murdered them,” uttered the Doctor.
“As opposed to what? Letting the whole of society fall to ruin? This place was overfull!”
“Alright, yes!” bellowed the Doctor, angrier than Autumn had ever seen him before. “Yes, you let society fall to ruin!” His voice fell now, and he spoke in a breathless whisper. “You let this place crash and burn, you stupid man, because at least then you can all crash together. You don’t pick on the weak and the vulnerable.”
“And you?” Leader 12 turned to Autumn. “I sense you’re a bit more pragmatic than your friend. Don’t let him cloud your judgement. What do you think?”
“I think,” began Autumn, considering. “I think no leader on the planet Earth I’d heard about would ever leave an instruction like that to be carried out. Doctor – I think I know what you’re thinking.”
“Really?” The Doctor seemed impressed, and jumped on the spot.
“The floor.”
“Exactly.” The Doctor smiled darkly. “Your instructions weren’t to use extermination, they were to use the lift.” The Doctor spread his arms out, gesturing to the whole Dome. “This whole place is built on a mechanical lift! I thought I sensed an odd misbalance when I arrived. Your dome literally lifts up and can return to the surface, where I’d imagine construction materials were left for you in a safe area.”
“No… those weren’t the instructions.”
“The instructions you were given were muddled,” explained Autumn. “You enforced the Cloud, and it even messed with your own head. This is a dictatorship where even the dictator is under control. You took it in your cynicism and your bloody stupid fundamentalism to mean a good old cull whereas actually, Leader 12, in reality it was your salvation!” Angrily, Autumn pulled a computer tower off a desk. It smashed on the floor, and a few officials pushed to the side in their office chairs, suddenly intimidated.
“You might think I’ve made mistakes but don’t underestimate my government,” threatened Leader 12. “We picked up on your little friend. They’re paying a visit to her school right now. Maybe then we can reach an agreement.”
“I’ve just shown you that you’ve committed an unnecessary genocide,” spat Autumn, “and now you’re threatening us?”
“I’m a leader. Do you know what that means? I try to do the best and sometimes I make mistakes. When that happens, it’s my job to cover them up. And you’re going to let me.”
***
“Excuse me, miss?” Miss Parker nudged Robin as she was inspecting a child’s work. “Someone wants you outside.”
The Doctor, thought Robin. That was quicker than the usual time it took him to dismantle a civilisation. She was led out into a brick corridor, down a hall full of currently empty classrooms. No Doctor – just a couple of emotionless men in black suits.
No, wait. There was the Doctor – on a screen on the wall; a projection of some kind.
***
The projection was good quality, Autumn noticed; the woman on the other side was indistinguishably Robin Moon.
“Agree,” instructed Leader 12, holding out his hand to make a deal. “Or we’ll hurt her in front of you.”
“Why do you assume we’re even friends?” asked the Doctor.
“Because I know what sort of man you are.” Leader 12 extended his hand further, luring the Doctor in. “An agreement of silence. No bloodshed – just one secret kept between us.”
The Doctor staggered backwards. There she was: his old friend, looking back at him. She wasn’t saying a word, but he knew she could see him. He recognised that face. From someone else it might have been help me, Doctor, or please, or I know you’ll save me. But not Robin. Robin always understood.
It was the face that said do what you have to.
The Doctor responded, not with words, but with a face Robin recognised – a face he realised, now, he’d used one too many times: I’m sorry.
“No.”
“We will hurt her if you refuse to comply.”
Autumn raised an eyebrow at the Doctor’s response, wondering if he’d been aiming for another word.
“We’ll kill her if necessary.”
“No.” The Doctor took a step forward, swiping Leader 12’s extended arm away. “It will always be no.”
Leader 12 looked past the Doctor and to the guard on the other side of the screen, standing next to Robin in front of a dull, grey wall.
“Go.”
As the guard extended an arm to Robin’s stomach, Autumn interjected.
“Stop!”
Leader 12 turned.
“Not the stomach. Anywhere but the stomach, please.” The Doctor looked to her and nodded, understanding.
“She’s pregnant,” added the Doctor. “Now I know a father when I see one, Leader 12, please. Human decency. I don’t think even you would kill a child.”
“I am a father, to one child,” confirmed Leader 12. “But that’s one less than I was expecting. My wife miscarried on her first attempt.”
“Then you know,” pleaded the Doctor. “You understand.”
Leader 12 put his hand to his eye. Was he wiping a tear? Perhaps that was all anyone ever saw of him – a quick reaction to crushed emotions before they emerged. A fast hand. He lifted his intercom, which was connected to the projector, and held it to his mouth.
“Aim for the stomach,” he whispered.
“No!” shrieked Autumn, as, concurrently, the guard swung and attacked Robin, knocking a wire on the wall. The screen went dead. Autumn kneed Leader 12 in the groin and secured a hand around his neck, slamming his head against the wall. Some blood splashed onto her hands, and as the men around her stood up to restrain her, she noticed the Doctor, out the corner of her eyes, entering the lift and descending unnoticed – exactly what she’d planned.
With her other hand, counting down the seconds before the men were able to restrain her, Autumn dug her finger – which currently had a long, blue-painted nail – straight into Leader 12’s left eye, grimacing at the sight as she did it. The next thing she knew, she was thrown to the floor, secured against a post.
Some paramedics were gathered around Leader 12 by this time, addressing his eye as he helplessly waved his arms around, trying to work out what hurt the most.
“You’re idiots,” said an older woman with medium-length blonde hair, wearing a blue necklace. “The police will be onto your friend before he’s even out of this building.”
“You haven’t seen him angry,” retorted Autumn, taking the woman aback not out of belief but just through her sheer bravery. “He’ll go straight to his ship, then onto the school to save his friend, and then…” Autumn grinned at the woman.
“And then what?”
There it was. Alien to the others, a conditioned stimulus to Autumn, as her heart skipped a beat. Wheezing, groaning, and at first, a faint shift in the air. Then a police public call box, appearing right in the centre of the room, and a man with a leather jacket and satchel stepping out, a man older than this entire civilisation and vastly more intelligent.
“Robin’s in the sickbay; Tommy, Chris, and the TARDIS are caring for her, which is better than any paramedic team,” said the Doctor, rushing through the recapitulation as he raised his sonic and unfastened the ropes securing Autumn. “I’ve suspended the functions of your lift so I’m afraid it’s just us. Well, no, not really just us, since I’ll be off to help my friend soon. Autumn, would you mind doing the honour?”
“It’d be a privilege.”
“Good.” The Doctor chucked her a small brown parcel out of his satchel. Autumn smiled to herself, knowing what it was. “It was lovely meeting you. I’ll leave you in the capable hands of the finest justice system in the universe.” He stepped back into the TARDIS and closed the door behind him.
Autumn knew she would have to make it quick, so did, standing up and whipping the gun out of the parcel. Immediately, hands raised in surrender throughout the room: an unconditioned response. It reassured Autumn to rationalise this in her mind, to understand that these people were just a set of knee-jerk psychological reactions.
“Your society has done terrible things. You targeted the vulnerable. You eradicated the inconvenient. And you committed genocide in the name of stability. I’ve done some pretty bad things, but that… that really takes the biscuit.” Autumn moved her finger over the trigger.
“The Doctor wouldn’t mind if I killed you. I’d probably enjoy it. But that’s not how I roll – he gave me this gun for a reason and I’m going to show him that I understand. I can’t make a judgement about the punishment you deserve, not because I’m a product of any culture but because I am scared of death.” She smiled sadly at her suffocating phobia. “Absolutely terrified. I go to kill because that’s the worst thing I can inflict on my enemies – but what if it isn’t? That’s what I’ve realised today. I can abide by the law and pursue truth – and with that, I can go one worse.”
Autumn raised her gun and a few men winced, but opened their eyes more as they saw where she was aiming it: the central computer terminal attached to the ceiling. She steadied her shaking hand, tried to control her breathing. “This will be the worst thing I ever do in my life. I’m so sorry.”
“No!” yelled one of the men, realising. “You can’t! You’ll destroy everything!” The others joined in.
“Then,” uttered Autumn, to herself more than to the others. “We all burn together.”
She pulled the trigger and fired at the computer terminal. Sparks flew off it and each individual computer screen died. Lights went off. And outside, in the city, it started, worse than Autumn had ever expected. The screaming. The howling. The cries of terror, and worst of all, realisation.
“No! It can’t be!”
“They’re…”
“They aren’t fish.”
Autumn closed her eyes as a tear crept under her eyelid.
“This is the price,” she said, unaware of whether anyone could hear her. “This is the price you will always pay, the price no one can ever escape from – truth.”
***
Robin woke up, her eyes adjusting to a vaguely familiar place. The TARDIS infirmary. The Doctor was standing over her; everyone else too, but a blur.
“Robin…”
Robin knew what to expect next, but it didn’t come. Perhaps the Doctor understood at last – he understood that she knew what he would say. He always knew. Unconditioned responses, Autumn would say. The Doctor knew this time that Robin had heard it one too many times. Maybe he could bear it even less than her. ‘I’m so sorry.’
As Robin’s eyes welled up, another shape moved towards her, and the familiar smell of Lynx Peace: Chris McKnight. Both the man she wanted to see most and least in the whole universe right now. The man she wished would never see this – but the only man she needed.
Reaching out to embrace him through her pain, Robin stole the Doctor’s line, knowing it was all she had left.
“I’m so sorry.”
***
The TARDIS – Console Room
The Doctor leant back against the console. His legs were tired and he wanted to sit down, but felt like standing would be an appropriate punishment to start with. The console room was dark; the Doctor had switched on ‘night-mode’, as he’d just christened it – or dimmed the lights, in technical speak. Tommy entered the room and stood next to the Doctor.
“Robert and Emily were as shocked as the rest. I don’t know what else they expected but they’re one of the many citizens running around and trying to form some sort of new order. People can forgive what they can’t see, but when a government’s mistakes are drifting past them in the water, suddenly it’s wrong.” He chuckled sadly. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t looked for answers.”
“Looking for answers. That’s just who you are, Tommy Lindsay.” The Doctor stood up and brought an image up on the TARDIS screen. “They’re using the lift mechanism now. They’ll start again on the surface. Even we don’t know how that war ended – maybe civilisation rebuilt itself. Or maybe it’s a nuclear wasteland. At least then they’d be trying to survive someone else’s mistakes.”
“Today was terrible.” Tommy looked at the image the Doctor had brought up. “Some days are productive, or mixed, or a pile of good and bad things. But not today.” He breathed heavily and held himself together. “Today was the worst day of my life.”
“Robin…” the Doctor bit his tongue. No crying. You don’t have the right.
“What do you think she’ll do?”
“I think she’ll stay with me. Maybe. I don’t know. She’s understood for a long time what it means, which means no, before you ask. I’m not sending her away. She can make her own decisions. She has that right.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.” Tommy sat back, nearly drifting off. Everyone was so tired. Chris had fallen asleep next to Robin in the infirmary. And Autumn…
“You gave that gun to Autumn. Did you expect her to do what she did?”
“I hoped she would. But it was wrong.” The Doctor looked down to the floor. “I put that on her conscience.”
“I suppose it was.”
That was what the Doctor liked about Tommy – the same thing that had drawn him to Autumn and Robin; their one and only common, unchanging trait – he was always honest.
It made sense. Without honesty, thought the Doctor, truth becomes our enemy. He clicked up his documents on the screen, opening up the code – the code Autumn had given him when she tricked the Master. Every day, every second, he worked away at it, but never shared it with any of his team. Maybe that would come back to bite him one day. Maybe truth would be his enemy too.
Or maybe, just maybe, it would forgive him.
|
|
NEXT TIMEWish You Were Here
Broken into two, the TARDIS team separates to undertake two impossible tasks. The first, solving an inexplicable murder in deep space. The second: an ordinary holiday in Barcelona... Episode List: 1. The Magic Box 2. Dinner With Nobody 3. Passing in the Night 4. A Shop For Limbs 5. Material Values 6. The Cloud Beneath The Sea 7. Wish You Were Here 8. A Castle Deep in the Woods 9. In Slumber Repose 10. A Perfect Circle 11. Under Ice 12. Waking the Witch 13. The Morning Fog |