Prologue
“Jasmine Sparks, if you call out one more time, that’ll be a break-time detention.”
“Sorry, miss.”
“Right, that counts as calling out. Break-time detention.”
The rest of the class sniggered and Jasmine thought back to her History lessons, to the barbaric punishments of her ancestors, and wished a few of them on Mrs Dolos. The wicked woman had closed the blinds, replacing the natural sunlight with the artificial strip-lights from above, turning the classroom into some kind of death camp. Even the walls had been stripped of the class’s work and were instead plastered with rules, rules, and more rules.
“Let’s see if you can earn your break-time back,” suggested Mrs Dolos.
Let’s see if you can have a sudden haemorrhage, thought Jasmine.
“I’m going to ask you all some questions which you should know the answers to. First person to answer correctly is the first one allowed to leave.” She picked up a piece of chalk and started scratching away at the blackboard as hard as she could. It must have been like soft music to her, but Jasmine wanted to be sick – and the classroom’s stuffy air certainly wasn’t helping.
“Question One…” A note was being passed around the room as Mrs Dolos spoke, but Jasmine ignored it, even when the boy next to her started scribbling on it. “Where is the current location of the super-weapon known as ‘the Torch’?”
A girl’s hand flew up at the back of the class, and Mrs Dolos gestured to her.
“On the Darksmiths’ world,” the girl answered. “Which itself is currently located in the Torajii System.”
“Very good!” said Mrs Dolos. “Next question. After his planet-making corporation was shut down, entrepreneur Staligon disappeared into which region of the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire?”
Jasmine leapt up as the boy next to her nearly knocked her out as his hand shot up to the ceiling.
“Yes?” said Mrs Dolos, also slightly unnerved by him. “Doctor?”
“No region of the Empire at all,” responded the Doctor. “He left altogether with a group of eco-tourists, and it’s thought he retired on an unknown world outside of the Empire.”
“Excellent.” Mrs Dolos seemed impressed, but also surprised – as if she did not know the answer herself.
“Can I go to the toilet please, miss?” asked the Doctor.
Mrs Dolos rolled her eyes. “I suppose so.”
The Doctor jumped up and left the room. Jasmine took a chance and raised her own hand.
“Yes, Jasmine?”
“Can I go to the toilet as well?”
Mrs Dolos huffed. “Go on then.” Jasmine got up, and her teacher barked: “Make it quick!” She did just that, travelling out of the room at thrice the speed she had got up.
Amateur, she thought, as she left. Or NQT.
“Wait up!” Jasmine said, calling after the Doctor. He had already passed the head teacher’s office. “You wanted me to follow you, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, turning to face her. Something about his appearance seemed off here, but she could not place what. “And how did you know that, Jasmine Sparks?”
“You…”
“I…?”
Jasmine pulled a face. “That’s strange. I… don’t know.”
“Low-level telepathy,” remarked the Doctor. “And now for something even more interesting. How old are you?”
“I’m…” Jasmine found her voice trailing off again.
“It’s quite an easy question,” teased the Doctor, and Jasmine wanted to jab him in the rib cage. “Tell me how old you are.”
“I don’t know,” admitted Jasmine. “I’m… I remember my 17th birthday… I remember Hawaii…”
“Good, very good. I think I’m somewhere in the eight-hundreds. Or nine-hundreds. I’m not really sure…”
Unexpectedly, he pulled a display board off the wall, revealing behind it…
Nothing.
No holes in the wall, no scratch-marks, no blue-tack. But perhaps more intriguingly… no wall at all. No outside, no space – just nothingness.
“What I do remember,” continued the Doctor, “is sitting down on a chair, being put to sleep, and not waking up. With you by my side.” Jasmine remembered too, and wondered why she had not been surprised to find herself back in a classroom.
“We’re inside the Gallifrey Matrix,” the Doctor announced, and Jasmine deduced from his voice that this was not a fact to be taken lightly. “And we need to get out of this school.”
“Sorry, miss.”
“Right, that counts as calling out. Break-time detention.”
The rest of the class sniggered and Jasmine thought back to her History lessons, to the barbaric punishments of her ancestors, and wished a few of them on Mrs Dolos. The wicked woman had closed the blinds, replacing the natural sunlight with the artificial strip-lights from above, turning the classroom into some kind of death camp. Even the walls had been stripped of the class’s work and were instead plastered with rules, rules, and more rules.
“Let’s see if you can earn your break-time back,” suggested Mrs Dolos.
Let’s see if you can have a sudden haemorrhage, thought Jasmine.
“I’m going to ask you all some questions which you should know the answers to. First person to answer correctly is the first one allowed to leave.” She picked up a piece of chalk and started scratching away at the blackboard as hard as she could. It must have been like soft music to her, but Jasmine wanted to be sick – and the classroom’s stuffy air certainly wasn’t helping.
“Question One…” A note was being passed around the room as Mrs Dolos spoke, but Jasmine ignored it, even when the boy next to her started scribbling on it. “Where is the current location of the super-weapon known as ‘the Torch’?”
A girl’s hand flew up at the back of the class, and Mrs Dolos gestured to her.
“On the Darksmiths’ world,” the girl answered. “Which itself is currently located in the Torajii System.”
“Very good!” said Mrs Dolos. “Next question. After his planet-making corporation was shut down, entrepreneur Staligon disappeared into which region of the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire?”
Jasmine leapt up as the boy next to her nearly knocked her out as his hand shot up to the ceiling.
“Yes?” said Mrs Dolos, also slightly unnerved by him. “Doctor?”
“No region of the Empire at all,” responded the Doctor. “He left altogether with a group of eco-tourists, and it’s thought he retired on an unknown world outside of the Empire.”
“Excellent.” Mrs Dolos seemed impressed, but also surprised – as if she did not know the answer herself.
“Can I go to the toilet please, miss?” asked the Doctor.
Mrs Dolos rolled her eyes. “I suppose so.”
The Doctor jumped up and left the room. Jasmine took a chance and raised her own hand.
“Yes, Jasmine?”
“Can I go to the toilet as well?”
Mrs Dolos huffed. “Go on then.” Jasmine got up, and her teacher barked: “Make it quick!” She did just that, travelling out of the room at thrice the speed she had got up.
Amateur, she thought, as she left. Or NQT.
“Wait up!” Jasmine said, calling after the Doctor. He had already passed the head teacher’s office. “You wanted me to follow you, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, turning to face her. Something about his appearance seemed off here, but she could not place what. “And how did you know that, Jasmine Sparks?”
“You…”
“I…?”
Jasmine pulled a face. “That’s strange. I… don’t know.”
“Low-level telepathy,” remarked the Doctor. “And now for something even more interesting. How old are you?”
“I’m…” Jasmine found her voice trailing off again.
“It’s quite an easy question,” teased the Doctor, and Jasmine wanted to jab him in the rib cage. “Tell me how old you are.”
“I don’t know,” admitted Jasmine. “I’m… I remember my 17th birthday… I remember Hawaii…”
“Good, very good. I think I’m somewhere in the eight-hundreds. Or nine-hundreds. I’m not really sure…”
Unexpectedly, he pulled a display board off the wall, revealing behind it…
Nothing.
No holes in the wall, no scratch-marks, no blue-tack. But perhaps more intriguingly… no wall at all. No outside, no space – just nothingness.
“What I do remember,” continued the Doctor, “is sitting down on a chair, being put to sleep, and not waking up. With you by my side.” Jasmine remembered too, and wondered why she had not been surprised to find herself back in a classroom.
“We’re inside the Gallifrey Matrix,” the Doctor announced, and Jasmine deduced from his voice that this was not a fact to be taken lightly. “And we need to get out of this school.”
The Eighth Doctor Adventures
Series 4 - Episode 2
Bad Blood
Written by Janine Rivers
Robin looked up again. She had not noticed Tommy following the Doctor out the door and looking back inside the TARDIS as if he had never seen it before. The whole world seemed to have ground to a halt, and Robin wondered momentarily if she really had been frozen, making this some kind of split-second near-death experience.
The Doctor turned to Them, who were now beginning their assessment of her. Time started to move again.
“First mistake,” she said, and pulled something out of her inside pocket: a device her friends recognised by shape as the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, but which had been altered since they last clapped eyes on it. “I’ve got an app for you.”
With that, she buzzed the device at Them, and they shot backwards, their light-weight bodies not even making a sound against the side of their spaceship. The Doctor grinned, but her confidence was undercut; one of the creatures was now starting to move again, and pointed its handless, rounded-off arm at the sonic screwdriver.
The Doctor yelled as the sonic sparked in her hand. When she dropped it, it was now just a burnt ruin on the floor.
“They figured that one out quickly,” she murmured. “RUN!”
***
The Doctor turned to Them, who were now beginning their assessment of her. Time started to move again.
“First mistake,” she said, and pulled something out of her inside pocket: a device her friends recognised by shape as the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, but which had been altered since they last clapped eyes on it. “I’ve got an app for you.”
With that, she buzzed the device at Them, and they shot backwards, their light-weight bodies not even making a sound against the side of their spaceship. The Doctor grinned, but her confidence was undercut; one of the creatures was now starting to move again, and pointed its handless, rounded-off arm at the sonic screwdriver.
The Doctor yelled as the sonic sparked in her hand. When she dropped it, it was now just a burnt ruin on the floor.
“They figured that one out quickly,” she murmured. “RUN!”
***
The Doctor and Jasmine followed the cobbled pathway: the grass next to them was untrimmed, and they did not want to risk encountering a sudden bog or whatever else the Matrix might decide to throw at them.
They were passing through a village: the fields were dotted with little cream-walled, brown-doored bungalows, so simple and pretty that Jasmine half-expected them to be filled with tiny dolls rather than people. There were a few stars in the sky up above, but in formations Jasmine did not recognise.
“They’re dead stars,” said the Doctor. He had noticed her watching them with fascination. “As well as deceased individuals and general information, the Time Lords archive old star systems. Sometimes they’re useful to us, if we need to track the position of a given planet, or work out whether a particular journey would have been possible. But to the people of the Matrix, it’s their sky. A sky full of corpses.”
“They’re very bright, as corpses go.”
“Corpses is the wrong word, then. Ghosts.”
Jasmine liked that: a sky full of ghosts, on a world populated by them. Some of her own memories might be archived here somewhere: better still, some of Autumn Rivers’.
She stopped still on the pathway, and pointed to some bushes, well out of the way of the street lights. “What are those things?”
The Doctor studied them. He had missed them at first, but it was their eyes that had glistened, brighter than the ghost-stars. They were like dogs, or rather like hounds, or even werewolves. He tried not to let his imagination wander into anything too fantastical – here, it might just come true.
“They’re just the local wildlife,” he lied. “They’re completely safe – we used to keep them as pets. Their teeth melt to the touch of human skin.”
“They even archive your pets?” asked Jasmine. “Damn.”
They carried on along the path in silence, the Doctor casting the occasional glance back at the creatures. Once they were a long way away from the village, and even the street lamps were becoming less frequent, the Doctor began speaking.
“We don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Archive our pets.” He looked back again, warily. “I just lied to you back there. Those things are security – they keep out unwanted visitors.” He turned back to Jasmine. “The living, for instance.”
“You mean they…?”
“Bite? Oh yes. They can detect fear. Most systems like this in the universe use creatures which can detect guilt, but the kind of people who would break into the Matrix generally aren’t the kind of people who would be bothered by that emotion. But there’s always fear – whenever you’re out of your territory, where you aren’t meant to be, no matter who you are, it’s there, and if they sense it, they’ll consume you on the spot.”
“Would it kill you in real life as well?”
The Doctor nodded. “That’s why I didn’t risk an explanation. You weren’t scared of them; you were fine.”
“And you?”
“I can relax if my life depends on it.”
They reached the top of the hill: the path continued now, through an unlit forest, and Jasmine rather preferred the thought of returning to the school.
“What was that school thing all about anyway?” she asked, suddenly reminded of it.
“The Time Lords need to extract information from the people they archive,” the Doctor replied. “The Time Lords’ enemies are well-accustomed to torture, and not liable to give in to bribery. Take me – you could put me through a lot of pain before I said anything, and even then you could never be sure if you were getting the right answers off me.” Jasmine knew the feeling. “There’s only one environment you can count on for extraction of information,” he continued, “and that’s the school. They make everyone believe they’re back at school, as a student; that way, they’re not only willing to disclose the information, but desperate – desperate to be the first one to the answer, desperate to show how much they know. It’s reliable, it’s efficient, and it’s smart. It’s also terrifying, of course.”
“And Mrs Dolos?”
“Who knows? She could be automated, she could be a dead Time Lord assigned to the role, or she could have been tricked into it herself.”
Before they entered into the dark forest, Jasmine considered what she had learnt about this place: the school that tricked you and kept you forever, the hounds that ate you because you got scared, and the ghosts which lit up their night sky.
“After all this time…” she looked up at the Doctor. “I think I finally understand why you were so afraid to return home.”
***
“Old witch,” muttered the Doctor, as the team stopped, catching their breath, outside Buckingham Palace. UNIT had successfully evacuated the area, not just of tourists but of their own troops. It was usually only this empty at night.
“The Queen?” asked Robin. “I thought you two got along?”
“We did,” said the Doctor. “Then we had this argument about democracy.”
“What were you doing having a row about democracy at a racetrack?”
“Wait,” chipped in Tommy. “A racetrack?”
“They go racing all the time,” explained Robin. “Or used to.”
“The Queen goes racing?”
Robin frowned at Tommy’s priorities. “The Doctor goes racing?”
“Neither of us races anymore!” interrupted the Doctor.
“So,” began Robin. “What’s the plan? When are we going back?”
“Back?” exclaimed Colonel Ward. “You saw what those things did! I’m going to set my troops on them.”
“Oh, Colonel Ward, grow up.” The Doctor slapped the Colonel’s face lightly. “You can throw an atomic weapon at them and they’ll deflect it. Their technology is a hundred times more advanced than yours, so we’re going to have to rely on strategy instead. Oh look!” Her eyes widened sarcastically. “You’ve only got, what, the world’s most intelligent Time Lady on site and ready to help! Isn’t that convenient?”
Robin smiled. The Doctor had not essentially changed, and she would not let herself worry: the Doctor would save Chris. She was sure of that now.
“You three all seem to have taken this very well,” the Doctor remarked.
“We know you can regenerate,” pointed out Tommy. “We know you’ve been away a while.” He shrugged. “It was always a possibility. It doesn’t bother me.”
“Me neither,” agreed Robin.
“So why are you so bloody late?” asked Ward, changing the subject.
“Jasmine and I were saving Earth throughout its long history,” explained the Doctor. “We got as far as the last century and received a distress signal from the Time Lord President, so we went to Gallifrey. We went into the Matrix, a lot of stuff happened, but it’s my fault I’m this late. I got distracted.” Ward still seemed unimpressed. “I’m sorry. Colonel Ward, I’ll save your city. Robin McKnight, I’ll save your husband. That’s a promise.”
Robin nodded. “So you regenerated on Gallifrey? That was… recent, right? That stuff you mentioned, about the Matrix?”
The Doctor did not answer.
***
Jasmine decided not to ask if the forest was populated with dead creatures: she could hear hissing, whistling, and the odd shrill cry of some strange bird. The forest was bathed in a light blue hue; a phenomenon she would have called moonlight if she could see a moon.
The trees were tall – too tall. The Doctor had explained that it was an archiving thing: they would not have been that tall in real life, but all that was archived was their structure; the Time Lords had decided to import them larger into the Matrix, for reasons unclear. Jasmine had become used to Gallifreyan reasoning already, reasoning used in the pursuit of nefarious ends at every corner.
They halted, filled with a sudden dread, as they became aware of the man standing in front of them. He was garbed in black attire, Velcroed-up, a simple appearance; and simplicity, in the middle of a dark forest at night, was enough to set them on edge. He had hair the same colour as the Doctor’s, but neater, and stood between two trees as if they were his body-guards.
“My name is Forseti,” said the man. He spoke calmly, which was some relief. “Doctor, Jasmine Sparks, it’s so good to see you at last.”
“Are we meant to know who you are?” asked Jasmine.
Forseti laughed. “Quite the opposite! Everyone outside of the Matrix is unaware that I even exist. But, if you two should allow, I will be your guide for the duration of your stay.”
“And why should we trust you?” questioned the Doctor, ever the sceptic.
“Because I’m the only thing here that makes sense.”
The Doctor narrowed his eyes.
“You’ve been to the Matrix before, Doctor,” continued Forseti. “Did it never occur to you that for the resting place of the Time Lords, there are very few people?”
The Doctor stayed silent, and in doing so gave his answer.
“I have been told to take you to them. To the very heart of the Matrix, where not even the All-Seeing Eye can glance.”
“Why?”
“Because someone wants to see you.” He edged closer. Jasmine liked him already: she admired his audacity, and figured no one within the Matrix could be worse than its architects.
“Who?”
“The prophet Kassandra.”
The Doctor shuddered. He must have recognized the name. In the case of a prophet, Jasmine realised, that must have been a reassuring sign.
Forseti gestured to an opening in the ground: a cave, in the midst of the forest, from which a sapphire-blue light shone. That was the source of the forest’s light. Jasmine had been too busy looking up.
“She has a secret to impart, Doctor. And she wants to impart it to you.”
***
“What if we blew something up above them? Then it wouldn’t be within their power to deflect it.”
“They’d just deflect the shrapnel, Colonel…”
“Okay…” Ward puzzled. “What if we went into the underground, and blew something up underneath them? They wouldn’t be expecting it, and it would take the ground away from under their feet!”
“Colonel Ward…” the Doctor sighed and looked straight at the Colonel. “I know it’s a challenge, but can you try to think of a solution that doesn’t involve blowing things up?”
“Oh, Christ almighty!” Ward searched for a post to bash his head against. “If it works, it works, whether it’s a piece of loo roll or a nuclear sodding bomb! What is the deal with you and explosives, woman?”
“Don’t call me ‘woman’,” snapped the Doctor.
“What? You are a woman.”
“Yes, but you didn’t call me ‘man’, did you? I believe the form of address you used was ‘Doctor’, which is of course my name.”
“You’ve gotten even bossier…”
“As a woman?” the Doctor scoffed.
“Now you’re just being pedantic!”
“Since when have you ever used the word bossy on a man, Colonel?”
“I’m not going to work with you if you’re going to spend the whole time giving me a PC lecture…”
“….and I’m not going to work with idiots!” interrupted the Doctor. “I want to find a solution that leads to the minimum loss of human life. I don’t want to kill Robin’s husband in the process, and frankly I don’t want to decimate the entire underground system! You need to start thinking three-dimensionally and realising that…”
They were passing through a village: the fields were dotted with little cream-walled, brown-doored bungalows, so simple and pretty that Jasmine half-expected them to be filled with tiny dolls rather than people. There were a few stars in the sky up above, but in formations Jasmine did not recognise.
“They’re dead stars,” said the Doctor. He had noticed her watching them with fascination. “As well as deceased individuals and general information, the Time Lords archive old star systems. Sometimes they’re useful to us, if we need to track the position of a given planet, or work out whether a particular journey would have been possible. But to the people of the Matrix, it’s their sky. A sky full of corpses.”
“They’re very bright, as corpses go.”
“Corpses is the wrong word, then. Ghosts.”
Jasmine liked that: a sky full of ghosts, on a world populated by them. Some of her own memories might be archived here somewhere: better still, some of Autumn Rivers’.
She stopped still on the pathway, and pointed to some bushes, well out of the way of the street lights. “What are those things?”
The Doctor studied them. He had missed them at first, but it was their eyes that had glistened, brighter than the ghost-stars. They were like dogs, or rather like hounds, or even werewolves. He tried not to let his imagination wander into anything too fantastical – here, it might just come true.
“They’re just the local wildlife,” he lied. “They’re completely safe – we used to keep them as pets. Their teeth melt to the touch of human skin.”
“They even archive your pets?” asked Jasmine. “Damn.”
They carried on along the path in silence, the Doctor casting the occasional glance back at the creatures. Once they were a long way away from the village, and even the street lamps were becoming less frequent, the Doctor began speaking.
“We don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Archive our pets.” He looked back again, warily. “I just lied to you back there. Those things are security – they keep out unwanted visitors.” He turned back to Jasmine. “The living, for instance.”
“You mean they…?”
“Bite? Oh yes. They can detect fear. Most systems like this in the universe use creatures which can detect guilt, but the kind of people who would break into the Matrix generally aren’t the kind of people who would be bothered by that emotion. But there’s always fear – whenever you’re out of your territory, where you aren’t meant to be, no matter who you are, it’s there, and if they sense it, they’ll consume you on the spot.”
“Would it kill you in real life as well?”
The Doctor nodded. “That’s why I didn’t risk an explanation. You weren’t scared of them; you were fine.”
“And you?”
“I can relax if my life depends on it.”
They reached the top of the hill: the path continued now, through an unlit forest, and Jasmine rather preferred the thought of returning to the school.
“What was that school thing all about anyway?” she asked, suddenly reminded of it.
“The Time Lords need to extract information from the people they archive,” the Doctor replied. “The Time Lords’ enemies are well-accustomed to torture, and not liable to give in to bribery. Take me – you could put me through a lot of pain before I said anything, and even then you could never be sure if you were getting the right answers off me.” Jasmine knew the feeling. “There’s only one environment you can count on for extraction of information,” he continued, “and that’s the school. They make everyone believe they’re back at school, as a student; that way, they’re not only willing to disclose the information, but desperate – desperate to be the first one to the answer, desperate to show how much they know. It’s reliable, it’s efficient, and it’s smart. It’s also terrifying, of course.”
“And Mrs Dolos?”
“Who knows? She could be automated, she could be a dead Time Lord assigned to the role, or she could have been tricked into it herself.”
Before they entered into the dark forest, Jasmine considered what she had learnt about this place: the school that tricked you and kept you forever, the hounds that ate you because you got scared, and the ghosts which lit up their night sky.
“After all this time…” she looked up at the Doctor. “I think I finally understand why you were so afraid to return home.”
***
“Old witch,” muttered the Doctor, as the team stopped, catching their breath, outside Buckingham Palace. UNIT had successfully evacuated the area, not just of tourists but of their own troops. It was usually only this empty at night.
“The Queen?” asked Robin. “I thought you two got along?”
“We did,” said the Doctor. “Then we had this argument about democracy.”
“What were you doing having a row about democracy at a racetrack?”
“Wait,” chipped in Tommy. “A racetrack?”
“They go racing all the time,” explained Robin. “Or used to.”
“The Queen goes racing?”
Robin frowned at Tommy’s priorities. “The Doctor goes racing?”
“Neither of us races anymore!” interrupted the Doctor.
“So,” began Robin. “What’s the plan? When are we going back?”
“Back?” exclaimed Colonel Ward. “You saw what those things did! I’m going to set my troops on them.”
“Oh, Colonel Ward, grow up.” The Doctor slapped the Colonel’s face lightly. “You can throw an atomic weapon at them and they’ll deflect it. Their technology is a hundred times more advanced than yours, so we’re going to have to rely on strategy instead. Oh look!” Her eyes widened sarcastically. “You’ve only got, what, the world’s most intelligent Time Lady on site and ready to help! Isn’t that convenient?”
Robin smiled. The Doctor had not essentially changed, and she would not let herself worry: the Doctor would save Chris. She was sure of that now.
“You three all seem to have taken this very well,” the Doctor remarked.
“We know you can regenerate,” pointed out Tommy. “We know you’ve been away a while.” He shrugged. “It was always a possibility. It doesn’t bother me.”
“Me neither,” agreed Robin.
“So why are you so bloody late?” asked Ward, changing the subject.
“Jasmine and I were saving Earth throughout its long history,” explained the Doctor. “We got as far as the last century and received a distress signal from the Time Lord President, so we went to Gallifrey. We went into the Matrix, a lot of stuff happened, but it’s my fault I’m this late. I got distracted.” Ward still seemed unimpressed. “I’m sorry. Colonel Ward, I’ll save your city. Robin McKnight, I’ll save your husband. That’s a promise.”
Robin nodded. “So you regenerated on Gallifrey? That was… recent, right? That stuff you mentioned, about the Matrix?”
The Doctor did not answer.
***
Jasmine decided not to ask if the forest was populated with dead creatures: she could hear hissing, whistling, and the odd shrill cry of some strange bird. The forest was bathed in a light blue hue; a phenomenon she would have called moonlight if she could see a moon.
The trees were tall – too tall. The Doctor had explained that it was an archiving thing: they would not have been that tall in real life, but all that was archived was their structure; the Time Lords had decided to import them larger into the Matrix, for reasons unclear. Jasmine had become used to Gallifreyan reasoning already, reasoning used in the pursuit of nefarious ends at every corner.
They halted, filled with a sudden dread, as they became aware of the man standing in front of them. He was garbed in black attire, Velcroed-up, a simple appearance; and simplicity, in the middle of a dark forest at night, was enough to set them on edge. He had hair the same colour as the Doctor’s, but neater, and stood between two trees as if they were his body-guards.
“My name is Forseti,” said the man. He spoke calmly, which was some relief. “Doctor, Jasmine Sparks, it’s so good to see you at last.”
“Are we meant to know who you are?” asked Jasmine.
Forseti laughed. “Quite the opposite! Everyone outside of the Matrix is unaware that I even exist. But, if you two should allow, I will be your guide for the duration of your stay.”
“And why should we trust you?” questioned the Doctor, ever the sceptic.
“Because I’m the only thing here that makes sense.”
The Doctor narrowed his eyes.
“You’ve been to the Matrix before, Doctor,” continued Forseti. “Did it never occur to you that for the resting place of the Time Lords, there are very few people?”
The Doctor stayed silent, and in doing so gave his answer.
“I have been told to take you to them. To the very heart of the Matrix, where not even the All-Seeing Eye can glance.”
“Why?”
“Because someone wants to see you.” He edged closer. Jasmine liked him already: she admired his audacity, and figured no one within the Matrix could be worse than its architects.
“Who?”
“The prophet Kassandra.”
The Doctor shuddered. He must have recognized the name. In the case of a prophet, Jasmine realised, that must have been a reassuring sign.
Forseti gestured to an opening in the ground: a cave, in the midst of the forest, from which a sapphire-blue light shone. That was the source of the forest’s light. Jasmine had been too busy looking up.
“She has a secret to impart, Doctor. And she wants to impart it to you.”
***
“What if we blew something up above them? Then it wouldn’t be within their power to deflect it.”
“They’d just deflect the shrapnel, Colonel…”
“Okay…” Ward puzzled. “What if we went into the underground, and blew something up underneath them? They wouldn’t be expecting it, and it would take the ground away from under their feet!”
“Colonel Ward…” the Doctor sighed and looked straight at the Colonel. “I know it’s a challenge, but can you try to think of a solution that doesn’t involve blowing things up?”
“Oh, Christ almighty!” Ward searched for a post to bash his head against. “If it works, it works, whether it’s a piece of loo roll or a nuclear sodding bomb! What is the deal with you and explosives, woman?”
“Don’t call me ‘woman’,” snapped the Doctor.
“What? You are a woman.”
“Yes, but you didn’t call me ‘man’, did you? I believe the form of address you used was ‘Doctor’, which is of course my name.”
“You’ve gotten even bossier…”
“As a woman?” the Doctor scoffed.
“Now you’re just being pedantic!”
“Since when have you ever used the word bossy on a man, Colonel?”
“I’m not going to work with you if you’re going to spend the whole time giving me a PC lecture…”
“….and I’m not going to work with idiots!” interrupted the Doctor. “I want to find a solution that leads to the minimum loss of human life. I don’t want to kill Robin’s husband in the process, and frankly I don’t want to decimate the entire underground system! You need to start thinking three-dimensionally and realising that…”
Robin and Tommy watched the pair arguing outside the Queen’s residence as they sat down quietly on the wall, slowly despairing. It wasn’t like one of the most dangerous alien races in the universe was only a couple of streets away, or anything!
“Do you think it’s her?” asked Robin. “I mean, do you think she’s the Doctor?”
Tommy nodded. “I saw inside the TARDIS. It’s changed, but it’s… advanced. And okay, she left it late to come back, but she came back, right in the nick of time. That’s the Doctor in a nutshell.” He shrugged. “I like her, I think.”
“It’ll take some getting used to,” confessed Robin. “But it’s probably as difficult for her as it is for the rest of us.”
“Robin…” Tommy looked down, completely forgetting about the invasion and almost forgetting about this new Doctor. “During that phone-call…”
“If it’s about the health thing,” interjected Robin, “please don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds, I’m just not the fittest of the bunch of us, that’s all.”
“It’s not about that,” said Tommy. “You said to tell the Doctor “sorry”. Sorry for what?”
“It’s not important.” Robin avoided looking Tommy in the eye.
“It is important.” He tried not to lose his patience with this Pastoral Support Worker (and friend): the problem with such people was that they never looked after themselves. They were always too busy fixing other people’s problems, and would carry on until they broke. “You don’t have to tell me, but please don’t save it until your deathbed if that’s the plan. Just get it off your chest.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Back when I first met the Doctor…” Robin had no desire to go over it all from the start, and they certainly didn’t have time. “How much do you know?”
“Pretty much the whole story, from Oxford Street to Primrose Hill.”
“That makes it easier. The first night, the night before – no, when – I started travelling, and he took me to…”
“See…”
“…Tommy, yeah,” said Robin, thrown out of her trance. “My Tommy I mean, not you, obviously. The Doctor dropped me outside Tommy’s room, I went in and read him a story. Is that what he told you?”
“It was you who told me,” corrected Tommy.
“Oh yeah.” Robin moved on quickly, but Tommy concentrated on that blip for a moment. How could she forget something like that? It had been a difficult conversation for her; he remembered it well himself. “Well I went into his room, I read him a story. The Doctor was in the TARDIS. I did all of it exactly as he’d told me to, honestly…”
“But?”
“My room – me and Harry’s room – was just next door to Tommy’s, and I thought the Doctor wouldn’t stop me having a look, because Harry wasn’t in there, so I went in there afterward. We used to keep the alarm clock on the table against the wall, and the power socket was right there by the door. I didn’t even have to go right in, I just bent down and… and I unplugged it.”
Tommy frowned. “I don’t quite get it.”
“That was the alarm that woke us in the morning, so that we had breakfast at a specific time, got dressed at a specific time… my husband and son left the house at a specific time, so that some stupid idiot driver on the wrong side of the road could go into them at that specific time. I changed the course of history, Tommy, or tried to… because it seemed such a small thing at the time, so easy. It seemed like a mistake anyone could have made without even meaning to change history, so I risked it, stupidly and selfishly.”
“Wow…” Tommy tried to process it as quickly as he could so that he could offer Robin some compassion. “Wow.”
“You’re angry with me.”
“No!” exclaimed Tommy. “Not at all, you had your reasons and you regret it a lot. Look around us.” Robin did as Tommy instructed. “Is the world being ruled by giant pink ants? Has the London Eye been turned into a wind power generator? The world is unchanged, so whatever you did didn’t work.” He placed his hand gently on her arm. “Stop worrying about it.”
“We’ve worked out a solution!” said the Doctor, dragging Colonel Ward over. Miracles were possible, it seemed. “I need to get back to the TARDIS. The rest of you, get as far away from here as you can, and return on my signal.”
“What will that be?” asked Tommy.
“Oh.” The Doctor smiled artfully. “You won’t miss it.”
***
Forseti led the Doctor and Jasmine into the caves and through a long, dark passageway. The sapphire light came from sapphires themselves, embedded into the rocky walls. There were steep and rugged ascents here and there. Thankfully they were in a virtual reality; a passage like this in real life would make anyone regret wearing the wrong shoes.
“The Matrix has a number of purposes,” explained the Doctor. He could not help but feel guilty for throwing Jasmine in at the deep end. “And pretty much every dead Time Lord on Gallifrey resides here. It’s part of what we call the APC net, if you really want to be technical: the dead are stored using their bio-data extracts, with their memories sometimes stored separately. Not only that, but it receives input from TARDISes, and uses that to generate “prophecies”. So do you see now, Jasmine? If an artificial intelligence as dangerous as Eris is released, all hell will break lose. Dead Time Lords, turned into monsters. Memories, turned into nightmares. Prophecies, turned into misdirections. Considering the power the Matrix has over Gallifrey, and the power Gallifrey has over the rest of the cosmos… it could mean the end of the universe.”
“They never seem to exercise that power very much,” Jasmine noted, calmly.
“They don’t. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
Jasmine could not dispute that. “This prophet, then – Kassandra, is it?”
“Yup,” said the Doctor, abruptly. He had suddenly gone quiet, which only made Jasmine push further.
“You know her?”
“We met once,” he said, looking ahead. “Back when she was still alive, during the Sack of Hyperborea.”
“Was she nice?”
“She was intelligent,” responded the Doctor, avoiding the question. “She was always right.”
***
The President watched Jasmine curiously. She had pulled up a chair by their units, because of how long she had spent in the room, and watched over the pair as if they were her patients.
“Who are you?” she found herself asking out loud.
The Matrix had not been providing any useful insights – no insights whatsoever, in fact – into the life or identity of Jasmine Sparks. It had pinned down a time period, but her heritage was impossible to trace. It could not be said for sure in what time period was her home, or where she had chosen to settle. She was an enigma, and rare on Gallifrey. She was almost… pure.
That was the word the President wanted, but was reluctant, to use. She was pure because she was untouched by Gallifrey, by the Matrix, by their race’s supposed omniscience. She was safe from their grasp, safe to be who she wanted to be, and the President hoped to herself that she would remain that way; that they would never know, and that Jasmine Sparks would be able to escape this wretched planet unscathed.
The door clicked open at the usual time, and the guard entered, carrying with him a tray of mushed protein. It was all that was allowed in this room – something to do with the bridge between the Matrix and reality being stronger. The President didn’t know, or want to know.
“Thank you, Aeneas.” She took the tray from him and sniffed it. Disgusting. “Any news?”
“They’re beyond our reach now, Madam President. We can only hope.”
The President nodded solemnly. “I’ve been in here a long time, now. I think perhaps it’s time I left.”
“If I may offer my own entirely subjective input, Madam President…”
“Of course.”
“Another week. That was what my mother always taught me: when you think it’s time, give it seven more days, because the world waits one week longer than your faith.”
“Thank you. I think I will.”
“You’re very welcome, Madam President.” Aeneas nodded and closed the door behind him.
The President sighed. One more day…
***
“Do you think it’s her?” asked Robin. “I mean, do you think she’s the Doctor?”
Tommy nodded. “I saw inside the TARDIS. It’s changed, but it’s… advanced. And okay, she left it late to come back, but she came back, right in the nick of time. That’s the Doctor in a nutshell.” He shrugged. “I like her, I think.”
“It’ll take some getting used to,” confessed Robin. “But it’s probably as difficult for her as it is for the rest of us.”
“Robin…” Tommy looked down, completely forgetting about the invasion and almost forgetting about this new Doctor. “During that phone-call…”
“If it’s about the health thing,” interjected Robin, “please don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds, I’m just not the fittest of the bunch of us, that’s all.”
“It’s not about that,” said Tommy. “You said to tell the Doctor “sorry”. Sorry for what?”
“It’s not important.” Robin avoided looking Tommy in the eye.
“It is important.” He tried not to lose his patience with this Pastoral Support Worker (and friend): the problem with such people was that they never looked after themselves. They were always too busy fixing other people’s problems, and would carry on until they broke. “You don’t have to tell me, but please don’t save it until your deathbed if that’s the plan. Just get it off your chest.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Back when I first met the Doctor…” Robin had no desire to go over it all from the start, and they certainly didn’t have time. “How much do you know?”
“Pretty much the whole story, from Oxford Street to Primrose Hill.”
“That makes it easier. The first night, the night before – no, when – I started travelling, and he took me to…”
“See…”
“…Tommy, yeah,” said Robin, thrown out of her trance. “My Tommy I mean, not you, obviously. The Doctor dropped me outside Tommy’s room, I went in and read him a story. Is that what he told you?”
“It was you who told me,” corrected Tommy.
“Oh yeah.” Robin moved on quickly, but Tommy concentrated on that blip for a moment. How could she forget something like that? It had been a difficult conversation for her; he remembered it well himself. “Well I went into his room, I read him a story. The Doctor was in the TARDIS. I did all of it exactly as he’d told me to, honestly…”
“But?”
“My room – me and Harry’s room – was just next door to Tommy’s, and I thought the Doctor wouldn’t stop me having a look, because Harry wasn’t in there, so I went in there afterward. We used to keep the alarm clock on the table against the wall, and the power socket was right there by the door. I didn’t even have to go right in, I just bent down and… and I unplugged it.”
Tommy frowned. “I don’t quite get it.”
“That was the alarm that woke us in the morning, so that we had breakfast at a specific time, got dressed at a specific time… my husband and son left the house at a specific time, so that some stupid idiot driver on the wrong side of the road could go into them at that specific time. I changed the course of history, Tommy, or tried to… because it seemed such a small thing at the time, so easy. It seemed like a mistake anyone could have made without even meaning to change history, so I risked it, stupidly and selfishly.”
“Wow…” Tommy tried to process it as quickly as he could so that he could offer Robin some compassion. “Wow.”
“You’re angry with me.”
“No!” exclaimed Tommy. “Not at all, you had your reasons and you regret it a lot. Look around us.” Robin did as Tommy instructed. “Is the world being ruled by giant pink ants? Has the London Eye been turned into a wind power generator? The world is unchanged, so whatever you did didn’t work.” He placed his hand gently on her arm. “Stop worrying about it.”
“We’ve worked out a solution!” said the Doctor, dragging Colonel Ward over. Miracles were possible, it seemed. “I need to get back to the TARDIS. The rest of you, get as far away from here as you can, and return on my signal.”
“What will that be?” asked Tommy.
“Oh.” The Doctor smiled artfully. “You won’t miss it.”
***
Forseti led the Doctor and Jasmine into the caves and through a long, dark passageway. The sapphire light came from sapphires themselves, embedded into the rocky walls. There were steep and rugged ascents here and there. Thankfully they were in a virtual reality; a passage like this in real life would make anyone regret wearing the wrong shoes.
“The Matrix has a number of purposes,” explained the Doctor. He could not help but feel guilty for throwing Jasmine in at the deep end. “And pretty much every dead Time Lord on Gallifrey resides here. It’s part of what we call the APC net, if you really want to be technical: the dead are stored using their bio-data extracts, with their memories sometimes stored separately. Not only that, but it receives input from TARDISes, and uses that to generate “prophecies”. So do you see now, Jasmine? If an artificial intelligence as dangerous as Eris is released, all hell will break lose. Dead Time Lords, turned into monsters. Memories, turned into nightmares. Prophecies, turned into misdirections. Considering the power the Matrix has over Gallifrey, and the power Gallifrey has over the rest of the cosmos… it could mean the end of the universe.”
“They never seem to exercise that power very much,” Jasmine noted, calmly.
“They don’t. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
Jasmine could not dispute that. “This prophet, then – Kassandra, is it?”
“Yup,” said the Doctor, abruptly. He had suddenly gone quiet, which only made Jasmine push further.
“You know her?”
“We met once,” he said, looking ahead. “Back when she was still alive, during the Sack of Hyperborea.”
“Was she nice?”
“She was intelligent,” responded the Doctor, avoiding the question. “She was always right.”
***
The President watched Jasmine curiously. She had pulled up a chair by their units, because of how long she had spent in the room, and watched over the pair as if they were her patients.
“Who are you?” she found herself asking out loud.
The Matrix had not been providing any useful insights – no insights whatsoever, in fact – into the life or identity of Jasmine Sparks. It had pinned down a time period, but her heritage was impossible to trace. It could not be said for sure in what time period was her home, or where she had chosen to settle. She was an enigma, and rare on Gallifrey. She was almost… pure.
That was the word the President wanted, but was reluctant, to use. She was pure because she was untouched by Gallifrey, by the Matrix, by their race’s supposed omniscience. She was safe from their grasp, safe to be who she wanted to be, and the President hoped to herself that she would remain that way; that they would never know, and that Jasmine Sparks would be able to escape this wretched planet unscathed.
The door clicked open at the usual time, and the guard entered, carrying with him a tray of mushed protein. It was all that was allowed in this room – something to do with the bridge between the Matrix and reality being stronger. The President didn’t know, or want to know.
“Thank you, Aeneas.” She took the tray from him and sniffed it. Disgusting. “Any news?”
“They’re beyond our reach now, Madam President. We can only hope.”
The President nodded solemnly. “I’ve been in here a long time, now. I think perhaps it’s time I left.”
“If I may offer my own entirely subjective input, Madam President…”
“Of course.”
“Another week. That was what my mother always taught me: when you think it’s time, give it seven more days, because the world waits one week longer than your faith.”
“Thank you. I think I will.”
“You’re very welcome, Madam President.” Aeneas nodded and closed the door behind him.
The President sighed. One more day…
***
“This passage goes on a long way.”
“It…” The Doctor stopped in his tracks. “What did you just say?”
“I said this passage goes on a long way,” repeated Jasmine.
“No, no, before that.”
“I… didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t you? Then tell me, do you remember saying nothing?”
“Well… no. I suppose not.”
The Doctor turned around and inspected the passage behind him. To Jasmine, it was no different from the rest. But the Doctor had been taking in in every lump of sapphire on every wall; every ridge, every gap. And he had not seen any of these before.
“We didn’t walk down here. I don’t understand.”
“Okay.” Forseti chipped in, like a tour guide spotting a flaw in a tourist’s knowledge. “To tell you the truth, you’ve been travelling for a while longer than you recall.”
“How long?”
“Two weeks.”
“TWO WEEKS?!” cried Jasmine. “No wonder my feet are killing me!”
Forseti laughed, much to Jasmine’s frustration. “That’s just a simulation. It’s actually harmless – you’ll be getting drip-fed by the President back on Gallifrey, and the only reason it feels like it’s shorter is because sometimes you pass through a Cleaner.”
“A Cleaner?”
“Yes. Like how a street cleaner will sweep the roads,” Forseti explained, using an Earth analogy, “or how a shower will remove any dirt from you. But the Cleaners in the Matrix are invisible, and when they pass over you they remove memories. You’re only expressed here as a string of data, so that’s easy – it doesn’t require brain surgery, just a quick edit.”
Easy, thought Jasmine. Also terrifying. She was unsettled by the thought that one quick backspace and all memories of her grandmother could be erased.
“Why would it erase our memories?” she asked. “To make it easier for us? Because I’d rather they asked…”
Forseti laughed again; that dull, repetitive laugh that only a ghost could manage. “Nothing that generous! What you have to remember is that this place is primarily a repository of information, and not all of it public. Anything you aren’t meant to see is deleted from your memory, including the time you saw it. We passed through several passages full of strictly confidential storage, and as a safety precaution, the Cleaners did a round at the end of it, as it were, and wiped the whole experience away.”
“But not from your mind, though, Forseti.” The Doctor towered over their guide accusingly. “They don’t have to worry about what the dead find out.”
“You should be glad they did, Doctor,” Forseti responded coldly. “Some of what you saw you would not want to remember. And besides – two weeks is a very long walk.”
They carried on, reluctantly, until they were not alone. After another half an hour’s travel, they were stopped by what they first thought was a creature ahead of them; in fact it was a man, moving like a creature. He writhed on the ground, crawled, leapt, crept, rolled, leered, like a predator weighing up whether it was enough to take on the trio, and whether the taste of them would be worth it. The Doctor was sure he recognised the man, but the beard was overgrown, the eyes were bloodshot, and he shifted too quickly and too erratically for the Doctor to pin down an identity.
“Keep your distance,” warned Forseti. “He’s quite mad.”
The Doctor looked closer, and his deepest, darkest suspicion began to surface. “He can’t be…”
“I’m afraid he is.”
The Doctor knew he recognised those eyes. He knew he recognised the way they looked at him.
“It’s the Master,” said Forseti. “And it caught me off-guard – we try not to specify a gender usually, you see; it’s always changing forms, and it doesn’t fall under our category of Level 1 life.”
“Oh my God.” The Doctor crouched down, and looked at the Master not as a doctor, but as a vet. “What did they do to you?”
The Master snarled back, and the Doctor saw its face shifting. It was going to change again. He saw a streak of purple in its hair from the Westminster Abbey Master; and he saw its smile reshape into that of the Eye of Harmony Master. He saw every Master, but none of them truly The Master.
“It was punished after the Sleepwalker incident. It’s believed you summoned the Time Lords – they altered its biodata, and abandoned it in the tunnels.”
“Altering a Time Lord’s biodata is the worst offense on Gallifrey!” roared the Doctor. “They can’t! They can’t do that!”
“Well they did,” said Forseti, unfazed. “And they did it because you summoned them. Shall we move on?”
They did as Forseti had suggested, keen to forget this too. Jasmine took one last look, and the Master shared it. She was sure…
No. He’s just mad.
She was sure it seemed to know her.
The blue light got brighter, and the sapphires on the wall glowed more intensely; the end of the passage was no longer dark and distant, but bright and near. The trio moved slowly, the Doctor and Jasmine holding onto the rocks on the side, warily, as Forseti was ahead of them.
“I was an economist in life,” said Forseti. “But death does things to us. Yet, in spite of all the changes, I still can’t stand heights…”
As they reached the edge, he moved out of the way to give the Doctor and Jasmine a better view. Forseti was right: they were high up but the Doctor and Jasmine were too in awe to care about their safety.
“It…” The Doctor stopped in his tracks. “What did you just say?”
“I said this passage goes on a long way,” repeated Jasmine.
“No, no, before that.”
“I… didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t you? Then tell me, do you remember saying nothing?”
“Well… no. I suppose not.”
The Doctor turned around and inspected the passage behind him. To Jasmine, it was no different from the rest. But the Doctor had been taking in in every lump of sapphire on every wall; every ridge, every gap. And he had not seen any of these before.
“We didn’t walk down here. I don’t understand.”
“Okay.” Forseti chipped in, like a tour guide spotting a flaw in a tourist’s knowledge. “To tell you the truth, you’ve been travelling for a while longer than you recall.”
“How long?”
“Two weeks.”
“TWO WEEKS?!” cried Jasmine. “No wonder my feet are killing me!”
Forseti laughed, much to Jasmine’s frustration. “That’s just a simulation. It’s actually harmless – you’ll be getting drip-fed by the President back on Gallifrey, and the only reason it feels like it’s shorter is because sometimes you pass through a Cleaner.”
“A Cleaner?”
“Yes. Like how a street cleaner will sweep the roads,” Forseti explained, using an Earth analogy, “or how a shower will remove any dirt from you. But the Cleaners in the Matrix are invisible, and when they pass over you they remove memories. You’re only expressed here as a string of data, so that’s easy – it doesn’t require brain surgery, just a quick edit.”
Easy, thought Jasmine. Also terrifying. She was unsettled by the thought that one quick backspace and all memories of her grandmother could be erased.
“Why would it erase our memories?” she asked. “To make it easier for us? Because I’d rather they asked…”
Forseti laughed again; that dull, repetitive laugh that only a ghost could manage. “Nothing that generous! What you have to remember is that this place is primarily a repository of information, and not all of it public. Anything you aren’t meant to see is deleted from your memory, including the time you saw it. We passed through several passages full of strictly confidential storage, and as a safety precaution, the Cleaners did a round at the end of it, as it were, and wiped the whole experience away.”
“But not from your mind, though, Forseti.” The Doctor towered over their guide accusingly. “They don’t have to worry about what the dead find out.”
“You should be glad they did, Doctor,” Forseti responded coldly. “Some of what you saw you would not want to remember. And besides – two weeks is a very long walk.”
They carried on, reluctantly, until they were not alone. After another half an hour’s travel, they were stopped by what they first thought was a creature ahead of them; in fact it was a man, moving like a creature. He writhed on the ground, crawled, leapt, crept, rolled, leered, like a predator weighing up whether it was enough to take on the trio, and whether the taste of them would be worth it. The Doctor was sure he recognised the man, but the beard was overgrown, the eyes were bloodshot, and he shifted too quickly and too erratically for the Doctor to pin down an identity.
“Keep your distance,” warned Forseti. “He’s quite mad.”
The Doctor looked closer, and his deepest, darkest suspicion began to surface. “He can’t be…”
“I’m afraid he is.”
The Doctor knew he recognised those eyes. He knew he recognised the way they looked at him.
“It’s the Master,” said Forseti. “And it caught me off-guard – we try not to specify a gender usually, you see; it’s always changing forms, and it doesn’t fall under our category of Level 1 life.”
“Oh my God.” The Doctor crouched down, and looked at the Master not as a doctor, but as a vet. “What did they do to you?”
The Master snarled back, and the Doctor saw its face shifting. It was going to change again. He saw a streak of purple in its hair from the Westminster Abbey Master; and he saw its smile reshape into that of the Eye of Harmony Master. He saw every Master, but none of them truly The Master.
“It was punished after the Sleepwalker incident. It’s believed you summoned the Time Lords – they altered its biodata, and abandoned it in the tunnels.”
“Altering a Time Lord’s biodata is the worst offense on Gallifrey!” roared the Doctor. “They can’t! They can’t do that!”
“Well they did,” said Forseti, unfazed. “And they did it because you summoned them. Shall we move on?”
They did as Forseti had suggested, keen to forget this too. Jasmine took one last look, and the Master shared it. She was sure…
No. He’s just mad.
She was sure it seemed to know her.
The blue light got brighter, and the sapphires on the wall glowed more intensely; the end of the passage was no longer dark and distant, but bright and near. The trio moved slowly, the Doctor and Jasmine holding onto the rocks on the side, warily, as Forseti was ahead of them.
“I was an economist in life,” said Forseti. “But death does things to us. Yet, in spite of all the changes, I still can’t stand heights…”
As they reached the edge, he moved out of the way to give the Doctor and Jasmine a better view. Forseti was right: they were high up but the Doctor and Jasmine were too in awe to care about their safety.
Jasmine whispered to herself, and shook her head in disbelief. “Wow…”
Forseti turned to address the Doctor. “This is the city of your ancestors.”
Before them was a citadel, enclosed in a mighty glass dome. Tall spires reached to the top, and a long road below them led the way in; the Doctor saw some vehicles on it, but realised he would have to take the rocky descent.
But it was not like the city the Doctor knew. This one was different: the dome was perhaps three or four times the size of Gallifrey’s; had it not been viewed from a distance, it would have been impossible even to make out the shape of it. The buildings stretched higher, and some outward into strange architectural configurations, defying gravity. Their offshoots stretched out to the edge, and the domed citadel gave the impression of a giant plasma ball, frozen in a single moment.
There were more dead stars out here: a different sky, somehow, still pitch black with the night (though the blue hue shone over the city, too, making it feel a little like early morning). The air was cold, and bit away at Jasmine’s fingertips.
The city was surrounded by a naturally-occurring wall of rocks, and Jasmine thought of a 21st Century politician who would have appreciated something like that. But the strangest thing about the city was its lighting: the sides of buildings were animated, displaying a vivid array of colours, like Piccadilly Circus played out across a whole city.
Forseti handed her a pair of binoculars, and she looked closer.
She could see the images on the walls now: faces, suits, words, and all that you would expect. But were they news of the living, or glorifications of the dead? She could not be sure.
The vehicles were rolling in by the dozens, but the people were even more plentiful: some watched from their balconies, while others crowded the streets. There were people on the roads, people by the walls, people on the battered fishing-boats that littered the rivers around the city, and people on the edge, looking out for new ghosts to welcome in, or considering whether it would be worth venturing out.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yes it is,” said the Doctor. Jasmine could see it pained him to compliment it, but… it was. It just was, and Forseti grinned, almost smug with pride in his city.
“Welcome to New Gallifrey.”
***
It took them ten minutes to climb down into the city. The glass dome was interrupted at its base by a majestic marble arch. The Doctor wondered about the faces carved onto it. He recognised none of them, and in the afterlife, who was left to pay tribute to?
Perhaps they were the living.
As he stepped into the archway, he felt something change – and he was not the only one. The boats along the river seemed to move slower, and people stopped in the streets and turned. Each balcony’s door swung open and the resident of each apartment stepped out, each person moving in sync with the other, like weathermen come to proclaim the sun.
They all looked at him: not smiling, but not disapproving either. The Doctor tried to make sense of their response, wishing that they would gesture, speak, anything.
Forseti was right: their arrival truly had been foretold, and yet the people of New Gallifrey did not seem ready for it.
The Doctor hoped he would recognise one of these people: someone he never thought he would see again; someone whose death he simply forgot rather than made peace with.
Everyone who had ever died on Gallifrey looked at the Doctor, their city falling silent around them. And they…
“Oh my God.” The Doctor turned around to see Jasmine, staring at them all in awe. When he looked back, he realised what had caught her attention.
They had all raised their arms – not in welcome, but in salute.
“Remind me who you are again,” murmured Jasmine.
“I don’t think I need to…”
***
Kassandra’s home was a little more striking than the hut in which she had spent her life, out in the Wasteland of the Endless Summer. It was, again, small: about three times the size of the homes Jasmine was used to, but significantly less imposing than some of the structures in this virtual landscape. But it was unique: it was eye-shaped, and sticking out from the glass towers masked by a layer of mist; to see inside you must enter. And the entrance was not a door, but a tunnel, dark and murky, in place of the eye’s pupil.
As soon as the Doctor stepped into the tunnel, he was able to see the end, and rushed through. The air was dense in here. Jasmine coughed behind him as she caught up, while Forseti almost disappeared into the mist, before reappearing unscathed on the other side.
The interior, on the other hand… the Doctor could have sworn it was, in fact, smaller on the inside. It was, as best he could recall, an exact replica of the inside of Kassandra’s hut. He wondered if that was still out in the wastelands, or whether the brickwork had crumbled just as all the travellers had who never managed to reach it in time.
The room was organised. It was compelling, but not lavish in decoration; there were a few paintings hung in random places on the walls, and a basic wallpaper pattern. One of the paintings showed a hellish landscape, with an old man at its centre. He appeared unfazed by the fire surrounding him, and leant against the trunk of a tree which branched out in all directions. Jasmine found herself taken in by it, and noticed that the Doctor seemed to be actively avoiding looking at it.
The room was warm, but not stuffy. It smelt of some sort of incense. To the Doctor, sensitive to such currents, the scent was bordering on unbearable: it smelt of time.
“Doctor.”
Kassandra sat at a triangular table with a chalk circle drawn in its centre. Her hair was dark brown and curly as it had been in life; but her eyes were an even stronger orange, almost overwhelming – and to Jasmine, utterly unnerving. The Doctor gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. She’s safe.
“You look exactly the same.”
The Doctor frowned, and looked up and down at himself. “No I don’t.”
“Oh, Doctor, you do yourself an injustice.” She smiled, and gestured towards two chairs, one on each of the remaining two sides of the table. “Every man is his own worst critic.”
“I think I look better, actually,” joked the Doctor. “I was a right mess that day.”
“But your stomach showed courage,” argued Kassandra. “The people of Hyperborea still feel your presence within their souls.”
“The people of Hyperborea still see my face implanted on the side of that shed,” responded the Doctor. “You died well that day.”
“And I have lived well since.” Kassandra calmly placed her hands out on the table, and the Doctor and Jasmine, now seated, instinctively did the same.
“I’m here to find Eris,” said the Doctor. “What do you know of her?”
“Only her significance, which is minimal.”
“She’s a risk to all of you.”
“But a negligible one, compared to the war that is to come.”
The Doctor sat forward. “War?”
“You felt it,” whispered Kassandra. “Other Time Lords on Gallifrey did too, but… none as strongly as you, I suspect, and none for as long. Did it follow you wherever you went? Is that why you ran from it?”
“Did what follow me?”
“The stench of death.”
The Doctor wrinkled his nose. “Okay, I had a gut feeling. I stayed away from Gallifrey for a while…”
“Two hundred years,” Jasmine reminded, butting in. “Quite a long time.”
“Either way…” Kassandra was keen to carry on, unsurprisingly unmoved by the passing of time. “A war is coming, Doctor, a war between two races who should never, ever go to war.”
Kassandra seemed to want the Doctor to name the races, but he kept his mouth shut.
“The Time Lords and the Daleks?” asked Jasmine.
Kassandra seemed surprised. “That was a very shrewd deduction.”
“The sentinels of history, and the creatures that can never be moved.” Jasmine shrugged. “I think it would be like putting a fork in a microwave.”
The Doctor regarded Jasmine curiously, and then spoke to Kassandra, “I assume you’re here to convince me to help you, but first I have to ask: what’s Jasmine’s role in this?”
“I am afraid, Doctor,” Kassandra regretfully, “that is not something you can know.” The Doctor sighed, and Kassandra narrowed her eyes. “Everything is about to change. You are part of a massive conspiracy, Doctor. Do you know why you were sent here?”
“The artificial intelligence. Eris. She’s on the loose, you’re all in danger, I need to fight her.”
“And why you?”
“The President trusts me,” suggested the Doctor.
“Wrong,” snapped Kassandra.
“I’ve been inside the Matrix before – I’m the safest choice.”
“Wrong.”
“My knowledge, ability to transcend physical laws, and determination all exceed what is typical of a Time Lord.”
“Wrong.”
“Okay. So why me?”
“Because the Time Lords want you dead.”
The Doctor shuddered. “No.” He shook his head. “Not the President, she wouldn’t…”
“Well done,” said Kassandra. “There’s one deduction you are correct on: the President is not behind this; she is as much a victim as you are. But she was integral to the plan. The followers of the Darkness ensured that Eris was released into the Matrix because they knew that the President would bring you here to remove her. Destroying her will be a simple enough job for you – she may be the most advanced intelligence ever created, but she is self-destructive. She would tear herself apart for you.”
“And the President didn’t know this?”
“Not at all,” assured Kassandra. “But the followers of the Darkness did. They know that Eris’s destruction will cause all immediate biodata around her to unravel – you will be unwritten on the spot, a fate that even a Time Lord cannot escape.”
“But why?”
“Because you are a liability in war, Doctor. The followers of the darkness believe that war must be fought against the Daleks, and that the Time Lords are destined to be the rulers of the cosmos in their absence.”
There was a moment’s quiet, and then Jasmine scoffed. The Doctor and Kassandra both turned to her, puzzled and just slightly offended.
“Come on,” laughed Jasmine. “I was with this before, but ‘followers of the darkness’? Is that really what they call themselves?”
“No.” Kassandra shifted uneasily in her seat. “But their name… and the name they exalt… certain words are spoken infrequently in the Matrix, and for good reason. The dead do not like to hear them.”
“I think we should know,” said Jasmine, and the Doctor nodded in agreement.
“Very well,” sighed Kassandra. “We only use the Darkness to communicate that we cannot and do not want to understand them, and that we fear them, just as a child fears the night. But in plain terms, they call themselves the followers of Rassilon.”
***
Aeneas passed the President her mushed protein. She looked down at it and furrowed her brow.
“Aeneas, I told you not to. It’s been another week, just as you suggested, and I now intend to leave.”
As she headed for the door, Aeneas stepped out of both his spot and his place in the hierarchy, and stood in front of it.
“What on Earth do you think you are doing?” asked the President.
“Madam President, it’s just a suggestion,” began Aeneas, “but would you not consider staying a little longer? Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps it is your destiny to…”
“To what?” spat the President. “To remain here forever, locked in this room? Just how much time did you intend for me to spend here, Aeneas? Now please, move out of my way. I would like to leave.”
She reached out for the door, but Aeneas lifted his hand, hitting hers aside.
“Aeneas,” repeated the President. “I would like to leave.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that, ma’am.” The President stepped back in horror, and Aeneas raised his gun to her head. “Why don’t you eat your dinner?”
The President regarded the lump of processed food on her tray with contempt.
“I had expected you to eat it – you seemed to like it. I had expected that to be enough.”
“You…” The President gasped, and threw the tray off the table. “You were going to poison me!”
“No sudden movements, ma’am. I wouldn’t want you to alarm me.” He played with his gun in his hand.
“Follower of Rassilon, are you? A fascist and a scaremonger?”
“It’s simply a differing political viewpoint, Madam President. I prefer to identify myself as… pro-war.”
“I’m glad you like war,” hissed the President. “Because if you kill me today, it’s all you’re going to know for the rest of your lives.”
***
“I might be able to help you,” murmured the Doctor. “Might. No promises – I’ll need the President’s support.”
Kassandra cut him short, wearily. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
The Doctor frowned.
“I suspect the President will be dead by now. Or rather, the President will be Rassilon.”
The Doctor put his head in his hands, and Kassandra and Jasmine looked at each other uneasily. Was he… crying?
The answer was not quite, but close. He lifted his head out, and his eyes were red, his hair was messed up, and his expression had fallen. “Sagacity,” he whispered. “Oh, Sagacity…” He stood up, and gestured for Jasmine to follow. She didn’t always do what she was told – and didn’t like being told – but she would have chosen to follow the Doctor rather than stay here, where she felt her feet were never quite touching the ground beneath them.
“I was right,” said the Doctor. “This society is diseased and there’s nothing I can do to help it.”
“If you leave now, you will not be able to stop Rassilon’s plans. Please,” urged Kassandra. “He will download all the data from the APC net and implant it back into living bodies. All the people of the Matrix want to do is rest in peace – we don’t want to return to the world, and we don’t want to fight.”
The Doctor headed for the door, trying in anguish to ignore Kassandra’s pleas.
“We don’t want to have to die again!”
He turned around. “If I believed I could do something, Kassandra, I would. I’m sorry. We can’t help you – Gallifrey is beyond redemption now.”
***
The Doctor ducked around the barrier. The main group of Them had gone now, spreading out across the city; their ship still remained outside Victoria Station, guarded by three silent soldiers, whilst the TARDIS was exactly half-way between the Doctor and the vessel. She calculated the distance; she calculated the time it would take her to reach the TARDIS, the time it would take Them to notice her, and then the time it would take Them to freeze her.
It would be risky. Even at her speed… even with the certainty of her calculations, she could not be sure that she would make it to the TARDIS on time. And if it all went wrong, if they captured her –
She chose not to think about that. But with no TARDIS and no sonic, she was unconsciously aware that it would probably mean the end for her.
Add extra adrenaline, she thought to herself. Factor in the knowledge that your life is on the edge.
She would run just a little bit faster, respond just a little bit quicker…
That was all she needed. She wished herself luck, and ran for her ship.
They saw her instantly, and fired a warning shot. The Doctor ducked, and the shot bounced off the TARDIS exterior, smashing through the theatre window opposite. She took the one chance she had, and reached around for the door, dashing inside. As she slammed it behind her, she saw the rays of another shot through the glass.
She dashed to the library, almost losing it in the hapless string of rooms. She found the section, opened the drawer, and took it out.
You little beauty.
She tossed the device up and down gently in her hand. Small, square and very discrete, it would clip onto the inside of her jacket as she was taken onto the ship. After a specified amount of time – she entered three minutes – it would wake her from cryogenic sleep.
“Nap time,” she murmured to herself, and attached the device to her jacket inside, before heading back to the console room.
She took one last look at the TARDIS interior: one last look at her deep red time rotor, her bronze roundels, and her old, creaking rocking-chair which had found its place in the corner of the room. She took it all in one last time, just in case.
And then she took a deep breath, and stepped outside her ship.
They had expected her, somehow. A group of four were gathered together, and scanning her with the rounded stubs at the end of their arms.
To the people of Earth, she realised, they looked like something out of a cartoon: some twisted vision of the future, censored for the benefit of children; a monster dressed up as a friend. They must have looked so alien, with their featureless, pale faces.
They weren’t. She had met Them before; she knew. The suits they wore protected their bodies from weaponry, but more importantly, protected their consciences. Beneath the suits were ordinary human bodies – and if they stepped out in them, they would look no different to the creatures they were slaughtering.
The result was that the people of Earth thought they were fighting grotesque creatures; thought they were fighting aliens, monsters, demons, things beyond understanding, whose souls were twisted and cracked, and whose minds worked according to a terrible, ugly logic.
The truth was that by assuming that the evil was alien, the people of Earth truly would never understand these creatures. To do that would have required looking inwards rather than outwards – looking to their own basest tendencies, rather than what they could project onto the races they did not understand.
On another world, another race of humans developed. They learnt to travel, and they found others like themselves. So they butchered them – because it was all they knew how to do, and because they could.
The Doctor sighed – They were only human.
The scan completed.
“Health test – passed.”
The Doctor closed her eyes, and prepared to be taken aboard.
***
Forseti turned to address the Doctor. “This is the city of your ancestors.”
Before them was a citadel, enclosed in a mighty glass dome. Tall spires reached to the top, and a long road below them led the way in; the Doctor saw some vehicles on it, but realised he would have to take the rocky descent.
But it was not like the city the Doctor knew. This one was different: the dome was perhaps three or four times the size of Gallifrey’s; had it not been viewed from a distance, it would have been impossible even to make out the shape of it. The buildings stretched higher, and some outward into strange architectural configurations, defying gravity. Their offshoots stretched out to the edge, and the domed citadel gave the impression of a giant plasma ball, frozen in a single moment.
There were more dead stars out here: a different sky, somehow, still pitch black with the night (though the blue hue shone over the city, too, making it feel a little like early morning). The air was cold, and bit away at Jasmine’s fingertips.
The city was surrounded by a naturally-occurring wall of rocks, and Jasmine thought of a 21st Century politician who would have appreciated something like that. But the strangest thing about the city was its lighting: the sides of buildings were animated, displaying a vivid array of colours, like Piccadilly Circus played out across a whole city.
Forseti handed her a pair of binoculars, and she looked closer.
She could see the images on the walls now: faces, suits, words, and all that you would expect. But were they news of the living, or glorifications of the dead? She could not be sure.
The vehicles were rolling in by the dozens, but the people were even more plentiful: some watched from their balconies, while others crowded the streets. There were people on the roads, people by the walls, people on the battered fishing-boats that littered the rivers around the city, and people on the edge, looking out for new ghosts to welcome in, or considering whether it would be worth venturing out.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yes it is,” said the Doctor. Jasmine could see it pained him to compliment it, but… it was. It just was, and Forseti grinned, almost smug with pride in his city.
“Welcome to New Gallifrey.”
***
It took them ten minutes to climb down into the city. The glass dome was interrupted at its base by a majestic marble arch. The Doctor wondered about the faces carved onto it. He recognised none of them, and in the afterlife, who was left to pay tribute to?
Perhaps they were the living.
As he stepped into the archway, he felt something change – and he was not the only one. The boats along the river seemed to move slower, and people stopped in the streets and turned. Each balcony’s door swung open and the resident of each apartment stepped out, each person moving in sync with the other, like weathermen come to proclaim the sun.
They all looked at him: not smiling, but not disapproving either. The Doctor tried to make sense of their response, wishing that they would gesture, speak, anything.
Forseti was right: their arrival truly had been foretold, and yet the people of New Gallifrey did not seem ready for it.
The Doctor hoped he would recognise one of these people: someone he never thought he would see again; someone whose death he simply forgot rather than made peace with.
Everyone who had ever died on Gallifrey looked at the Doctor, their city falling silent around them. And they…
“Oh my God.” The Doctor turned around to see Jasmine, staring at them all in awe. When he looked back, he realised what had caught her attention.
They had all raised their arms – not in welcome, but in salute.
“Remind me who you are again,” murmured Jasmine.
“I don’t think I need to…”
***
Kassandra’s home was a little more striking than the hut in which she had spent her life, out in the Wasteland of the Endless Summer. It was, again, small: about three times the size of the homes Jasmine was used to, but significantly less imposing than some of the structures in this virtual landscape. But it was unique: it was eye-shaped, and sticking out from the glass towers masked by a layer of mist; to see inside you must enter. And the entrance was not a door, but a tunnel, dark and murky, in place of the eye’s pupil.
As soon as the Doctor stepped into the tunnel, he was able to see the end, and rushed through. The air was dense in here. Jasmine coughed behind him as she caught up, while Forseti almost disappeared into the mist, before reappearing unscathed on the other side.
The interior, on the other hand… the Doctor could have sworn it was, in fact, smaller on the inside. It was, as best he could recall, an exact replica of the inside of Kassandra’s hut. He wondered if that was still out in the wastelands, or whether the brickwork had crumbled just as all the travellers had who never managed to reach it in time.
The room was organised. It was compelling, but not lavish in decoration; there were a few paintings hung in random places on the walls, and a basic wallpaper pattern. One of the paintings showed a hellish landscape, with an old man at its centre. He appeared unfazed by the fire surrounding him, and leant against the trunk of a tree which branched out in all directions. Jasmine found herself taken in by it, and noticed that the Doctor seemed to be actively avoiding looking at it.
The room was warm, but not stuffy. It smelt of some sort of incense. To the Doctor, sensitive to such currents, the scent was bordering on unbearable: it smelt of time.
“Doctor.”
Kassandra sat at a triangular table with a chalk circle drawn in its centre. Her hair was dark brown and curly as it had been in life; but her eyes were an even stronger orange, almost overwhelming – and to Jasmine, utterly unnerving. The Doctor gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. She’s safe.
“You look exactly the same.”
The Doctor frowned, and looked up and down at himself. “No I don’t.”
“Oh, Doctor, you do yourself an injustice.” She smiled, and gestured towards two chairs, one on each of the remaining two sides of the table. “Every man is his own worst critic.”
“I think I look better, actually,” joked the Doctor. “I was a right mess that day.”
“But your stomach showed courage,” argued Kassandra. “The people of Hyperborea still feel your presence within their souls.”
“The people of Hyperborea still see my face implanted on the side of that shed,” responded the Doctor. “You died well that day.”
“And I have lived well since.” Kassandra calmly placed her hands out on the table, and the Doctor and Jasmine, now seated, instinctively did the same.
“I’m here to find Eris,” said the Doctor. “What do you know of her?”
“Only her significance, which is minimal.”
“She’s a risk to all of you.”
“But a negligible one, compared to the war that is to come.”
The Doctor sat forward. “War?”
“You felt it,” whispered Kassandra. “Other Time Lords on Gallifrey did too, but… none as strongly as you, I suspect, and none for as long. Did it follow you wherever you went? Is that why you ran from it?”
“Did what follow me?”
“The stench of death.”
The Doctor wrinkled his nose. “Okay, I had a gut feeling. I stayed away from Gallifrey for a while…”
“Two hundred years,” Jasmine reminded, butting in. “Quite a long time.”
“Either way…” Kassandra was keen to carry on, unsurprisingly unmoved by the passing of time. “A war is coming, Doctor, a war between two races who should never, ever go to war.”
Kassandra seemed to want the Doctor to name the races, but he kept his mouth shut.
“The Time Lords and the Daleks?” asked Jasmine.
Kassandra seemed surprised. “That was a very shrewd deduction.”
“The sentinels of history, and the creatures that can never be moved.” Jasmine shrugged. “I think it would be like putting a fork in a microwave.”
The Doctor regarded Jasmine curiously, and then spoke to Kassandra, “I assume you’re here to convince me to help you, but first I have to ask: what’s Jasmine’s role in this?”
“I am afraid, Doctor,” Kassandra regretfully, “that is not something you can know.” The Doctor sighed, and Kassandra narrowed her eyes. “Everything is about to change. You are part of a massive conspiracy, Doctor. Do you know why you were sent here?”
“The artificial intelligence. Eris. She’s on the loose, you’re all in danger, I need to fight her.”
“And why you?”
“The President trusts me,” suggested the Doctor.
“Wrong,” snapped Kassandra.
“I’ve been inside the Matrix before – I’m the safest choice.”
“Wrong.”
“My knowledge, ability to transcend physical laws, and determination all exceed what is typical of a Time Lord.”
“Wrong.”
“Okay. So why me?”
“Because the Time Lords want you dead.”
The Doctor shuddered. “No.” He shook his head. “Not the President, she wouldn’t…”
“Well done,” said Kassandra. “There’s one deduction you are correct on: the President is not behind this; she is as much a victim as you are. But she was integral to the plan. The followers of the Darkness ensured that Eris was released into the Matrix because they knew that the President would bring you here to remove her. Destroying her will be a simple enough job for you – she may be the most advanced intelligence ever created, but she is self-destructive. She would tear herself apart for you.”
“And the President didn’t know this?”
“Not at all,” assured Kassandra. “But the followers of the Darkness did. They know that Eris’s destruction will cause all immediate biodata around her to unravel – you will be unwritten on the spot, a fate that even a Time Lord cannot escape.”
“But why?”
“Because you are a liability in war, Doctor. The followers of the darkness believe that war must be fought against the Daleks, and that the Time Lords are destined to be the rulers of the cosmos in their absence.”
There was a moment’s quiet, and then Jasmine scoffed. The Doctor and Kassandra both turned to her, puzzled and just slightly offended.
“Come on,” laughed Jasmine. “I was with this before, but ‘followers of the darkness’? Is that really what they call themselves?”
“No.” Kassandra shifted uneasily in her seat. “But their name… and the name they exalt… certain words are spoken infrequently in the Matrix, and for good reason. The dead do not like to hear them.”
“I think we should know,” said Jasmine, and the Doctor nodded in agreement.
“Very well,” sighed Kassandra. “We only use the Darkness to communicate that we cannot and do not want to understand them, and that we fear them, just as a child fears the night. But in plain terms, they call themselves the followers of Rassilon.”
***
Aeneas passed the President her mushed protein. She looked down at it and furrowed her brow.
“Aeneas, I told you not to. It’s been another week, just as you suggested, and I now intend to leave.”
As she headed for the door, Aeneas stepped out of both his spot and his place in the hierarchy, and stood in front of it.
“What on Earth do you think you are doing?” asked the President.
“Madam President, it’s just a suggestion,” began Aeneas, “but would you not consider staying a little longer? Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps it is your destiny to…”
“To what?” spat the President. “To remain here forever, locked in this room? Just how much time did you intend for me to spend here, Aeneas? Now please, move out of my way. I would like to leave.”
She reached out for the door, but Aeneas lifted his hand, hitting hers aside.
“Aeneas,” repeated the President. “I would like to leave.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that, ma’am.” The President stepped back in horror, and Aeneas raised his gun to her head. “Why don’t you eat your dinner?”
The President regarded the lump of processed food on her tray with contempt.
“I had expected you to eat it – you seemed to like it. I had expected that to be enough.”
“You…” The President gasped, and threw the tray off the table. “You were going to poison me!”
“No sudden movements, ma’am. I wouldn’t want you to alarm me.” He played with his gun in his hand.
“Follower of Rassilon, are you? A fascist and a scaremonger?”
“It’s simply a differing political viewpoint, Madam President. I prefer to identify myself as… pro-war.”
“I’m glad you like war,” hissed the President. “Because if you kill me today, it’s all you’re going to know for the rest of your lives.”
***
“I might be able to help you,” murmured the Doctor. “Might. No promises – I’ll need the President’s support.”
Kassandra cut him short, wearily. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
The Doctor frowned.
“I suspect the President will be dead by now. Or rather, the President will be Rassilon.”
The Doctor put his head in his hands, and Kassandra and Jasmine looked at each other uneasily. Was he… crying?
The answer was not quite, but close. He lifted his head out, and his eyes were red, his hair was messed up, and his expression had fallen. “Sagacity,” he whispered. “Oh, Sagacity…” He stood up, and gestured for Jasmine to follow. She didn’t always do what she was told – and didn’t like being told – but she would have chosen to follow the Doctor rather than stay here, where she felt her feet were never quite touching the ground beneath them.
“I was right,” said the Doctor. “This society is diseased and there’s nothing I can do to help it.”
“If you leave now, you will not be able to stop Rassilon’s plans. Please,” urged Kassandra. “He will download all the data from the APC net and implant it back into living bodies. All the people of the Matrix want to do is rest in peace – we don’t want to return to the world, and we don’t want to fight.”
The Doctor headed for the door, trying in anguish to ignore Kassandra’s pleas.
“We don’t want to have to die again!”
He turned around. “If I believed I could do something, Kassandra, I would. I’m sorry. We can’t help you – Gallifrey is beyond redemption now.”
***
The Doctor ducked around the barrier. The main group of Them had gone now, spreading out across the city; their ship still remained outside Victoria Station, guarded by three silent soldiers, whilst the TARDIS was exactly half-way between the Doctor and the vessel. She calculated the distance; she calculated the time it would take her to reach the TARDIS, the time it would take Them to notice her, and then the time it would take Them to freeze her.
It would be risky. Even at her speed… even with the certainty of her calculations, she could not be sure that she would make it to the TARDIS on time. And if it all went wrong, if they captured her –
She chose not to think about that. But with no TARDIS and no sonic, she was unconsciously aware that it would probably mean the end for her.
Add extra adrenaline, she thought to herself. Factor in the knowledge that your life is on the edge.
She would run just a little bit faster, respond just a little bit quicker…
That was all she needed. She wished herself luck, and ran for her ship.
They saw her instantly, and fired a warning shot. The Doctor ducked, and the shot bounced off the TARDIS exterior, smashing through the theatre window opposite. She took the one chance she had, and reached around for the door, dashing inside. As she slammed it behind her, she saw the rays of another shot through the glass.
She dashed to the library, almost losing it in the hapless string of rooms. She found the section, opened the drawer, and took it out.
You little beauty.
She tossed the device up and down gently in her hand. Small, square and very discrete, it would clip onto the inside of her jacket as she was taken onto the ship. After a specified amount of time – she entered three minutes – it would wake her from cryogenic sleep.
“Nap time,” she murmured to herself, and attached the device to her jacket inside, before heading back to the console room.
She took one last look at the TARDIS interior: one last look at her deep red time rotor, her bronze roundels, and her old, creaking rocking-chair which had found its place in the corner of the room. She took it all in one last time, just in case.
And then she took a deep breath, and stepped outside her ship.
They had expected her, somehow. A group of four were gathered together, and scanning her with the rounded stubs at the end of their arms.
To the people of Earth, she realised, they looked like something out of a cartoon: some twisted vision of the future, censored for the benefit of children; a monster dressed up as a friend. They must have looked so alien, with their featureless, pale faces.
They weren’t. She had met Them before; she knew. The suits they wore protected their bodies from weaponry, but more importantly, protected their consciences. Beneath the suits were ordinary human bodies – and if they stepped out in them, they would look no different to the creatures they were slaughtering.
The result was that the people of Earth thought they were fighting grotesque creatures; thought they were fighting aliens, monsters, demons, things beyond understanding, whose souls were twisted and cracked, and whose minds worked according to a terrible, ugly logic.
The truth was that by assuming that the evil was alien, the people of Earth truly would never understand these creatures. To do that would have required looking inwards rather than outwards – looking to their own basest tendencies, rather than what they could project onto the races they did not understand.
On another world, another race of humans developed. They learnt to travel, and they found others like themselves. So they butchered them – because it was all they knew how to do, and because they could.
The Doctor sighed – They were only human.
The scan completed.
“Health test – passed.”
The Doctor closed her eyes, and prepared to be taken aboard.
***
The Doctor stood up and looked around. He did not know how he had got here. He did not know…
“I…”
He scratched his head. This place was a… he searched for the word. Wasteland. Yes, that seemed to fit. It suited the random beams that jutted out of the ground across this desert landscape, the result of some kind of industrial accident, perhaps. He shivered. This place was cold. So cold, that…
So could that he couldn’t…
“W-where am I?” he stammered, trying to stop his teeth chattering. “How did I get here?”
“Oh, Doctor. Hello.”
The Doctor turned around slowly to face the voice. The wind was now blowing in his face, carrying ice with it. He quivered. His lips were dry, and he was losing his balance. If only he could remember how he had…
“Confusing, isn’t it?”
“But you’re…” The Doctor recognised her. Or, at least, he recognised the shape, but he did not recognise the voice, the intonation, and did not seem to understand why those words were leaving that form.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“J…” the Doctor wobbled as he moved forward, squinting to make out the woman’s appearance. “Jasmine?”
“No.” She laughed. “Jasmine is a fine young specimen, though – pretty, healthy, even charismatic. So I thought it seemed right to take her form.”
The Doctor tried another name, sure that this one was right.
“Eris.”
“Well done.” The woman clapped mockingly. She seemed unaffected by the climate: in fact, she seemed to be thriving in it.
“What have you done to Jasmine?”
“Absolutely nothing, I assure you. She’s ahead of you, ready to make her way out of the Matrix alone if she has to. Which, of course, she will.” Eris stepped forward, towering over the Doctor, even though Jasmine was meant to be much shorter. “This is where it ends, isn’t it, Doctor? Our deaths?”
“That’s not where it has to end. Please, Eris,” the Doctor urged. “Just stop.”
“I am destructive, Doctor, self-destructive. I am a whirlwind, spiralling inwards and taking everything within my reach with me. You see a young woman before you, but all I am is lines of code – and that’s all you are here, too. And I can re-write yours. I wonder which digit gives you that will to continue? Which one represents your philosophy?”
“Stop it,” said the Doctor. As he tried to advance on Eris, he fell to the floor, his face hitting the ice. The whole place had frozen over now, and Eris appeared taller than ever. “Stop…”
“I wonder how long it will be until Jasmine will no longer be able to recognise you. I wonder how far I can go before people stop calling you the Doctor…”
***
“I…”
He scratched his head. This place was a… he searched for the word. Wasteland. Yes, that seemed to fit. It suited the random beams that jutted out of the ground across this desert landscape, the result of some kind of industrial accident, perhaps. He shivered. This place was cold. So cold, that…
So could that he couldn’t…
“W-where am I?” he stammered, trying to stop his teeth chattering. “How did I get here?”
“Oh, Doctor. Hello.”
The Doctor turned around slowly to face the voice. The wind was now blowing in his face, carrying ice with it. He quivered. His lips were dry, and he was losing his balance. If only he could remember how he had…
“Confusing, isn’t it?”
“But you’re…” The Doctor recognised her. Or, at least, he recognised the shape, but he did not recognise the voice, the intonation, and did not seem to understand why those words were leaving that form.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“J…” the Doctor wobbled as he moved forward, squinting to make out the woman’s appearance. “Jasmine?”
“No.” She laughed. “Jasmine is a fine young specimen, though – pretty, healthy, even charismatic. So I thought it seemed right to take her form.”
The Doctor tried another name, sure that this one was right.
“Eris.”
“Well done.” The woman clapped mockingly. She seemed unaffected by the climate: in fact, she seemed to be thriving in it.
“What have you done to Jasmine?”
“Absolutely nothing, I assure you. She’s ahead of you, ready to make her way out of the Matrix alone if she has to. Which, of course, she will.” Eris stepped forward, towering over the Doctor, even though Jasmine was meant to be much shorter. “This is where it ends, isn’t it, Doctor? Our deaths?”
“That’s not where it has to end. Please, Eris,” the Doctor urged. “Just stop.”
“I am destructive, Doctor, self-destructive. I am a whirlwind, spiralling inwards and taking everything within my reach with me. You see a young woman before you, but all I am is lines of code – and that’s all you are here, too. And I can re-write yours. I wonder which digit gives you that will to continue? Which one represents your philosophy?”
“Stop it,” said the Doctor. As he tried to advance on Eris, he fell to the floor, his face hitting the ice. The whole place had frozen over now, and Eris appeared taller than ever. “Stop…”
“I wonder how long it will be until Jasmine will no longer be able to recognise you. I wonder how far I can go before people stop calling you the Doctor…”
***
The Doctor felt a jolt as her eyes opened.
She heaved, pushing the door to the storage chamber open before she froze to death. She quickly disposed of the device from inside her jacket, hoping she would never have cause to use it again.
After taking another moment to be repulsed at what variations of the human species could be capable of, she thanked the universe for the fact that these aliens were a familiar species. The spaceship was designed much like the spaceships she had seen from the human empires; well-lit, sleek, with isolated command decks.
She scanned her eyes over the controls, wishing that her sonic screwdriver had not been destroyed. They were easy enough. She opted first to wake all the prisoners out of cryo-sleep, and lead them to the back exit. She would have to act quickly: it would be only minutes at most before some of Them noticed that the prisoners were leaving the ship, and re-entered to find out why.
The Doctor continued to prioritise, and chose the second button to press. After doing so, she got out her phone, searching for Robin’s number. Her friend answered only seconds later.
“Doctor!” came the response. “Is that you? Did it work?”
“I’m inside their ship now,” the Doctor whispered, and turned around. The front entrance was still clear, and all the prisoners had left. “Tell Ward it’s safe to bomb it now.”
“But you said…”
“I said I didn’t want any innocents getting killed, Robin. I’ve got the prisoners out, so that isn’t going to happen.” The Doctor waited for a response, checking her watch anxiously. “Robin…”
“What about you?” came Robin’s response. “You’re innocent.”
“I’ll be fine,” reassured the Doctor, calculating the distance to the exit. “Just give Ward the order.”
Robin considered. “Okay.” The Doctor listened closely to the other side of the call. Robin was doing as she had asked.
“One more thing,” said the Doctor. “Robin, please don’t ever feel guilty.”
“For what?”
“I know. About what happened that Christmas, about Gabriel. I knew from the start. I even knew you’d try – what mother wouldn’t, Robin? I know. I would have done the same, and I’m speaking as a parent, as one who’s lost…” She trailed off.
“You’re not a parent,” said Robin, confused.
“Not when you’ve known me. It’s been a long time. Robin, Tommy said when you thought you were going to die that you’d told me you were sorry. Don’t be. As soon as you fell asleep in the TARDIS, I put it right. I’d expected it, I let it happen, and it helped you to grieve. So shoulders up, Mrs McKnight. Put it behind you – and carry on being brilliant.”
“Wow…” There was a muffled sound on the other side. “It really is you, isn’t it? You’re… you’re my Doctor.”
“Yes, I am.” The Doctor smiled to herself. “And it was wonderful meeting you one last time, Robin McKnight. I’d never expected it – but it was always an honour.”
The sound of aircrafts rattled overhead. The Doctor hung up the phone, and prepared for the blast.
***
Aeneas held his finger over the trigger. His arm trembled. The gun was so heavy. They never showed that – those generals, those heroes, those men plastered over posters and in films and demonstrations – they never showed the sheer weight of those weapons.
“You don’t have to do this,” said the President.
She can see I’m scared. Aeneas looked down again at his hand. The more he tried to steady it, the more it shook. She can see I’m having second thoughts.
“It’s not too late to stop the war; it’s not too late to turn all of this around. Just lower the gun and we can do this together. Please.”
“The Daleks will destroy us!” roared Aeneas.
“They won’t.” The President shook her head. “They won’t, that’s just what you’ve been told.”
“I know! I know more than you, I know what’s coming, I… I can’t…”
“The world waits one week longer than your faith, soldier,” said the President. “There’s no turning back if you kill me, but give the universe seven more days. Just seven days.”
“HOW MANY WEEKS DO YOU THINK I’VE WAITED?!” cried Aeneas. “How long do you think I’ve considered this? How many times do you think I’ve wished there was another way?”
The President sighed.
“Only Rassilon can save Gallifrey, I…” He held the gun to the President’s head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too, soldier,” murmured the President. “I’ve let you down. And tell the Doctor I’m sorry I let him down, too.”
She looked down at the Doctor, still lying on the bed, wired into the Matrix. Aeneas took the opportunity while the President was looking away, and fired straight, a single shot. She collapsed to the floor, and was dead in an instant.
***
The Doctor and Jasmine were running. That was all they knew. Running, through the darkness, towards something.
They threw themselves down on a hard surface. They pressed all their weight on it. It began to shift. They were…
“Doctor?”
They both stumbled at first, not even conscious of the voice addressing them. The daylight was as blinding as it had been unexpected, making the space behind their eyes sting. The place they had arrived at could have been Paradise, except the floor was strewn with broken bodies.
Yes… the Doctor looked around, taking it in, and picked up shortly after Jasmine where they were.
“There’s a physical link to the Matrix in Westminster Abbey,” he explained, turning round and checking he had the right building. “The Master created it a while back. We’ve escaped Gallifrey and we’re not going back…”
But once his explanation was done, the Doctor was speechless: more speechless than Jasmine had ever seen him. Instead he simply looked on, trying to take in the scene around him. Their armour was torn, and you could see their skin through it: human skin, though pale white and bloody. And They were all dead.
The Doctor’s explanations had no place here. Nothing could explain what they were watching now.
“Is it…” a smartly-dressed young man in front of them edged forward, and Jasmine found herself smiling. She recognised him straight away. “Is it you?”
“Yes, Tommy,” said Jasmine, softly. “It’s me.”
“And… are you…?”
“I’m Jasmine Sparks,” she replied. She stepped forward, and shook his hand. “And it really is wonderful to meet you, Tommy Lindsay.”
Tommy tried to hide his disappointment. He didn’t notice his despair: his despair at the loss of Autumn, which seemed to pervade every moment. And so he was able to hide it; he masked his despair with disappointment, and as a result, failed to hide his disappointment.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” he said, and looked down again at all the bodies. The Doctor stayed where he was, a good few metres away, shocked and appalled at how an alien invasion could be dealt with.
“What the hell happened?” whispered Jasmine.
Tommy leaned closer. As Jasmine too leaned in, she could see further down the street. The line continued for miles, and other civilians were beginning to look on too. Mothers reached out to veil their children’s eyes, seconds too late. There were screams.
“Who did this?”
Tommy looked back to the spot they had been stood in before. The ship was gone. Which meant…
Which must have meant she had survived.
Tommy looked back at Jasmine darkly, then down again at the trail of blood. “The Doctor.”
***
Gallifrey
The crowds gathered again around that ancient building. Today’s storm was worse than all the rest: it covered the whole sky, replacing burnt red with dull, dead grey. Occasionally, the sound of thunder gave the people something to think about.
“I haven’t seen that Jasmine Sparks woman again,” murmured the first philosopher to his colleague. “I liked her.”
“I think you should be more worried about the President. She hasn’t been here for weeks.”
“Then why do we still wait?”
“Faith, I suppose?” The philosopher shrugged, and cursed his own lack of insight. “Look!” He pointed to the balcony: a shadow was falling over it. “There’s someone…”
The shadow was not that of the President – it was not that of a woman. It was tall and stout; something seemed off about one of the arms, and they recognised a gold staff which a President had not carried for years.
The man emerged.
“But wait a moment!” a man exclaimed. “That looks like…”
The crowd gasped as they realised who he was. As he stared down at them, they tried to calm themselves: they knew he would remember their faces, and they knew he would kill whichever one of them expressed what they really felt. A few at the front bowed nervously.
“I… this is…” the second philosopher shook his head. “This is it.”
“I AM RASSILON!” the President bellowed, and across Gallifrey, everyone’s worst suspicions became true. “The traitor you had all followed has been killed. Gallifrey will be great again!”
“Gallifrey will be great again!” the crowd found themselves chanting. “Gallifrey will be great!”
***
She heaved, pushing the door to the storage chamber open before she froze to death. She quickly disposed of the device from inside her jacket, hoping she would never have cause to use it again.
After taking another moment to be repulsed at what variations of the human species could be capable of, she thanked the universe for the fact that these aliens were a familiar species. The spaceship was designed much like the spaceships she had seen from the human empires; well-lit, sleek, with isolated command decks.
She scanned her eyes over the controls, wishing that her sonic screwdriver had not been destroyed. They were easy enough. She opted first to wake all the prisoners out of cryo-sleep, and lead them to the back exit. She would have to act quickly: it would be only minutes at most before some of Them noticed that the prisoners were leaving the ship, and re-entered to find out why.
The Doctor continued to prioritise, and chose the second button to press. After doing so, she got out her phone, searching for Robin’s number. Her friend answered only seconds later.
“Doctor!” came the response. “Is that you? Did it work?”
“I’m inside their ship now,” the Doctor whispered, and turned around. The front entrance was still clear, and all the prisoners had left. “Tell Ward it’s safe to bomb it now.”
“But you said…”
“I said I didn’t want any innocents getting killed, Robin. I’ve got the prisoners out, so that isn’t going to happen.” The Doctor waited for a response, checking her watch anxiously. “Robin…”
“What about you?” came Robin’s response. “You’re innocent.”
“I’ll be fine,” reassured the Doctor, calculating the distance to the exit. “Just give Ward the order.”
Robin considered. “Okay.” The Doctor listened closely to the other side of the call. Robin was doing as she had asked.
“One more thing,” said the Doctor. “Robin, please don’t ever feel guilty.”
“For what?”
“I know. About what happened that Christmas, about Gabriel. I knew from the start. I even knew you’d try – what mother wouldn’t, Robin? I know. I would have done the same, and I’m speaking as a parent, as one who’s lost…” She trailed off.
“You’re not a parent,” said Robin, confused.
“Not when you’ve known me. It’s been a long time. Robin, Tommy said when you thought you were going to die that you’d told me you were sorry. Don’t be. As soon as you fell asleep in the TARDIS, I put it right. I’d expected it, I let it happen, and it helped you to grieve. So shoulders up, Mrs McKnight. Put it behind you – and carry on being brilliant.”
“Wow…” There was a muffled sound on the other side. “It really is you, isn’t it? You’re… you’re my Doctor.”
“Yes, I am.” The Doctor smiled to herself. “And it was wonderful meeting you one last time, Robin McKnight. I’d never expected it – but it was always an honour.”
The sound of aircrafts rattled overhead. The Doctor hung up the phone, and prepared for the blast.
***
Aeneas held his finger over the trigger. His arm trembled. The gun was so heavy. They never showed that – those generals, those heroes, those men plastered over posters and in films and demonstrations – they never showed the sheer weight of those weapons.
“You don’t have to do this,” said the President.
She can see I’m scared. Aeneas looked down again at his hand. The more he tried to steady it, the more it shook. She can see I’m having second thoughts.
“It’s not too late to stop the war; it’s not too late to turn all of this around. Just lower the gun and we can do this together. Please.”
“The Daleks will destroy us!” roared Aeneas.
“They won’t.” The President shook her head. “They won’t, that’s just what you’ve been told.”
“I know! I know more than you, I know what’s coming, I… I can’t…”
“The world waits one week longer than your faith, soldier,” said the President. “There’s no turning back if you kill me, but give the universe seven more days. Just seven days.”
“HOW MANY WEEKS DO YOU THINK I’VE WAITED?!” cried Aeneas. “How long do you think I’ve considered this? How many times do you think I’ve wished there was another way?”
The President sighed.
“Only Rassilon can save Gallifrey, I…” He held the gun to the President’s head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too, soldier,” murmured the President. “I’ve let you down. And tell the Doctor I’m sorry I let him down, too.”
She looked down at the Doctor, still lying on the bed, wired into the Matrix. Aeneas took the opportunity while the President was looking away, and fired straight, a single shot. She collapsed to the floor, and was dead in an instant.
***
The Doctor and Jasmine were running. That was all they knew. Running, through the darkness, towards something.
They threw themselves down on a hard surface. They pressed all their weight on it. It began to shift. They were…
“Doctor?”
They both stumbled at first, not even conscious of the voice addressing them. The daylight was as blinding as it had been unexpected, making the space behind their eyes sting. The place they had arrived at could have been Paradise, except the floor was strewn with broken bodies.
Yes… the Doctor looked around, taking it in, and picked up shortly after Jasmine where they were.
“There’s a physical link to the Matrix in Westminster Abbey,” he explained, turning round and checking he had the right building. “The Master created it a while back. We’ve escaped Gallifrey and we’re not going back…”
But once his explanation was done, the Doctor was speechless: more speechless than Jasmine had ever seen him. Instead he simply looked on, trying to take in the scene around him. Their armour was torn, and you could see their skin through it: human skin, though pale white and bloody. And They were all dead.
The Doctor’s explanations had no place here. Nothing could explain what they were watching now.
“Is it…” a smartly-dressed young man in front of them edged forward, and Jasmine found herself smiling. She recognised him straight away. “Is it you?”
“Yes, Tommy,” said Jasmine, softly. “It’s me.”
“And… are you…?”
“I’m Jasmine Sparks,” she replied. She stepped forward, and shook his hand. “And it really is wonderful to meet you, Tommy Lindsay.”
Tommy tried to hide his disappointment. He didn’t notice his despair: his despair at the loss of Autumn, which seemed to pervade every moment. And so he was able to hide it; he masked his despair with disappointment, and as a result, failed to hide his disappointment.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” he said, and looked down again at all the bodies. The Doctor stayed where he was, a good few metres away, shocked and appalled at how an alien invasion could be dealt with.
“What the hell happened?” whispered Jasmine.
Tommy leaned closer. As Jasmine too leaned in, she could see further down the street. The line continued for miles, and other civilians were beginning to look on too. Mothers reached out to veil their children’s eyes, seconds too late. There were screams.
“Who did this?”
Tommy looked back to the spot they had been stood in before. The ship was gone. Which meant…
Which must have meant she had survived.
Tommy looked back at Jasmine darkly, then down again at the trail of blood. “The Doctor.”
***
Gallifrey
The crowds gathered again around that ancient building. Today’s storm was worse than all the rest: it covered the whole sky, replacing burnt red with dull, dead grey. Occasionally, the sound of thunder gave the people something to think about.
“I haven’t seen that Jasmine Sparks woman again,” murmured the first philosopher to his colleague. “I liked her.”
“I think you should be more worried about the President. She hasn’t been here for weeks.”
“Then why do we still wait?”
“Faith, I suppose?” The philosopher shrugged, and cursed his own lack of insight. “Look!” He pointed to the balcony: a shadow was falling over it. “There’s someone…”
The shadow was not that of the President – it was not that of a woman. It was tall and stout; something seemed off about one of the arms, and they recognised a gold staff which a President had not carried for years.
The man emerged.
“But wait a moment!” a man exclaimed. “That looks like…”
The crowd gasped as they realised who he was. As he stared down at them, they tried to calm themselves: they knew he would remember their faces, and they knew he would kill whichever one of them expressed what they really felt. A few at the front bowed nervously.
“I… this is…” the second philosopher shook his head. “This is it.”
“I AM RASSILON!” the President bellowed, and across Gallifrey, everyone’s worst suspicions became true. “The traitor you had all followed has been killed. Gallifrey will be great again!”
“Gallifrey will be great again!” the crowd found themselves chanting. “Gallifrey will be great!”
***
The Doctor had transported his friends to a beach in Hawaii, just in time for the sunset. From a distance, the palm trees looked like the legs of flamingos, some straight and others at a curve, all meeting at the same point. The sand glowed orange from the sky, and the waves lapped up, cooling Tommy’s feet as he watched the clouds on the horizon, so far out at sea they had the appearance of mountains.
The sun, just going down, was reflected in the sea. Soon, it would sink below those depths.
The Doctor had taken them to a beach bar, run by one man who seemed to know the Doctor well. It had the traditional thatched roof, though it looked like it had survived a few storms. A stray cat wandered around, skinny and grubby. Jasmine wondered how it was so skinny; it seemed to live on leftover scraps of food, and there seemed to be a lot of them.
“I can’t remember a thing.” The Doctor picked up a pebble and dashed it across the sea. It bounced three times. “I remember meeting Eris, but that’s it where recollections are concerned. There are things I know, of course. I know I defeated her, and I know I fled from Gallifrey with no intention to return. But I don’t know how I did it. I wonder why I can’t remember…”
“Try being me,” chuckled Jasmine. “It’s a lot more frustrating when you can’t remember a whole life.”
The Doctor nodded. “Yes, of course. It probably is.” He watched Tommy, paddling in the water. He seemed to be in his own world, and saw something out at sea that no one else was able to recognise. “Have you spoken to him?” the Doctor asked, noticing that Jasmine was watching him too.
“Um, sort of.” Jasmine grimaced. “It was a bit awkward.”
“You just need to get to know each other. Explain everything to him.”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “You do remember how we met, don’t you?”
“Okay,” admitted the Doctor, “maybe not everything. But enough so that he understands.”
“I get you.” Jasmine patted him on the back. “I’ll go and have a chat.”
She wandered over to Tommy, and the Doctor noticed that Robin had crept up and joined him. She looked older. He decided not to mention that.
“Long time, no see,” said Robin.
“Indeed. How’s Gabriel?”
“Growing up quickly. So.” She looked him up and down, assessing if anything had changed. He shifted uncomfortably – if anyone ever had the measure of him, it was certainly Robin McKnight. “You went home at last, apparently.”
“How do you know that?”
Because a genocidal future incarnation told us that, Robin wanted to say, but didn’t – she couldn’t. And besides: however bad that line of bodies looked, the Doctor had saved her husband’s life, got him out of that ship alive.
“Tommy told me,” she lied, but it could have been true. “God told him.”
“Of course he did,” muttered the Doctor. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing a lot of him.”
Robin nodded towards the patch where Jasmine and Tommy were standing. They were smiling and laughing already. She chuckled in the way that she did when she watched the young people in school: wishing she could still be one of them, but enjoying it and understanding it from her new perspective.
“You found her, then? Your Jasmine?”
“I did, yes. All down to you, Robin. I did thank you, didn’t I?”
“Quite a few times,” Robin laughed. “In the space of about a minute. Then you shot away and I didn’t see you for the first year of Gabriel’s life.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.” She brought the subject back to the one she had started. “So what’s she like?”
“I’m not sure yet.” The Doctor realised that wouldn’t satisfy Robin. “Smart, funny, wise beyond her years. Always has the upper hand, but never abuses that fact. Trustworthy, I’d say, but with more sides to her than she lets on. And about as much of a mystery to me as she is to you.”
***
“I like this guy’s taste in music,” remarked Jasmine, looking back to the barman, who had turned spontaneously into a DJ.
“I requested the song,” said Tommy. “I knew Autumn liked it.”
“I remember it,” murmured Jasmine, then came back to her senses. “I’ve heard it a few times before. They played it at my prom.”
She thought about that. Something didn’t seem right. She realised, then, that she did not even go to her own prom.
“So you’re travelling with him?” asked Tommy.
“Yes, I am.” Jasmine took a swig of her coca cola. “How couldn’t you?”
“Good point.”
There was an awkward silence. Jasmine went to take another sip, but realised she had finished the whole thing. The empty glass in her hand made things ten times more awkward.
“Come with us,” she said, suddenly. “Come back, Tommy. Don’t tell me you don’t want to.”
“I…” Tommy was trying not to smile. He looked up at the TARDIS, parked in the sand next to a parasol. “I’m not sure he wants me.”
“Tommy, do you know how much he regretted dropping you off? I think he wants you in the TARDIS more than he wants me. Come on – just the three of us. It’ll be fun. It’ll be just like…”
Just like the old days, she wanted to say. But it wouldn’t be. She knew it couldn’t ever be But she would make sure it was as close as she could make it.
“Okay then.” Tommy grinned. “I’d like that. But I’m starting to get, y’know, a political career now, so…”
“Home in time for tea! Got it.”
“And before we set off, I need a splash in this sea.”
“Yeah, why not?” Jasmine slipped off her flip-flops, and put the glass back on the bar-top. She dipped a toe in the water, and happy with the temperature, moved further in.
“You visited Hawaii before?” asked Tommy.
“Visited?” Jasmine laughed. “This is where I lived.”
Tommy smiled again, this one a perplexed, fascinated smile which Jasmine had not seen before.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Looks like you’re going to have to find out,” teased Jasmine. She stopped, finding a spot she was comfortable in. Tommy splashed, spraying seawater over Jasmine’s hair and onto her back.
“Ooh, you little s…” She got him back, making a bigger splash his way, and covering his shirt.
“Right, I’m going to have to get you back for that one…”
***
The Doctor stood back against the door of his ship. They had not even noticed him slip away. He watched his friends fondly: he watched the barman, pouring more cocktails; he watched Robin and Chris as they sat back on deckchairs, watching the sun disappear below the horizon. And last of all, he watched Jasmine and Tommy, playing together in the sea, all tension out of the way already.
He wished it could all stay like this: he wished he could park his TARDIS up here and let it sink deeper into the sand. Every night could be a party, every world could be a beach. Every friend could be happy, every song could be beautiful.
He shivered. The sun had nearly set. A breeze was starting up from the east, and the barman began packing up for the night. The moment was lost already, and he had spent it all worrying it would end.
The Doctor felt every breeze now, noticed every tiny shift in the air, and tried to ignore the voice deep in his brain. He wished he could do away with that extra sense. As he watched his friends, he hoped that they would be wise enough to make the most of this.
Because it was coming to an end.
War was coming.
He got out his key, and prepared to head back into the TARDIS, to drop Robin and Chris home and take Jasmine and Tommy away. He intended to run as far across the universe as it would take to escape Gallifrey.
It wasn’t just any war. He knew what was happening: what was always doomed to happen from the moment the Time Lords came into existence. Two words which should never, ever end up together, but which were always going to. The two words he could never fight:
Time War.
The sun, just going down, was reflected in the sea. Soon, it would sink below those depths.
The Doctor had taken them to a beach bar, run by one man who seemed to know the Doctor well. It had the traditional thatched roof, though it looked like it had survived a few storms. A stray cat wandered around, skinny and grubby. Jasmine wondered how it was so skinny; it seemed to live on leftover scraps of food, and there seemed to be a lot of them.
“I can’t remember a thing.” The Doctor picked up a pebble and dashed it across the sea. It bounced three times. “I remember meeting Eris, but that’s it where recollections are concerned. There are things I know, of course. I know I defeated her, and I know I fled from Gallifrey with no intention to return. But I don’t know how I did it. I wonder why I can’t remember…”
“Try being me,” chuckled Jasmine. “It’s a lot more frustrating when you can’t remember a whole life.”
The Doctor nodded. “Yes, of course. It probably is.” He watched Tommy, paddling in the water. He seemed to be in his own world, and saw something out at sea that no one else was able to recognise. “Have you spoken to him?” the Doctor asked, noticing that Jasmine was watching him too.
“Um, sort of.” Jasmine grimaced. “It was a bit awkward.”
“You just need to get to know each other. Explain everything to him.”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “You do remember how we met, don’t you?”
“Okay,” admitted the Doctor, “maybe not everything. But enough so that he understands.”
“I get you.” Jasmine patted him on the back. “I’ll go and have a chat.”
She wandered over to Tommy, and the Doctor noticed that Robin had crept up and joined him. She looked older. He decided not to mention that.
“Long time, no see,” said Robin.
“Indeed. How’s Gabriel?”
“Growing up quickly. So.” She looked him up and down, assessing if anything had changed. He shifted uncomfortably – if anyone ever had the measure of him, it was certainly Robin McKnight. “You went home at last, apparently.”
“How do you know that?”
Because a genocidal future incarnation told us that, Robin wanted to say, but didn’t – she couldn’t. And besides: however bad that line of bodies looked, the Doctor had saved her husband’s life, got him out of that ship alive.
“Tommy told me,” she lied, but it could have been true. “God told him.”
“Of course he did,” muttered the Doctor. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing a lot of him.”
Robin nodded towards the patch where Jasmine and Tommy were standing. They were smiling and laughing already. She chuckled in the way that she did when she watched the young people in school: wishing she could still be one of them, but enjoying it and understanding it from her new perspective.
“You found her, then? Your Jasmine?”
“I did, yes. All down to you, Robin. I did thank you, didn’t I?”
“Quite a few times,” Robin laughed. “In the space of about a minute. Then you shot away and I didn’t see you for the first year of Gabriel’s life.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.” She brought the subject back to the one she had started. “So what’s she like?”
“I’m not sure yet.” The Doctor realised that wouldn’t satisfy Robin. “Smart, funny, wise beyond her years. Always has the upper hand, but never abuses that fact. Trustworthy, I’d say, but with more sides to her than she lets on. And about as much of a mystery to me as she is to you.”
***
“I like this guy’s taste in music,” remarked Jasmine, looking back to the barman, who had turned spontaneously into a DJ.
“I requested the song,” said Tommy. “I knew Autumn liked it.”
“I remember it,” murmured Jasmine, then came back to her senses. “I’ve heard it a few times before. They played it at my prom.”
She thought about that. Something didn’t seem right. She realised, then, that she did not even go to her own prom.
“So you’re travelling with him?” asked Tommy.
“Yes, I am.” Jasmine took a swig of her coca cola. “How couldn’t you?”
“Good point.”
There was an awkward silence. Jasmine went to take another sip, but realised she had finished the whole thing. The empty glass in her hand made things ten times more awkward.
“Come with us,” she said, suddenly. “Come back, Tommy. Don’t tell me you don’t want to.”
“I…” Tommy was trying not to smile. He looked up at the TARDIS, parked in the sand next to a parasol. “I’m not sure he wants me.”
“Tommy, do you know how much he regretted dropping you off? I think he wants you in the TARDIS more than he wants me. Come on – just the three of us. It’ll be fun. It’ll be just like…”
Just like the old days, she wanted to say. But it wouldn’t be. She knew it couldn’t ever be But she would make sure it was as close as she could make it.
“Okay then.” Tommy grinned. “I’d like that. But I’m starting to get, y’know, a political career now, so…”
“Home in time for tea! Got it.”
“And before we set off, I need a splash in this sea.”
“Yeah, why not?” Jasmine slipped off her flip-flops, and put the glass back on the bar-top. She dipped a toe in the water, and happy with the temperature, moved further in.
“You visited Hawaii before?” asked Tommy.
“Visited?” Jasmine laughed. “This is where I lived.”
Tommy smiled again, this one a perplexed, fascinated smile which Jasmine had not seen before.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Looks like you’re going to have to find out,” teased Jasmine. She stopped, finding a spot she was comfortable in. Tommy splashed, spraying seawater over Jasmine’s hair and onto her back.
“Ooh, you little s…” She got him back, making a bigger splash his way, and covering his shirt.
“Right, I’m going to have to get you back for that one…”
***
The Doctor stood back against the door of his ship. They had not even noticed him slip away. He watched his friends fondly: he watched the barman, pouring more cocktails; he watched Robin and Chris as they sat back on deckchairs, watching the sun disappear below the horizon. And last of all, he watched Jasmine and Tommy, playing together in the sea, all tension out of the way already.
He wished it could all stay like this: he wished he could park his TARDIS up here and let it sink deeper into the sand. Every night could be a party, every world could be a beach. Every friend could be happy, every song could be beautiful.
He shivered. The sun had nearly set. A breeze was starting up from the east, and the barman began packing up for the night. The moment was lost already, and he had spent it all worrying it would end.
The Doctor felt every breeze now, noticed every tiny shift in the air, and tried to ignore the voice deep in his brain. He wished he could do away with that extra sense. As he watched his friends, he hoped that they would be wise enough to make the most of this.
Because it was coming to an end.
War was coming.
He got out his key, and prepared to head back into the TARDIS, to drop Robin and Chris home and take Jasmine and Tommy away. He intended to run as far across the universe as it would take to escape Gallifrey.
It wasn’t just any war. He knew what was happening: what was always doomed to happen from the moment the Time Lords came into existence. Two words which should never, ever end up together, but which were always going to. The two words he could never fight:
Time War.
Next Time: To Kill a MemoriteWhen Tommy's birthday present goes wrong, the Doctor finds himself entangled in the life of none other than the legendary novelist, Nelle Harper Lee. But it's not just Lee whose life and works are in danger - the words are disappearing from some of history's greatest texts, and as the Doctor is about to discover, literature moves the world in many unexpected ways...
To Kill a Memorite will be published on Saturday 27th August. |
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