Prologue
Red bolts of light smashed into the ground around them, whizzing past their heads and singeing their hair. Jasmine screamed, and the Doctor pulled her down as they dropped to the floor, shielding her head from the blasts. Around them a ring of small and sporadic, white-hot fires had been made.
When the shooting stopped, the Doctor and Jasmine looked up. Each of the dancers surrounded them, aiming their stasers right at the pair, each one primed to kill. There was no escape now.
The Doctor heard clapping, and the sound of a woman whooping and howling.
The Master made her way through the firing squad, tears of laughter rolling down her face. “This is so good!” she called, a manic grin spread across her face. “God. I’m loving this. This story has everything -- ghosts and ghouls, secrets and suspense, a twist in the second act. It’s a shame we’re so close to the end, but then, that’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it? So what do you say, Autumn?”
She raised her arm, and snapped her fingers. Behind the Doctor, a pair of enormous steel doors began to open with a scream, revealing a pitch-dark beyond.
The Master turned her eyes back to Jasmine. “I think it’s time you learnt the truth.”
When the shooting stopped, the Doctor and Jasmine looked up. Each of the dancers surrounded them, aiming their stasers right at the pair, each one primed to kill. There was no escape now.
The Doctor heard clapping, and the sound of a woman whooping and howling.
The Master made her way through the firing squad, tears of laughter rolling down her face. “This is so good!” she called, a manic grin spread across her face. “God. I’m loving this. This story has everything -- ghosts and ghouls, secrets and suspense, a twist in the second act. It’s a shame we’re so close to the end, but then, that’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it? So what do you say, Autumn?”
She raised her arm, and snapped her fingers. Behind the Doctor, a pair of enormous steel doors began to open with a scream, revealing a pitch-dark beyond.
The Master turned her eyes back to Jasmine. “I think it’s time you learnt the truth.”
The Eighth Doctor Adventures
Series 4 - Episode 10
Dancers on a String
Written by James Blanchard
“Are you frightened?” the Master asked. She went ahead of the Doctor and Jasmine, with Slate and Nihila behind them. The great steel arch seemed to swallow them whole as they entered the darkness beyond, like being consumed by the mouth of some long lost god. I feel like a sacrifice, Jasmine thought, shivering.
“Me?” the Doctor replied. “Obviously. My greatest nemesis is shepherding me into a big dark room at gunpoint, you’d have to be pretty stupid not to be.”
“A pity,” the Master shrugged, sounding dejected. With every step the Master became darker, the shadows closing in on her form, concealing her from view, bit by bit. “It’s harder to prove someone a coward when they don’t feign bravery.”
Jasmine felt the coldness in here, too; her arms and legs, left exposed by the blue dress she’d been forced into, were covered in goosebumps standing taller than she’d ever known. This dress is ridiculous on me anyway, she thought, trying to keep her mind ahead. It’s too cold for me. Would’ve suited Jasmine, though.
She paused her thoughts. Autumn. It would have suited Autumn. Before she died. Not Jasmine, I’m Jasmine.
She was going mad. There wasn’t another explanation; the dark and the cold and the Master constantly calling her Autumn over and over again was driving her over the edge. But the Doctor’s back now. He’ll help me.
Jasmine could see shadows move in the room as her eyes adjusted – humanoid figures of writhing darkness, clinging to the sheer stone walls like vines, trying to climb up them, trying to climb over each other. “The shadows…this room,” she said. “It’s like the one you found me in.”
“That’s right,” the Master answered. “Though yours was merely a sub-siphon, slave to the machine up here. This is the main siphon room. It’s where we exercise control over all the Faces in the city.”
“And the Faces are…what?” the Doctor asked.
“They’re how I escaped, for starters,” the Time Lady said, with an audible grin in her voice. “The barriers between time, space and the rest of reality are weak in this place – I stumbled on the crack in the Matrix that brought me here purely by chance. There are hundreds of them, you know; the Time Lords thought they had sealed Darksong for eternity, not realising the longer they left it, the weaker the prison became.
Anyway. The Faces are just that – disregarded regenerations. Dead Time Lords. Temporal impressions of lives once lived. Ghosts, if you like, just like the kind you find in the Matrix. Only the Matrix keeps them contained, the ghost being forced into the mainframe. Here they wander free, part of the very fabric of the city.”
“I see,” the Doctor said. “That’s how you got out. You forced your way through the cracks, attached yourself to one of the Faces, replacing that impression with your own. All you needed then was a body to steal, and some regeneration energy to remake it.”
“Just so. Even like the animal I was, my instinct took me that route, and the regeneration returned my intelligence to me. And look me now! Back to my old charming, scheming self.”
“I think I preferred you the other way.” They were entering deeper and deeper into the chamber; slowly, the gloom was being replaced by a grey light, turning the party into a parade of walking corpses.
“So,” the Doctor continued. “You built these siphons?”
“I did. It didn’t take me long to engineer an eye of harmony. Nothing impressive, but enough to take control of the space-time of the city, which means I can control the Faces.”
“Control them? Entirely?”
“More or less,” the Master turned her head over her shoulder, flashing the wolfish grin that split her face. In the ghostly grey light, her eyes seemed alive, like a pair of dark, malevolent moons, plotting destruction and dismay on the planet below them. “I told you I had an army.”
Jasmine shivered again. She looked around her, getting a better look at the creatures of shadow that writhed and twisted and growled at each other like animals. They were more distinct; they had eyes and noses, messy hair made of darkness, some even had the impression of a bosom, or big broad shoulders. They look like people, Jasmine realised. Real people, with real lives. She wondered if she’d share their fate, should she die in Darksong as they did.
“You won’t control these creatures forever,” the Doctor was saying. “Others have tried to weaponise the Matrix. Remember the Pirate Queen of Asshai? She stuffed her ship with data slices, filled to the brim with the ghosts ready to fight for her. They barely left the mainframe, in the end. They decided they liked it there.”
“All I remember about the Pirate Queen of Asshai was you getting her pregnant.”
Jasmine turned to him like a shot. “Doctor?!”
“No, no, that wasn’t her, it was her first mate.”
“Her first mate was a genetically altered squid.”
“No it…oh…maybe it was then…”
I barely know him, Jasmine thought. I’ve lived two lives with him, but his life has been longer than all mine put together. She wondered what other tales and secrets he’d hidden from her.
They were approaching the centre of the huge chamber. In a crude circle several jagged glass planes sprung from the floor, arranged like the stones of some bizarre henge. Directly above it hung a huge, curved piece of metal, almost like a bell, the hollow inside dark and foreboding.
“So here we are,” the Master said, striding to the centre of the glass. Here was the brightest place in the room, the gloom almost entirely banished, though no colour was permitted; the grey leeched at everything, even the green of the stone walls. Only the black of the Faces pierced the veil. That, and the Master’s dress.
“So is this where you demonstrate your amazing weapon, am I right?” the Doctor asked. “Tell us your evil plan, tell us there’s no way to stop you, all that. Seems a bit pointless. We know how an army works.”
“Well, you aren’t wrong. There is no way to stop me. Not this time. Not with what I’m about to do.” The Master straightened her dress, drawing breath and straightening her composure. Like she’s about to give the speech of her life. “I have a very specific demonstration in mind. So then, Autumn. I asked you if you were ready to learn the truth. You didn’t answer.”
“What truth?” she asked, and then: “My name isn’t Autumn.”
“Remember what I said, when Slate brought you to me? The Doctor has a secret. A secret that’ll break your heart, little bird.”
“Everyone says this,” the Doctor’s eyes rolled in disapproval. “’The Doctor Has A Secret’. Well it must be a well-kept one, since even I don’t know what it is. We’ve known each other our entire lives, Master. We knew each other as well as we knew ourselves, once. What you could possibly say that would surprise me?”
The Master wasn’t grinning anymore. Still smiling, sure, but more of a sad smile, like one a mother would wear as she told her son some terrible news. “Look around you,” she said, her voice softening with each syllable. “What do you see?”
The Time Lord shrugged. “Stone. Your goons. The…” He paused. A sense of realisation played on his face. Panic flashed in his eyes as they passed over Jasmine. “…Faces.”
“Doctor?” Jasmine asked. “Doctor, what is it?”
His attention was back with the Master, though. “Please,” he said. “Please, you can’t…”
“Of course I can,” the Time Lady gestured to the glass. “I told you there were cracks between here and the Matrix. Gaps of…varying size. We don’t have the power to pull anything through – well, not yet, anyway – but we can see, and observe, and show your little human friend all the secrets of the Time Lords.”
“You don’t need to do this. Just…just tell me what you want.”
“You really will do anything, won’t you?” There was longing in the Master’s voice, like she was begging him, just for once, to see things her way. Whatever way that is. “You’ll do anything to preserve their faith in you.”
“Yes. Yes, okay, you’ve got me. I need to be a hero to them. It keeps me strong, and you need me to be weak. But you have that now. Look at me, I’m begging you – please don’t do this.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” Jasmine said. “But I think I’d really like some answers now.”
“Of course you would, Autumn. Look at you, stood there, looking so strong, standing so tall. It breaks my hearts to have to tear you down. Well, at least one of them, anyway,” with a wave of her hand, the glass planes started to flicker, filling with light, like a TV screen booting up. Images began to form; blurry, at first, but becoming more defined with each passing second, until Jasmine could see…
“People,” she said. “Those are people.” They looked ordinary, and human, though some wore clothes that seemed distinctly alien. They seemed to be trapped in a white room, though fumbled around, some on their hands and knees, as if they were blind. Are they prisoners?
“Almost. We’re just observing data in the Matrix. Think of them as textures, in a virtual reality. Or skins in a video game. Oh look, there I am!” Another wave of the Master’s hand, and the people began zoom away, like she was cycling through a gallery on her phone. The cycle slowed, and eventually stopped, on a woman, tall and fair, blind eyes peering out through hair with purple streaks.
“That’s you,” Jasmine said to the Master, acutely aware she was incapable of saying anything but the obvious. “How can that be you?”
“No, I already told you. That’s just data. I look like her, but that’s only because I’m…well, wearing her,” the Master sighed. “She was a person once, though. Sweet, by all accounts, til I had to hollow her out.”
“Stop this,” the Doctor said. In the light his face had turned to stone, his eyes made hollow by deep-set shadows.
“I don’t understand,” Jasmine took a step back. All the Time Lords had moved in front of her, now – The Doctor, Nihila, Slate, and the Master – all in a semi-circle, all staring at her. “How can you wear a person?”
The Master was scrolling through the gallery of people again. “The Matrix is an archive. It’s where we keep the impressions of dead Time Lords. But there’s a separate level of programming – practically a separate Matrix – where we store the non-Time Lords.”
The scrolling would stop occasionally, focussing on particular people. They were always white, and always men; one had curly blonde hair and a stern face; another was short, with a brown mop.
“That doesn’t explain how you’re wearing them.”
The Time Lady sighed. “What do you think regeneration is, Autumn?”
“It’s…it’s the way Time Lords extend their lives. You fix your injuries by changing your bodies,” she answered. “And my name isn’t Autumn.”
“Yes, we change our biology. But how? Where do the new faces come from?”
“I…” I don’t know! She wanted to scream. I don’t know, just stop playing games and answer me!
The Master pointed to the gallery on the glass. “They come from here.”
“Me?” the Doctor replied. “Obviously. My greatest nemesis is shepherding me into a big dark room at gunpoint, you’d have to be pretty stupid not to be.”
“A pity,” the Master shrugged, sounding dejected. With every step the Master became darker, the shadows closing in on her form, concealing her from view, bit by bit. “It’s harder to prove someone a coward when they don’t feign bravery.”
Jasmine felt the coldness in here, too; her arms and legs, left exposed by the blue dress she’d been forced into, were covered in goosebumps standing taller than she’d ever known. This dress is ridiculous on me anyway, she thought, trying to keep her mind ahead. It’s too cold for me. Would’ve suited Jasmine, though.
She paused her thoughts. Autumn. It would have suited Autumn. Before she died. Not Jasmine, I’m Jasmine.
She was going mad. There wasn’t another explanation; the dark and the cold and the Master constantly calling her Autumn over and over again was driving her over the edge. But the Doctor’s back now. He’ll help me.
Jasmine could see shadows move in the room as her eyes adjusted – humanoid figures of writhing darkness, clinging to the sheer stone walls like vines, trying to climb up them, trying to climb over each other. “The shadows…this room,” she said. “It’s like the one you found me in.”
“That’s right,” the Master answered. “Though yours was merely a sub-siphon, slave to the machine up here. This is the main siphon room. It’s where we exercise control over all the Faces in the city.”
“And the Faces are…what?” the Doctor asked.
“They’re how I escaped, for starters,” the Time Lady said, with an audible grin in her voice. “The barriers between time, space and the rest of reality are weak in this place – I stumbled on the crack in the Matrix that brought me here purely by chance. There are hundreds of them, you know; the Time Lords thought they had sealed Darksong for eternity, not realising the longer they left it, the weaker the prison became.
Anyway. The Faces are just that – disregarded regenerations. Dead Time Lords. Temporal impressions of lives once lived. Ghosts, if you like, just like the kind you find in the Matrix. Only the Matrix keeps them contained, the ghost being forced into the mainframe. Here they wander free, part of the very fabric of the city.”
“I see,” the Doctor said. “That’s how you got out. You forced your way through the cracks, attached yourself to one of the Faces, replacing that impression with your own. All you needed then was a body to steal, and some regeneration energy to remake it.”
“Just so. Even like the animal I was, my instinct took me that route, and the regeneration returned my intelligence to me. And look me now! Back to my old charming, scheming self.”
“I think I preferred you the other way.” They were entering deeper and deeper into the chamber; slowly, the gloom was being replaced by a grey light, turning the party into a parade of walking corpses.
“So,” the Doctor continued. “You built these siphons?”
“I did. It didn’t take me long to engineer an eye of harmony. Nothing impressive, but enough to take control of the space-time of the city, which means I can control the Faces.”
“Control them? Entirely?”
“More or less,” the Master turned her head over her shoulder, flashing the wolfish grin that split her face. In the ghostly grey light, her eyes seemed alive, like a pair of dark, malevolent moons, plotting destruction and dismay on the planet below them. “I told you I had an army.”
Jasmine shivered again. She looked around her, getting a better look at the creatures of shadow that writhed and twisted and growled at each other like animals. They were more distinct; they had eyes and noses, messy hair made of darkness, some even had the impression of a bosom, or big broad shoulders. They look like people, Jasmine realised. Real people, with real lives. She wondered if she’d share their fate, should she die in Darksong as they did.
“You won’t control these creatures forever,” the Doctor was saying. “Others have tried to weaponise the Matrix. Remember the Pirate Queen of Asshai? She stuffed her ship with data slices, filled to the brim with the ghosts ready to fight for her. They barely left the mainframe, in the end. They decided they liked it there.”
“All I remember about the Pirate Queen of Asshai was you getting her pregnant.”
Jasmine turned to him like a shot. “Doctor?!”
“No, no, that wasn’t her, it was her first mate.”
“Her first mate was a genetically altered squid.”
“No it…oh…maybe it was then…”
I barely know him, Jasmine thought. I’ve lived two lives with him, but his life has been longer than all mine put together. She wondered what other tales and secrets he’d hidden from her.
They were approaching the centre of the huge chamber. In a crude circle several jagged glass planes sprung from the floor, arranged like the stones of some bizarre henge. Directly above it hung a huge, curved piece of metal, almost like a bell, the hollow inside dark and foreboding.
“So here we are,” the Master said, striding to the centre of the glass. Here was the brightest place in the room, the gloom almost entirely banished, though no colour was permitted; the grey leeched at everything, even the green of the stone walls. Only the black of the Faces pierced the veil. That, and the Master’s dress.
“So is this where you demonstrate your amazing weapon, am I right?” the Doctor asked. “Tell us your evil plan, tell us there’s no way to stop you, all that. Seems a bit pointless. We know how an army works.”
“Well, you aren’t wrong. There is no way to stop me. Not this time. Not with what I’m about to do.” The Master straightened her dress, drawing breath and straightening her composure. Like she’s about to give the speech of her life. “I have a very specific demonstration in mind. So then, Autumn. I asked you if you were ready to learn the truth. You didn’t answer.”
“What truth?” she asked, and then: “My name isn’t Autumn.”
“Remember what I said, when Slate brought you to me? The Doctor has a secret. A secret that’ll break your heart, little bird.”
“Everyone says this,” the Doctor’s eyes rolled in disapproval. “’The Doctor Has A Secret’. Well it must be a well-kept one, since even I don’t know what it is. We’ve known each other our entire lives, Master. We knew each other as well as we knew ourselves, once. What you could possibly say that would surprise me?”
The Master wasn’t grinning anymore. Still smiling, sure, but more of a sad smile, like one a mother would wear as she told her son some terrible news. “Look around you,” she said, her voice softening with each syllable. “What do you see?”
The Time Lord shrugged. “Stone. Your goons. The…” He paused. A sense of realisation played on his face. Panic flashed in his eyes as they passed over Jasmine. “…Faces.”
“Doctor?” Jasmine asked. “Doctor, what is it?”
His attention was back with the Master, though. “Please,” he said. “Please, you can’t…”
“Of course I can,” the Time Lady gestured to the glass. “I told you there were cracks between here and the Matrix. Gaps of…varying size. We don’t have the power to pull anything through – well, not yet, anyway – but we can see, and observe, and show your little human friend all the secrets of the Time Lords.”
“You don’t need to do this. Just…just tell me what you want.”
“You really will do anything, won’t you?” There was longing in the Master’s voice, like she was begging him, just for once, to see things her way. Whatever way that is. “You’ll do anything to preserve their faith in you.”
“Yes. Yes, okay, you’ve got me. I need to be a hero to them. It keeps me strong, and you need me to be weak. But you have that now. Look at me, I’m begging you – please don’t do this.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” Jasmine said. “But I think I’d really like some answers now.”
“Of course you would, Autumn. Look at you, stood there, looking so strong, standing so tall. It breaks my hearts to have to tear you down. Well, at least one of them, anyway,” with a wave of her hand, the glass planes started to flicker, filling with light, like a TV screen booting up. Images began to form; blurry, at first, but becoming more defined with each passing second, until Jasmine could see…
“People,” she said. “Those are people.” They looked ordinary, and human, though some wore clothes that seemed distinctly alien. They seemed to be trapped in a white room, though fumbled around, some on their hands and knees, as if they were blind. Are they prisoners?
“Almost. We’re just observing data in the Matrix. Think of them as textures, in a virtual reality. Or skins in a video game. Oh look, there I am!” Another wave of the Master’s hand, and the people began zoom away, like she was cycling through a gallery on her phone. The cycle slowed, and eventually stopped, on a woman, tall and fair, blind eyes peering out through hair with purple streaks.
“That’s you,” Jasmine said to the Master, acutely aware she was incapable of saying anything but the obvious. “How can that be you?”
“No, I already told you. That’s just data. I look like her, but that’s only because I’m…well, wearing her,” the Master sighed. “She was a person once, though. Sweet, by all accounts, til I had to hollow her out.”
“Stop this,” the Doctor said. In the light his face had turned to stone, his eyes made hollow by deep-set shadows.
“I don’t understand,” Jasmine took a step back. All the Time Lords had moved in front of her, now – The Doctor, Nihila, Slate, and the Master – all in a semi-circle, all staring at her. “How can you wear a person?”
The Master was scrolling through the gallery of people again. “The Matrix is an archive. It’s where we keep the impressions of dead Time Lords. But there’s a separate level of programming – practically a separate Matrix – where we store the non-Time Lords.”
The scrolling would stop occasionally, focussing on particular people. They were always white, and always men; one had curly blonde hair and a stern face; another was short, with a brown mop.
“That doesn’t explain how you’re wearing them.”
The Time Lady sighed. “What do you think regeneration is, Autumn?”
“It’s…it’s the way Time Lords extend their lives. You fix your injuries by changing your bodies,” she answered. “And my name isn’t Autumn.”
“Yes, we change our biology. But how? Where do the new faces come from?”
“I…” I don’t know! She wanted to scream. I don’t know, just stop playing games and answer me!
The Master pointed to the gallery on the glass. “They come from here.”
“So what?” Jasmine stepped back again, subconsciously putting more distance between her and the Time Lords. “You’ve got an archive of extra faces. That’s not some big secret. That’s not heart-breaking.”
“Jasmine…” the Doctor has been silent for so long his voice made her jump. She could barely tell if he was looking at her through the shadows on his face.
“What?” she cried at him. “What?!”
“We’re Time Lords,” the Master answered for him. “We walk the line between the third and fourth dimensions. Our essence isn’t physical. Only our faces are. And everything else; our voices, our personalities. All just shells, to channel the creature beneath.
But it’s hard to just create a shell – the quirks, the ways of thinking, the lines on its face. All those details are infinitely complex, it’d take power and time even we don’t have. So we just take them, and store them here.”
Jasmine looked at the glass again, studying it, trying to make a note of each face that scrolled past. “You store their faces? These are real people? You make yourselves look like real people? Doctor?”
The Doctor still just stood there, letting the shadow wash over his face.
“No,” the Master continued. “Not just their faces. Their whole lives. We pluck them from the web of time, mute and dilute their influence in history, hollow them out, and store them in here, like…coats on a rack.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jasmine said. It doesn’t make sense. “You can’t take people from history. Every life makes an impact. People would notice that…” She stopped. A face on the glass caught her eyes. It was a face she knew, a face she’d seen hundreds of times, over two different lives.
The man was tall, and handsome, his jaw grey with light stubble. His hair was amazing, his eyes warm and wise, blind though they were in the white abyss he wandered through.
And he was the Doctor.
Or at least, he looked like the Doctor.
Or the Doctor looks like him.
She turned and looked at him, closely, trying to see beyond the shadow – she thought he’d plucked up the courage to actually look at her, by now. At least…I hope.
“You ever passed someone in the street?” the Master was saying, though Jasmine barely heard her. “Or had a teacher, or a friend when you were young? You can remember their words, their actions, the things they did. But never a face, or a voice, or a feeling. Maybe they’re in here somewhere, filed away. We scoop out their lives from the web of time, leave the impact we need to keep its integrity, and keep them for ourselves.
That’s the Doctor’s secret, Autumn. The secret of this whole world. He’s just another vampire, praying on innocent for his own gain. He’s just another villain. A monster in his own story.”
She ignored her. Her mind was spinning; it didn’t have the room for so much at once. She focussed on the Doctor. “You take people,” she said to him. “You steal people, and just…wear them like a mask? Like a costume?” She didn’t feel like she was crying, but her face was wet. “Is that what they are? Costumes, so you can walk among us?”
He wasn’t speaking. She was almost glad – had he answered, she’d have known it was another man’s voice, and cried even more.
Her head hurt. She took another step back, keeping all four of the Time Lords in view. In the light and shadow, they no longer looked like the humans they stole; instead, in her mind, they were transformed into the hideous creatures that lay beneath, tall and hard and grim, terrible things made of stone and ice. Monsters, like the kind she’d been fighting both her lives.
Life. Lives. It doesn’t matter. You have one to spare, Jasmine, what’s to say they won’t steal you?
The voice wasn’t hers, but it rang in her head like a bell, so loud she thought she could feel her skull splintering. She grabbed her forehead, perhaps hoping to keep her brain in place.
You know what I’d have done? I’ve had launched at them. Taken Slate’s staser before he could even move. Then I’d execute them all.
No, Jasmine answered in her own voice. No, that wouldn’t be right.
So? They’re monsters. They’re animals. Justice is for people. Dogs don’t get justice. Dogs get put down.
She pushed the voice away, and wiped the tears from her face. “Doctor,” she said, her voice shaking at every syllable. “This is a lie, right? She’s lying. You don’t steal people out from history, just so you can live longer? That’s wrong.”
“Jasmine…” the Doctor’s own voice was level, but far-away sounding. “I’m sorry.”
Oh god. Oh my god. Whatever happened now, the Master had won. Whether Jasmine left this place alive or dead, there was no filling the new hole in her heart. “How many lives have you taken?”
The Doctor didn’t answer, but the Master placed a finger on her chin. “Alright, I’ll level with you, I’ve lost count.”
“I’m sorry, Jasmine. I really am,” with that, the Doctor turned to the Master. “And I’m sorry for you, too.”
“For me? Well, apology accepted, though I’m not sure what for…?”
“You’re all about to die, that’s what for.”
“And how’d you figure that one out?”
“You brought me straight in here, without searching me, or guarding me properly. Bad move.”
The Master sniggered, though clearly annoyed that her big moment was being undermined. “We both know you’re not armed. Where are you going to go, anyway? I own this city. Every last inch of it.”
The Doctor ignored that. “Your siphon,” he said, nodding upwards. “It emits chronon waves to control the Faces.” Jasmine had forgotten about them; she looked behind her, watching them writhe even more, uncomfortably aware that they were, once, people.
“That’s right,” the Master said, increasingly annoyed.
“And you can vary those waves? Turn the power up and down?”
“Yes, get to the point.”
“So it can be turned off?”
“Yes.” The Master said. Then the panic registered on her face. “No!”
It all happened so quickly, Jasmine barely registered it. In the flash, the Doctor had his sonic screwdriver in hand, raising it above his head. The was a craaacckk, and a flash of light, and then chaos.
The Master was shouting. Slate was shooting. The Faces were launching towards them, swiping at the group with claws of shadow, howling all the time. Slate’s staser zinged, red bolts of light scattering shadows, which reformed almost immediately.
And Jasmine was running. The Doctor has taken her hand, shouted “Run!” as he had so often, and pulled her away.
As she looked over her shoulder, the last thing she saw in the siphon room was Nihila, on her knees, screaming and surrounded by shadow. A terrible black talon reached for her face, and lazily swiped it from her head.
Huh, Jasmine thought, morbidly. That’s actually kinda funny.
***
No rolled the data slice between her fingers nonchalantly. She wished she had two; that way, she might have been able to play a game with them.
I’m not used to being bored, she realised suddenly. She was more used to being terrified – a child of Darksong never lingered in one place for long, or slept under one bed for more than an hour, or let their mind wander for more than a second. That was a recipe for getting harvested.
No touched her mask with a gloved hand, tracing the silver vines that curved beneath the eyes like tears. It feels cold. Everything felt cold, though No didn’t exactly feel. It was more the impression of feeling.
The memory was far away now, but she still understood the significance of her garb. She wore it once a day, every year, as did every child in Darksong, as part of the Dawn Parade.
Traditionally, every child in the city would dress the same for the Dawn Parade – the black mask, decorated with silver, and the black robes. They’d march out together, hundreds of thousands of them, and fill the squares between the towers, back before the surface had turned to ice and shadow.
Then the Philosopher Kings would come out on the balconies, holding their staffs high above their heads, and in unison proclaimed the shadows banished, the days of ignorance over, and each would crack their iron ferulas against the stone, like a roll of thunder loud enough to split the sky.
After that, the children dressed as shadows would scatter, running into the towers and the underground tunnels, until the squares were totally empty, and only the light of the dawn was left.
After that, the celebrations started – the genetic engineers would bring their most beautiful creatures, armies of glowing flutterflies and blue dancing bears, and the fireworks were silver and gold, as large as moons. Young or old, rich or poor, everyone in Darksong loved the Dawn Parade.
All gone now, No recalled sadly. The Capitol had attacked the morning of millennium parade: the children were gathered, the staffs were raised, the shadows were named as banished, and just before the sun rose and the staffs came down, the sky turned black, and the wind turned cold, and the sun was sealed away from the city forever.
No didn’t remember it, exactly. It had been far too long, and she’d been harvested too many times, but the impression of the events was still there. There was running, and crying, and climbing over her friends to try and find the light. In the days that followed the gangs came, with their needles and their cruel hands. And she remembered the fear. Of course I remember the fear. I’ve become a creature of fear. She looked back at the marble in her hand. I really wish I had two.
She looked around her new glass home. The pod probably wasn’t safe – there was only one door in and out, and a staser bolt or two could smash the glass, she reckoned. The control panel was pretty flimsy too, and even if the damned thing could fly, No had no idea how. But all the same, the Doctor had somehow reassured her. He’d come back soon. She had a feeling.
No could hear noise. Normally, that’d have caused her to bolt. Noise meant danger. But this time, No just listened, getting up and pressing her ear (or, where her ear was meant to be) against the glass. There was shouting, definitely, and what sounded like the stinging echo of staser fire. A strange howling, too, like the kind that came from the siphon rooms sometimes. What’s going on?
Then, suddenly, an answer came to her, and the Doctor appeared, running full tilt down the stone steps, dragging a girl in a blue dress behind him.
The sheer momentum of the Doctor’s run left him to smash his shoulder in the door of the flight pod. Red staser bolts followed him down the stairs, smoking and chipping away at the stone.
“Open the door!” he cried, with no room for argument. No raised the tiny data slice to the control panel – it glowed lightly, and with a loud click, the door came open.
The Doctor wasted no time; he hauled the girl in front of him, so hard she stumbled and grazed her knee of the metal floor. He snatched the data slice from No, and closed the door behind him.
Now the staser bolts were slamming into the glass of the pod. No was wrong, thankfully – the glass held, though black burn marks littered the screen.
More people were coming down the stairs – men, heavily armed, though dressed oddly finely, as if coming from a ball. The one who led them was a hard, gaunt man, with a sash of large needles slung about his shoulder. The sight of them made No shudder.
“Come out of there, Doctor,” the hard man called. He waved his hand to end the firing, and strode up the door of the pod. “You’ve played your only ace, now there’s no escape for you. Come on out, and I promise we won’t harm your little bird.”
“Sorry, Slate,” the Doctor replied, panting for breath. “I really am, so sorry.”
Slate laughed. “What for now? Seems to me, if anything, it should be me doing the apologising.”
“No Slate. I’m sorry you’re still alive. It means I’ll have to kill you again, soon.”
Slate tried to smile, a thin, crooked line across his face, but No could read the flash of fear in his eyes. “You’ve gone awfully dark since we told your little bird the truth. Given up on the whole hero thing, have we?”
The Doctor shrugged. “It’s a dark place here. And dark places breed dark men. I’d have thought you knew that. But, anyway,” the Doctor held the data slice, it gently glowing between his fingers. “I have to fly.”
And with that, the pod was soaring away, the dark clouds of the night filling the glass, and the pale green tower falling away, staser fire zipping by lazily.
I’m free, No thought. She was flying away from the dark and the cold. Maybe I can live, and be a child, a proper child. She wanted to smile.
The Doctor and his friend weren’t smiling, though. They leaned against the glass, on opposite sides of the pods, looking drained, looking exhausted.
The girl in the blue dress looked over to No. Her eyes and hair were warm in colour, but her skin was totally ashen, and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, bleary with confusion. Blood leaked gently from her knee where she had grazed it. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m No,” No answered.
“You’re…No?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh…kay…”
Another minute of silence passed before anyone found the courage to speak again.
“So,” the Doctor asked his friend. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“Are you angry at me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you have any questions?”
“Like what?”
“Like…Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor ran his fingers through his hair, thinking. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. Apologising won’t make a difference. Arguing won’t make a difference. Things are changed, now. The teacup’s broken, no putting it back together. Not now. Not here.
So, we have to decide what we’re going to do, for right now, in this moment. After that, we can decide what happens with us, whether I’m just another monster, or whatever. But first, this. First, we decide what we want.”
The girl considered this for a moment. As she thought, No thought she could see her eyes clearing. “What could we do?” she asked.
“We could leave. Take this ship to Arcadia, get them to find the TARDIS.”
“And what would that mean?”
“It’d mean leaving the Master. Her army intact, her plans un-foiled. She could use her eye of harmony to break open the chronoloop, and conquer all of Gallifrey. And after Gallifrey, it’s the universe.” The Doctor rubbed his eyes. “Maybe that doesn’t have to be our problem.”
The girl shook her head, slowly. “No. No, we want more than that. She…she took something from us. Left a hole in us. Aren’t you angry at her?”
“Yes, I am.”
“So we aren’t leaving. How does staying get us what we want?”
“What?!” No cried, distraught. “We can’t stay, we just espaced!”
“I’m sorry, No, but we don’t have a choice,” The Doctor turned his answer back to his friend. “It depends what we want,” he played nervously with the data slice. She has him on the back foot, No realised. And she isn’t even trying.
“Well, what is there?”
“There’s stopping our enemy. There’s saving the world. There’s justice.”
“No,” the girl in the blue dress said. “No, not justice. This place is beyond justice. We want retribution.”
The word hung heavy in the air as the Doctor pondered. “It’s not…something I’m used to.”
“Liar,” she replied. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t keep on lying to me. Vengeance is your way of life. I can see it now – you chase the Daleks and the Cybermen and the Sontarans all across the universe, because they wound you. They wound your pride.”
“No. No, I never go looking for trouble. I never take revenge.”
“You took it today. You didn’t have to give Nihila to those things. You could’ve waited and escaped later. But you killed her instead, because you wanted revenge.”
“Yes, I killed her. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve killed trying to save people. Trying to save you, god dammit! Don’t say that’s revenge. I try to help.”
“I…Autumn, I mean…she took revenge on you. And you took it on her, in your own way. Moulded her into something she wasn’t, squeezed her life until she…until she became…”
“What?” the Doctor asked. “Until she became you?”
The girl brushed her hair from her face, the bleary confusion seeming to return to her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. We both want to stop her, the Master. For what she’s done to us. So how do we do it?”
“There are a few ways,” the Doctor answered. “We could destroy the main siphon, unleash the Faces on the city.”
“Can we do it?”
“I don’t think so. It’s guarded and shielded, and even if it wasn’t we don’t have the fire power,” the Doctor sighed. “Her strength isn’t just the Faces, and it isn’t the people who follow her. This whole city is a weapon, Jasmine. The people here have been harvesting and stealing regeneration energy for centuries, swapping their faces over and over until they’ve lost themselves. They let themselves bleed in the fabric of the place, into the stone of Darksong. No one element makes it strong. What binds it makes it strong.”
“You’re saying we have to destroy the whole city?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we only have to destroy what holds it together.” Now the Doctor knelt, turning to speak to No. “You’ve lived here your whole life, No. You’ve seen Darksong transform. When did the Faces first start appearing?”
No was shaking – all the fear she’d thought had left her had returned with a vengeance. No! she wanted to scream. No you can’t go back! But she didn’t have the courage.
“They…it was early. The first decade, maybe, not long after the Kings were overthrown. The raiders and gangs got hold of the harvest technology. They took thousands of people. Then the Faces started showing up, snatching people from the shadows…”
“I’m sorry,” Jasmine interrupted. At least I know her name now. “What is ‘harvesting’?”
“You remember the needles? The kind Slate was wearing?” No answered.
“Yeah, he nearly stabbed me with one.”
“They extract regeneration energy from your body, pulling it straight out of your cells. Then it’s stored as fluid in the chamber. If you have a needle, you just have to inject yourself to induce a regeneration. It was a way of totally by-passing the limits of regeneration. You could live forever,” No said. “Barring accidents.”
“So after the harvests started, the Faces showed up. A reaction to the sudden up-tick in regenerations,” the Doctor snapped his fingers. “It all makes sense now! The more the people changed themselves, bled their essence, the more unstable the fabric of the city became, the temporal integrity fraying like a rug. It’s like if a city were built on top of a nuclear reactor, all its contents leaking into the stones above. Except instead of radiation, it’s leaking time.”
“Okay,” Jasmine said. “So how do we stop it? By plugging the leak?”
“Maybe. But to do that…” the Doctor paused. “The city is held together by the flow of regeneration energy, between the people, the faces, and the city itself. The only way to stop that flow would be to suspend the ability to regenerate of every single person in Darksong.”
Silence reigned in the pod – it was only a few seconds, but it felt like hours. “Is that even possible?” Jasmine said, finally. “What would it even mean?”
“I think it’s possible. Reserving the power of the main siphon would fold all the energy back on itself, create a clog in the flow. That’d create vacuums in other parts of the system – imagine making bubbles in a blocked pipe – which the energy would rush to fill. The entire city would…collapse inwards. Darksong would eat itself.”
“That sounds horrific,” Jasmine said, her voice sombre.
“Yeah. It does.”
“You’re mad,” No said. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re both mad. If they catch you, they’ll kill you. If they catch me, they’ll do even worse. You think you two, lost, and injured, and alone, can bring the down the whole of Darksong? The entire fury of Gallifrey couldn’t bring down Darksong. This is the stone city. It won’t move. Not for you.”
“I’m sorry, No, but if we leave the entire universe is in danger.”
“And your pride, right?” If I had tears, I’d be crying now. “What about me? Am I supposed to just follow you back into hell? I thought you were leading me out. I thought you were saving me. But you’re just sending me back to the dark.”
The Doctor, to his credit, at least had the decency to look ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said, again. “But I think I’ll need your help.”
“No,” Jasmine asked, trying her best to sound gentle, though the exhaustion in her voice crowded out everything else. “Why do you wear that mask?”
“I…” No was so tired of this. She was tired of being afraid, of not understanding. She just wanted to go back to the orphanage where the Doctor had found her, crawl under one of the beds with her doll, and sleep, like she’d always planned to. “I don’t…I don’t have…”
“It doesn’t matter,” the Doctor said, putting her out of her misery. “I’ll keep you safe. I promise. And I always go out of my way to keep my promises. So, will you help us?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“To be honest,” the Doctor had a sad smile on his lips. “Not really.”
God help me, No thought. “Okay,” she said, her voice small and meek.
“Right,” Jasmine said. “We have a plan. How do we do it?”
“I think I have an idea,” the Doctor turned, raising his data slice back to the control panel. Soon enough, the pod had changed direction, flying the Doctor, Jasmine, and No back to the tower from where they came.
***
The Faces had made a real mess of Nihila – blood, brains and bits of skull were oozing out in a grim pool when the Master left the siphon room. God, she had thought. I’ll never get this place clean.
The Master had liked Nihila, dull and dutiful though she was. She was a woman who got the job done, with a brain keenly turned for detail, unlike that dolt Slate. And she had a nice face, too – the thought of how it had ended up made the Time Lady cringe.
It only took a few seconds to re-active the siphon, but the Doctor’s trick had worked well, and cost her a good disciple. It never ceases to amaze me, Doctor, just how quickly you’ll leave someone to die. She should’ve known – he’d left the Master for dead more than anyone.
She was back in the ballroom now, pacing up and down the floor, waiting for Slate to return her captives to her. Months of planning, and building, and dragging herself through hell had brought her to this moment. It wouldn’t slip past her now.
Where is that idiot? The Master cursed ever letting Slate so high in her circle. The man was tough, made of the stone as the city, but dense. He’d be a traitor, too, given the chance. Slate understood the Master’s power, he understood she could kill him with no trouble at all, and that kept him in line. But all the same, he wasn’t someone comfortable with taking orders. Especially from a woman. Disgusting.
She closed her eyes for a moment. It was hard to tell how long she’d been in Darksong – it was maybe a year, now; a year of building her influence and crafting her sermons, a year of winning hearts and minds, of controlling the shadows, and thus the fear of her subjects. I’m the queen of this place, she thought. All Hail the Master, Empress of Darksong, Philosopher Queen, Sultan of Shadows. To rule a ruin like Darksong would never have satisfied her, even in her younger, less…dramatic days. But things had changed over the years. He had changed.
She summoned the image of the Doctor before her. She never had a specific face in mind; instead they all just blended together, some kind of mix, but always just the Doctor to her. Everything comes back to us, she thought, speaking to the image in her mind. We’re bound together. Their time together on Gallifrey was like no other. They made a notorious couple, always making mischief, always seeking adventure. Always living on the edge.
The Master’s first regeneration had been on one of those adventures. The two had wrapped up warm and set off to the ancient Frozen Fortress, far in the north, a place encased in endless blizzard. They were looking for Jupitus Lars, an explorer from Arcadia who never came back, and they found him, transformed and corrupted into a knight of ice by the living, unrelenting cold. The Master had killed him, of course, throwing him from his own battlements, but not before the old bastard had run a three-foot-long icicle through her belly.
Regenerating took days, sheltering from the blizzard in a dark cave. The living ice infected her cells one by one, which meant her cells had to regenerate one by one. The pain was excruciating, and the feeling of her personality slipping even worse, but the Doctor stayed by her side. True to his name, he tended her wounds, and kept her warm, and never once left her to the mercy of the cold.
I found my edge in that cave, she recalled. That space between living and dying, the place you feel most alive. Now death holds no fear for me. The Doctor came close today. She’d seen it on his face, when she’d stripped Jasmine of her delusion. He’d come within inches of giving up, of casting aside his carefully crafted persona of the hero, of joining his friend over the edge.
Living without fear. That’s what it’s about, the Master mused, pouring over her perfectly formed philosophy. And the Doctor without fear would be magnificent.
She’d had enough now. “SLATE!” she barked, and every other imbecile in the ball room jumped to attention. With impeccable timing, the man himself had just walked in…alone.
“Where are they?” she asked him, spreading her arms wide, pulling a face she knew he hated.
“The Doctor got away,” he said, short of breath, his well-known smile nowhere to be seen. “He took one of the flight pods. I’ve sent people out, but he could be anywhere by now. He might even have left the city; he was never caught in the initial blast, there’s nothing to stop him.”
“What about the girl, Jasmine?”
Slate frowned. “The human? Why bother with her? The Doctor’s the dangerous one.”
The Master rolled her eyes, retroactively thanking Nihila for all the times she could palm him off to her. “That human is the key to everything. You remember the prophecy, the white shadow, all the rest? That was about her, you imbecile. Locked inside that girl’s head is one of the most brilliant psychotic killers the universe ever produced. I mean, she’s not as good as me, obviously, but that’s beside the point. I need to let her out.”
You might be dead, Autumn Rivers, but your essence still lingers. It was happening to poor Jasmine already; the shifting, unstable time-streams were messing with the girl’s head, blurring her perception of time, erasing the boundaries between Autumn and her successor, just as the Master planned. Humans were never meant to cope with something so traumatic. Her kind are weak, paper-thin and finite. They sway and fold in the breeze of time, like dancers on a string. Once the Doctor saw the truth of that, he would be hers.
Slate made no reply. “Get me a detail of men,” she told him. “And track his ship as best you can. He’ll come back to this tower, so whatever level he lands on, I’ll meet him there.”
Slate frowned. “How do you know he’ll come back.”
“Because I know him. I wounded him. I wounded his pride. I opened him up and made him weak, and now he’ll want retribution, whether he knows it or not. And I fully intend to give it to him.”
She straightened her dress, and breathed deep. “Get those men ready, Slate,” she said. The show’s not over yet.
***
They landed the pod further down the tower, parking it through a hole in the outer section, blown apart from some fire-fight long ago. The nearer the surface, the colder Darksong got, No had told them, and in this dress Jasmine felt it keenly.
She’d stopped trying to keep her thoughts straight. It was too much effort, too many voices and ideas and feelings were bounding around her head. My head’s not big enough.
The Doctor walked ahead of her. She hated him. She loved him. He’d kept her safe from the monsters in the city. He’d stolen the voice he told her to run with from a man she’d never know.
The Master had done something to her. She’s broken my heart, that’s one thing. But there was something else, too, she could feel it inside her. Her thoughts and feelings were slipping away from one another. She’d felt sad and angry at the same time before, so often, but never like this.
They were walking up the steps, and Jasmine’s legs were burning, but she barely noticed. She kept her eyes on her feet; to look at the Doctor’s face, or No’s mask, would’ve have set the tears off. Again.
I am in hell? She didn’t know why the question came to her. It just did. I am still Autumn? When she died, when I died, did I go to hell, and this place, these feelings…are they the next circle?
No. It wasn’t hell. There was nothing worth saving in hell, and Jasmine wasn’t ready to condemn herself yet. Besides, there’s still No, she hasn’t done anything wrong.
They stopped about six levels up from where they landed, happening upon another pod. “There’s a siphon room on this level,” No said. “It won’t be enough to reverse the power in the entire city, but it’s connected. Maybe you could open up some kind of channel to the main power source.”
“Thank you, No” the Doctor said, smiling gently. He crouched down to her level. “Now I need your help with something else. Do you have any friends in the city? Other children, like you?”
No hesitated. She’s always so afraid. “Yes,” she said at last. “There are always some around. Sometimes we stay together, to keep watch while the others sleep.”
The Doctor nodded. “That’s good. No, I need you to find them, to bring as many other children as you can to me. It’s the only way we can make this work.”
“Why? What will happen to us after?”
“Please No, just trust me. I’ve kept you safe so far.”
No considered, but finally, she nodded. She turned and left the room without another word, her black robe trailing behind her.
Jasmine turned her attention back to the flight pod. “Seems these things are all over.”
“Yeah,” the Doctor answered. “Lucky for us. We can use them to leave, once we’ve set the siphon going.”
“How, though?” the question hadn’t occurred to Jasmine before. “I thought the city was sealed away.”
“It’s complicated. The city was sealed temporally, but like the Master said, there are cracks everywhere, and it’s far easier for something not caught in the initial blast to escape. Like us.”
“But No was caught in the blast, wasn’t she? How can we get her out?”
“I don’t know, yet. I think there’s a way. I hope. That’s why I told her to gather her friends,” the Doctor frowned. Something on the pod had caught his attention. “Mind you, maybe we won’t use this one.” He approached the pod’s panel, eyeing it closely. “Seems someone’s been messing around with the control panel.”
He was right, as ever, Jasmine noticed. The panel was covered in scratches, some buttons hanging off in odd places. The Doctor touched the panel lightly, and the door swung upon. “Not very secure,” the Time Lord mumbled, as he wandered inside.
Jasmine’s head was hurting again. She closed her eyes and brushed the hair from her forehead. Let this end soon, she prayed. When she opened her eyes, she saw something dark move, impossibly fast. The Faces, she thought at first, but it was something different.
“Doctor!” Jasmine screamed, but too late. The Master was at the door of the pod, slamming the control panel, closing the door with a loud hiss.
The Doctor banged against the glass. “Let me out!”
“Soon,” the Master said, sweetly. She held a staser in her right hand. She’s going to shoot me, Jasmine thought. She considered running, but it would be pointless – she’d never outrun a gun.
“It’s a shame you both left so early,” the Time Lady was saying. The Master moved to Jasmine, grabbing her arm and dragging her closer to the pod. “I had a whole night of entertainment planned. But then you killed my administrator, which rather upset things. So here I am, throwing caution to the wind, living life on the edge. How are you finding your new Doctor, Autumn?”
“Let me go.”
“Is he sinister now?” she insisted. “Do you hate him? Or will you forgive him?” She grinned. “You haven’t decided yet. That’s fine. To be frank, it doesn’t really matter. Showing you the Doctor’s true self was only one half of all this. Now it’s time to show him what lies beneath your mask.”
“Stop this,” the Doctor called through the glass, his voice muffled.
The Master strode up to him, pressing her own face so close to the glass that her breath fogged on the pane. All humour had slipped from her face; there was only anger now. “Why don’t you stop me? It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? But so far, all you’ve done is run from me. It seems to me, without your adoring little humans fanning your ego, you’re not capable of much of at all. It makes you weak.
“But don’t worry, I’ll make you strong again.”
She stepped back from the glass, her dress swirling behind her, twitching and curling like the shadows she commanded. “And maybe I’ll make you strong, too, Autumn,” she raised the staser to Jasmine’s face, aiming it right between her eyes…then she flipped it, offering her the handle. “Take it,” she said.
“Jasmine, don’t” the Doctor said. “Don’t!”
“Jasmine…” the Doctor has been silent for so long his voice made her jump. She could barely tell if he was looking at her through the shadows on his face.
“What?” she cried at him. “What?!”
“We’re Time Lords,” the Master answered for him. “We walk the line between the third and fourth dimensions. Our essence isn’t physical. Only our faces are. And everything else; our voices, our personalities. All just shells, to channel the creature beneath.
But it’s hard to just create a shell – the quirks, the ways of thinking, the lines on its face. All those details are infinitely complex, it’d take power and time even we don’t have. So we just take them, and store them here.”
Jasmine looked at the glass again, studying it, trying to make a note of each face that scrolled past. “You store their faces? These are real people? You make yourselves look like real people? Doctor?”
The Doctor still just stood there, letting the shadow wash over his face.
“No,” the Master continued. “Not just their faces. Their whole lives. We pluck them from the web of time, mute and dilute their influence in history, hollow them out, and store them in here, like…coats on a rack.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jasmine said. It doesn’t make sense. “You can’t take people from history. Every life makes an impact. People would notice that…” She stopped. A face on the glass caught her eyes. It was a face she knew, a face she’d seen hundreds of times, over two different lives.
The man was tall, and handsome, his jaw grey with light stubble. His hair was amazing, his eyes warm and wise, blind though they were in the white abyss he wandered through.
And he was the Doctor.
Or at least, he looked like the Doctor.
Or the Doctor looks like him.
She turned and looked at him, closely, trying to see beyond the shadow – she thought he’d plucked up the courage to actually look at her, by now. At least…I hope.
“You ever passed someone in the street?” the Master was saying, though Jasmine barely heard her. “Or had a teacher, or a friend when you were young? You can remember their words, their actions, the things they did. But never a face, or a voice, or a feeling. Maybe they’re in here somewhere, filed away. We scoop out their lives from the web of time, leave the impact we need to keep its integrity, and keep them for ourselves.
That’s the Doctor’s secret, Autumn. The secret of this whole world. He’s just another vampire, praying on innocent for his own gain. He’s just another villain. A monster in his own story.”
She ignored her. Her mind was spinning; it didn’t have the room for so much at once. She focussed on the Doctor. “You take people,” she said to him. “You steal people, and just…wear them like a mask? Like a costume?” She didn’t feel like she was crying, but her face was wet. “Is that what they are? Costumes, so you can walk among us?”
He wasn’t speaking. She was almost glad – had he answered, she’d have known it was another man’s voice, and cried even more.
Her head hurt. She took another step back, keeping all four of the Time Lords in view. In the light and shadow, they no longer looked like the humans they stole; instead, in her mind, they were transformed into the hideous creatures that lay beneath, tall and hard and grim, terrible things made of stone and ice. Monsters, like the kind she’d been fighting both her lives.
Life. Lives. It doesn’t matter. You have one to spare, Jasmine, what’s to say they won’t steal you?
The voice wasn’t hers, but it rang in her head like a bell, so loud she thought she could feel her skull splintering. She grabbed her forehead, perhaps hoping to keep her brain in place.
You know what I’d have done? I’ve had launched at them. Taken Slate’s staser before he could even move. Then I’d execute them all.
No, Jasmine answered in her own voice. No, that wouldn’t be right.
So? They’re monsters. They’re animals. Justice is for people. Dogs don’t get justice. Dogs get put down.
She pushed the voice away, and wiped the tears from her face. “Doctor,” she said, her voice shaking at every syllable. “This is a lie, right? She’s lying. You don’t steal people out from history, just so you can live longer? That’s wrong.”
“Jasmine…” the Doctor’s own voice was level, but far-away sounding. “I’m sorry.”
Oh god. Oh my god. Whatever happened now, the Master had won. Whether Jasmine left this place alive or dead, there was no filling the new hole in her heart. “How many lives have you taken?”
The Doctor didn’t answer, but the Master placed a finger on her chin. “Alright, I’ll level with you, I’ve lost count.”
“I’m sorry, Jasmine. I really am,” with that, the Doctor turned to the Master. “And I’m sorry for you, too.”
“For me? Well, apology accepted, though I’m not sure what for…?”
“You’re all about to die, that’s what for.”
“And how’d you figure that one out?”
“You brought me straight in here, without searching me, or guarding me properly. Bad move.”
The Master sniggered, though clearly annoyed that her big moment was being undermined. “We both know you’re not armed. Where are you going to go, anyway? I own this city. Every last inch of it.”
The Doctor ignored that. “Your siphon,” he said, nodding upwards. “It emits chronon waves to control the Faces.” Jasmine had forgotten about them; she looked behind her, watching them writhe even more, uncomfortably aware that they were, once, people.
“That’s right,” the Master said, increasingly annoyed.
“And you can vary those waves? Turn the power up and down?”
“Yes, get to the point.”
“So it can be turned off?”
“Yes.” The Master said. Then the panic registered on her face. “No!”
It all happened so quickly, Jasmine barely registered it. In the flash, the Doctor had his sonic screwdriver in hand, raising it above his head. The was a craaacckk, and a flash of light, and then chaos.
The Master was shouting. Slate was shooting. The Faces were launching towards them, swiping at the group with claws of shadow, howling all the time. Slate’s staser zinged, red bolts of light scattering shadows, which reformed almost immediately.
And Jasmine was running. The Doctor has taken her hand, shouted “Run!” as he had so often, and pulled her away.
As she looked over her shoulder, the last thing she saw in the siphon room was Nihila, on her knees, screaming and surrounded by shadow. A terrible black talon reached for her face, and lazily swiped it from her head.
Huh, Jasmine thought, morbidly. That’s actually kinda funny.
***
No rolled the data slice between her fingers nonchalantly. She wished she had two; that way, she might have been able to play a game with them.
I’m not used to being bored, she realised suddenly. She was more used to being terrified – a child of Darksong never lingered in one place for long, or slept under one bed for more than an hour, or let their mind wander for more than a second. That was a recipe for getting harvested.
No touched her mask with a gloved hand, tracing the silver vines that curved beneath the eyes like tears. It feels cold. Everything felt cold, though No didn’t exactly feel. It was more the impression of feeling.
The memory was far away now, but she still understood the significance of her garb. She wore it once a day, every year, as did every child in Darksong, as part of the Dawn Parade.
Traditionally, every child in the city would dress the same for the Dawn Parade – the black mask, decorated with silver, and the black robes. They’d march out together, hundreds of thousands of them, and fill the squares between the towers, back before the surface had turned to ice and shadow.
Then the Philosopher Kings would come out on the balconies, holding their staffs high above their heads, and in unison proclaimed the shadows banished, the days of ignorance over, and each would crack their iron ferulas against the stone, like a roll of thunder loud enough to split the sky.
After that, the children dressed as shadows would scatter, running into the towers and the underground tunnels, until the squares were totally empty, and only the light of the dawn was left.
After that, the celebrations started – the genetic engineers would bring their most beautiful creatures, armies of glowing flutterflies and blue dancing bears, and the fireworks were silver and gold, as large as moons. Young or old, rich or poor, everyone in Darksong loved the Dawn Parade.
All gone now, No recalled sadly. The Capitol had attacked the morning of millennium parade: the children were gathered, the staffs were raised, the shadows were named as banished, and just before the sun rose and the staffs came down, the sky turned black, and the wind turned cold, and the sun was sealed away from the city forever.
No didn’t remember it, exactly. It had been far too long, and she’d been harvested too many times, but the impression of the events was still there. There was running, and crying, and climbing over her friends to try and find the light. In the days that followed the gangs came, with their needles and their cruel hands. And she remembered the fear. Of course I remember the fear. I’ve become a creature of fear. She looked back at the marble in her hand. I really wish I had two.
She looked around her new glass home. The pod probably wasn’t safe – there was only one door in and out, and a staser bolt or two could smash the glass, she reckoned. The control panel was pretty flimsy too, and even if the damned thing could fly, No had no idea how. But all the same, the Doctor had somehow reassured her. He’d come back soon. She had a feeling.
No could hear noise. Normally, that’d have caused her to bolt. Noise meant danger. But this time, No just listened, getting up and pressing her ear (or, where her ear was meant to be) against the glass. There was shouting, definitely, and what sounded like the stinging echo of staser fire. A strange howling, too, like the kind that came from the siphon rooms sometimes. What’s going on?
Then, suddenly, an answer came to her, and the Doctor appeared, running full tilt down the stone steps, dragging a girl in a blue dress behind him.
The sheer momentum of the Doctor’s run left him to smash his shoulder in the door of the flight pod. Red staser bolts followed him down the stairs, smoking and chipping away at the stone.
“Open the door!” he cried, with no room for argument. No raised the tiny data slice to the control panel – it glowed lightly, and with a loud click, the door came open.
The Doctor wasted no time; he hauled the girl in front of him, so hard she stumbled and grazed her knee of the metal floor. He snatched the data slice from No, and closed the door behind him.
Now the staser bolts were slamming into the glass of the pod. No was wrong, thankfully – the glass held, though black burn marks littered the screen.
More people were coming down the stairs – men, heavily armed, though dressed oddly finely, as if coming from a ball. The one who led them was a hard, gaunt man, with a sash of large needles slung about his shoulder. The sight of them made No shudder.
“Come out of there, Doctor,” the hard man called. He waved his hand to end the firing, and strode up the door of the pod. “You’ve played your only ace, now there’s no escape for you. Come on out, and I promise we won’t harm your little bird.”
“Sorry, Slate,” the Doctor replied, panting for breath. “I really am, so sorry.”
Slate laughed. “What for now? Seems to me, if anything, it should be me doing the apologising.”
“No Slate. I’m sorry you’re still alive. It means I’ll have to kill you again, soon.”
Slate tried to smile, a thin, crooked line across his face, but No could read the flash of fear in his eyes. “You’ve gone awfully dark since we told your little bird the truth. Given up on the whole hero thing, have we?”
The Doctor shrugged. “It’s a dark place here. And dark places breed dark men. I’d have thought you knew that. But, anyway,” the Doctor held the data slice, it gently glowing between his fingers. “I have to fly.”
And with that, the pod was soaring away, the dark clouds of the night filling the glass, and the pale green tower falling away, staser fire zipping by lazily.
I’m free, No thought. She was flying away from the dark and the cold. Maybe I can live, and be a child, a proper child. She wanted to smile.
The Doctor and his friend weren’t smiling, though. They leaned against the glass, on opposite sides of the pods, looking drained, looking exhausted.
The girl in the blue dress looked over to No. Her eyes and hair were warm in colour, but her skin was totally ashen, and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, bleary with confusion. Blood leaked gently from her knee where she had grazed it. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m No,” No answered.
“You’re…No?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh…kay…”
Another minute of silence passed before anyone found the courage to speak again.
“So,” the Doctor asked his friend. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“Are you angry at me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you have any questions?”
“Like what?”
“Like…Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor ran his fingers through his hair, thinking. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. Apologising won’t make a difference. Arguing won’t make a difference. Things are changed, now. The teacup’s broken, no putting it back together. Not now. Not here.
So, we have to decide what we’re going to do, for right now, in this moment. After that, we can decide what happens with us, whether I’m just another monster, or whatever. But first, this. First, we decide what we want.”
The girl considered this for a moment. As she thought, No thought she could see her eyes clearing. “What could we do?” she asked.
“We could leave. Take this ship to Arcadia, get them to find the TARDIS.”
“And what would that mean?”
“It’d mean leaving the Master. Her army intact, her plans un-foiled. She could use her eye of harmony to break open the chronoloop, and conquer all of Gallifrey. And after Gallifrey, it’s the universe.” The Doctor rubbed his eyes. “Maybe that doesn’t have to be our problem.”
The girl shook her head, slowly. “No. No, we want more than that. She…she took something from us. Left a hole in us. Aren’t you angry at her?”
“Yes, I am.”
“So we aren’t leaving. How does staying get us what we want?”
“What?!” No cried, distraught. “We can’t stay, we just espaced!”
“I’m sorry, No, but we don’t have a choice,” The Doctor turned his answer back to his friend. “It depends what we want,” he played nervously with the data slice. She has him on the back foot, No realised. And she isn’t even trying.
“Well, what is there?”
“There’s stopping our enemy. There’s saving the world. There’s justice.”
“No,” the girl in the blue dress said. “No, not justice. This place is beyond justice. We want retribution.”
The word hung heavy in the air as the Doctor pondered. “It’s not…something I’m used to.”
“Liar,” she replied. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t keep on lying to me. Vengeance is your way of life. I can see it now – you chase the Daleks and the Cybermen and the Sontarans all across the universe, because they wound you. They wound your pride.”
“No. No, I never go looking for trouble. I never take revenge.”
“You took it today. You didn’t have to give Nihila to those things. You could’ve waited and escaped later. But you killed her instead, because you wanted revenge.”
“Yes, I killed her. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve killed trying to save people. Trying to save you, god dammit! Don’t say that’s revenge. I try to help.”
“I…Autumn, I mean…she took revenge on you. And you took it on her, in your own way. Moulded her into something she wasn’t, squeezed her life until she…until she became…”
“What?” the Doctor asked. “Until she became you?”
The girl brushed her hair from her face, the bleary confusion seeming to return to her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. We both want to stop her, the Master. For what she’s done to us. So how do we do it?”
“There are a few ways,” the Doctor answered. “We could destroy the main siphon, unleash the Faces on the city.”
“Can we do it?”
“I don’t think so. It’s guarded and shielded, and even if it wasn’t we don’t have the fire power,” the Doctor sighed. “Her strength isn’t just the Faces, and it isn’t the people who follow her. This whole city is a weapon, Jasmine. The people here have been harvesting and stealing regeneration energy for centuries, swapping their faces over and over until they’ve lost themselves. They let themselves bleed in the fabric of the place, into the stone of Darksong. No one element makes it strong. What binds it makes it strong.”
“You’re saying we have to destroy the whole city?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we only have to destroy what holds it together.” Now the Doctor knelt, turning to speak to No. “You’ve lived here your whole life, No. You’ve seen Darksong transform. When did the Faces first start appearing?”
No was shaking – all the fear she’d thought had left her had returned with a vengeance. No! she wanted to scream. No you can’t go back! But she didn’t have the courage.
“They…it was early. The first decade, maybe, not long after the Kings were overthrown. The raiders and gangs got hold of the harvest technology. They took thousands of people. Then the Faces started showing up, snatching people from the shadows…”
“I’m sorry,” Jasmine interrupted. At least I know her name now. “What is ‘harvesting’?”
“You remember the needles? The kind Slate was wearing?” No answered.
“Yeah, he nearly stabbed me with one.”
“They extract regeneration energy from your body, pulling it straight out of your cells. Then it’s stored as fluid in the chamber. If you have a needle, you just have to inject yourself to induce a regeneration. It was a way of totally by-passing the limits of regeneration. You could live forever,” No said. “Barring accidents.”
“So after the harvests started, the Faces showed up. A reaction to the sudden up-tick in regenerations,” the Doctor snapped his fingers. “It all makes sense now! The more the people changed themselves, bled their essence, the more unstable the fabric of the city became, the temporal integrity fraying like a rug. It’s like if a city were built on top of a nuclear reactor, all its contents leaking into the stones above. Except instead of radiation, it’s leaking time.”
“Okay,” Jasmine said. “So how do we stop it? By plugging the leak?”
“Maybe. But to do that…” the Doctor paused. “The city is held together by the flow of regeneration energy, between the people, the faces, and the city itself. The only way to stop that flow would be to suspend the ability to regenerate of every single person in Darksong.”
Silence reigned in the pod – it was only a few seconds, but it felt like hours. “Is that even possible?” Jasmine said, finally. “What would it even mean?”
“I think it’s possible. Reserving the power of the main siphon would fold all the energy back on itself, create a clog in the flow. That’d create vacuums in other parts of the system – imagine making bubbles in a blocked pipe – which the energy would rush to fill. The entire city would…collapse inwards. Darksong would eat itself.”
“That sounds horrific,” Jasmine said, her voice sombre.
“Yeah. It does.”
“You’re mad,” No said. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re both mad. If they catch you, they’ll kill you. If they catch me, they’ll do even worse. You think you two, lost, and injured, and alone, can bring the down the whole of Darksong? The entire fury of Gallifrey couldn’t bring down Darksong. This is the stone city. It won’t move. Not for you.”
“I’m sorry, No, but if we leave the entire universe is in danger.”
“And your pride, right?” If I had tears, I’d be crying now. “What about me? Am I supposed to just follow you back into hell? I thought you were leading me out. I thought you were saving me. But you’re just sending me back to the dark.”
The Doctor, to his credit, at least had the decency to look ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said, again. “But I think I’ll need your help.”
“No,” Jasmine asked, trying her best to sound gentle, though the exhaustion in her voice crowded out everything else. “Why do you wear that mask?”
“I…” No was so tired of this. She was tired of being afraid, of not understanding. She just wanted to go back to the orphanage where the Doctor had found her, crawl under one of the beds with her doll, and sleep, like she’d always planned to. “I don’t…I don’t have…”
“It doesn’t matter,” the Doctor said, putting her out of her misery. “I’ll keep you safe. I promise. And I always go out of my way to keep my promises. So, will you help us?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“To be honest,” the Doctor had a sad smile on his lips. “Not really.”
God help me, No thought. “Okay,” she said, her voice small and meek.
“Right,” Jasmine said. “We have a plan. How do we do it?”
“I think I have an idea,” the Doctor turned, raising his data slice back to the control panel. Soon enough, the pod had changed direction, flying the Doctor, Jasmine, and No back to the tower from where they came.
***
The Faces had made a real mess of Nihila – blood, brains and bits of skull were oozing out in a grim pool when the Master left the siphon room. God, she had thought. I’ll never get this place clean.
The Master had liked Nihila, dull and dutiful though she was. She was a woman who got the job done, with a brain keenly turned for detail, unlike that dolt Slate. And she had a nice face, too – the thought of how it had ended up made the Time Lady cringe.
It only took a few seconds to re-active the siphon, but the Doctor’s trick had worked well, and cost her a good disciple. It never ceases to amaze me, Doctor, just how quickly you’ll leave someone to die. She should’ve known – he’d left the Master for dead more than anyone.
She was back in the ballroom now, pacing up and down the floor, waiting for Slate to return her captives to her. Months of planning, and building, and dragging herself through hell had brought her to this moment. It wouldn’t slip past her now.
Where is that idiot? The Master cursed ever letting Slate so high in her circle. The man was tough, made of the stone as the city, but dense. He’d be a traitor, too, given the chance. Slate understood the Master’s power, he understood she could kill him with no trouble at all, and that kept him in line. But all the same, he wasn’t someone comfortable with taking orders. Especially from a woman. Disgusting.
She closed her eyes for a moment. It was hard to tell how long she’d been in Darksong – it was maybe a year, now; a year of building her influence and crafting her sermons, a year of winning hearts and minds, of controlling the shadows, and thus the fear of her subjects. I’m the queen of this place, she thought. All Hail the Master, Empress of Darksong, Philosopher Queen, Sultan of Shadows. To rule a ruin like Darksong would never have satisfied her, even in her younger, less…dramatic days. But things had changed over the years. He had changed.
She summoned the image of the Doctor before her. She never had a specific face in mind; instead they all just blended together, some kind of mix, but always just the Doctor to her. Everything comes back to us, she thought, speaking to the image in her mind. We’re bound together. Their time together on Gallifrey was like no other. They made a notorious couple, always making mischief, always seeking adventure. Always living on the edge.
The Master’s first regeneration had been on one of those adventures. The two had wrapped up warm and set off to the ancient Frozen Fortress, far in the north, a place encased in endless blizzard. They were looking for Jupitus Lars, an explorer from Arcadia who never came back, and they found him, transformed and corrupted into a knight of ice by the living, unrelenting cold. The Master had killed him, of course, throwing him from his own battlements, but not before the old bastard had run a three-foot-long icicle through her belly.
Regenerating took days, sheltering from the blizzard in a dark cave. The living ice infected her cells one by one, which meant her cells had to regenerate one by one. The pain was excruciating, and the feeling of her personality slipping even worse, but the Doctor stayed by her side. True to his name, he tended her wounds, and kept her warm, and never once left her to the mercy of the cold.
I found my edge in that cave, she recalled. That space between living and dying, the place you feel most alive. Now death holds no fear for me. The Doctor came close today. She’d seen it on his face, when she’d stripped Jasmine of her delusion. He’d come within inches of giving up, of casting aside his carefully crafted persona of the hero, of joining his friend over the edge.
Living without fear. That’s what it’s about, the Master mused, pouring over her perfectly formed philosophy. And the Doctor without fear would be magnificent.
She’d had enough now. “SLATE!” she barked, and every other imbecile in the ball room jumped to attention. With impeccable timing, the man himself had just walked in…alone.
“Where are they?” she asked him, spreading her arms wide, pulling a face she knew he hated.
“The Doctor got away,” he said, short of breath, his well-known smile nowhere to be seen. “He took one of the flight pods. I’ve sent people out, but he could be anywhere by now. He might even have left the city; he was never caught in the initial blast, there’s nothing to stop him.”
“What about the girl, Jasmine?”
Slate frowned. “The human? Why bother with her? The Doctor’s the dangerous one.”
The Master rolled her eyes, retroactively thanking Nihila for all the times she could palm him off to her. “That human is the key to everything. You remember the prophecy, the white shadow, all the rest? That was about her, you imbecile. Locked inside that girl’s head is one of the most brilliant psychotic killers the universe ever produced. I mean, she’s not as good as me, obviously, but that’s beside the point. I need to let her out.”
You might be dead, Autumn Rivers, but your essence still lingers. It was happening to poor Jasmine already; the shifting, unstable time-streams were messing with the girl’s head, blurring her perception of time, erasing the boundaries between Autumn and her successor, just as the Master planned. Humans were never meant to cope with something so traumatic. Her kind are weak, paper-thin and finite. They sway and fold in the breeze of time, like dancers on a string. Once the Doctor saw the truth of that, he would be hers.
Slate made no reply. “Get me a detail of men,” she told him. “And track his ship as best you can. He’ll come back to this tower, so whatever level he lands on, I’ll meet him there.”
Slate frowned. “How do you know he’ll come back.”
“Because I know him. I wounded him. I wounded his pride. I opened him up and made him weak, and now he’ll want retribution, whether he knows it or not. And I fully intend to give it to him.”
She straightened her dress, and breathed deep. “Get those men ready, Slate,” she said. The show’s not over yet.
***
They landed the pod further down the tower, parking it through a hole in the outer section, blown apart from some fire-fight long ago. The nearer the surface, the colder Darksong got, No had told them, and in this dress Jasmine felt it keenly.
She’d stopped trying to keep her thoughts straight. It was too much effort, too many voices and ideas and feelings were bounding around her head. My head’s not big enough.
The Doctor walked ahead of her. She hated him. She loved him. He’d kept her safe from the monsters in the city. He’d stolen the voice he told her to run with from a man she’d never know.
The Master had done something to her. She’s broken my heart, that’s one thing. But there was something else, too, she could feel it inside her. Her thoughts and feelings were slipping away from one another. She’d felt sad and angry at the same time before, so often, but never like this.
They were walking up the steps, and Jasmine’s legs were burning, but she barely noticed. She kept her eyes on her feet; to look at the Doctor’s face, or No’s mask, would’ve have set the tears off. Again.
I am in hell? She didn’t know why the question came to her. It just did. I am still Autumn? When she died, when I died, did I go to hell, and this place, these feelings…are they the next circle?
No. It wasn’t hell. There was nothing worth saving in hell, and Jasmine wasn’t ready to condemn herself yet. Besides, there’s still No, she hasn’t done anything wrong.
They stopped about six levels up from where they landed, happening upon another pod. “There’s a siphon room on this level,” No said. “It won’t be enough to reverse the power in the entire city, but it’s connected. Maybe you could open up some kind of channel to the main power source.”
“Thank you, No” the Doctor said, smiling gently. He crouched down to her level. “Now I need your help with something else. Do you have any friends in the city? Other children, like you?”
No hesitated. She’s always so afraid. “Yes,” she said at last. “There are always some around. Sometimes we stay together, to keep watch while the others sleep.”
The Doctor nodded. “That’s good. No, I need you to find them, to bring as many other children as you can to me. It’s the only way we can make this work.”
“Why? What will happen to us after?”
“Please No, just trust me. I’ve kept you safe so far.”
No considered, but finally, she nodded. She turned and left the room without another word, her black robe trailing behind her.
Jasmine turned her attention back to the flight pod. “Seems these things are all over.”
“Yeah,” the Doctor answered. “Lucky for us. We can use them to leave, once we’ve set the siphon going.”
“How, though?” the question hadn’t occurred to Jasmine before. “I thought the city was sealed away.”
“It’s complicated. The city was sealed temporally, but like the Master said, there are cracks everywhere, and it’s far easier for something not caught in the initial blast to escape. Like us.”
“But No was caught in the blast, wasn’t she? How can we get her out?”
“I don’t know, yet. I think there’s a way. I hope. That’s why I told her to gather her friends,” the Doctor frowned. Something on the pod had caught his attention. “Mind you, maybe we won’t use this one.” He approached the pod’s panel, eyeing it closely. “Seems someone’s been messing around with the control panel.”
He was right, as ever, Jasmine noticed. The panel was covered in scratches, some buttons hanging off in odd places. The Doctor touched the panel lightly, and the door swung upon. “Not very secure,” the Time Lord mumbled, as he wandered inside.
Jasmine’s head was hurting again. She closed her eyes and brushed the hair from her forehead. Let this end soon, she prayed. When she opened her eyes, she saw something dark move, impossibly fast. The Faces, she thought at first, but it was something different.
“Doctor!” Jasmine screamed, but too late. The Master was at the door of the pod, slamming the control panel, closing the door with a loud hiss.
The Doctor banged against the glass. “Let me out!”
“Soon,” the Master said, sweetly. She held a staser in her right hand. She’s going to shoot me, Jasmine thought. She considered running, but it would be pointless – she’d never outrun a gun.
“It’s a shame you both left so early,” the Time Lady was saying. The Master moved to Jasmine, grabbing her arm and dragging her closer to the pod. “I had a whole night of entertainment planned. But then you killed my administrator, which rather upset things. So here I am, throwing caution to the wind, living life on the edge. How are you finding your new Doctor, Autumn?”
“Let me go.”
“Is he sinister now?” she insisted. “Do you hate him? Or will you forgive him?” She grinned. “You haven’t decided yet. That’s fine. To be frank, it doesn’t really matter. Showing you the Doctor’s true self was only one half of all this. Now it’s time to show him what lies beneath your mask.”
“Stop this,” the Doctor called through the glass, his voice muffled.
The Master strode up to him, pressing her own face so close to the glass that her breath fogged on the pane. All humour had slipped from her face; there was only anger now. “Why don’t you stop me? It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? But so far, all you’ve done is run from me. It seems to me, without your adoring little humans fanning your ego, you’re not capable of much of at all. It makes you weak.
“But don’t worry, I’ll make you strong again.”
She stepped back from the glass, her dress swirling behind her, twitching and curling like the shadows she commanded. “And maybe I’ll make you strong, too, Autumn,” she raised the staser to Jasmine’s face, aiming it right between her eyes…then she flipped it, offering her the handle. “Take it,” she said.
“Jasmine, don’t” the Doctor said. “Don’t!”
“Take. It.” The Master insisted. “I’m giving you one chance to stop me. Take it.”
Jasmine didn’t reach her arm out. But someone did, some force compelled her hand to reach up and take the staser. It was heavy between her fingers, her arm trembling with the weight, but all the same, she aimed the barrel at the Master’s head, as the Time Lady took a step back. Funny, she thought. This is the best I’ve felt all day.
“Go on, Autumn,” she was saying. “One staser bolt, right through my brain. I’d be dead before I hit the floor. You and the Doctor can fly away and leave Darksong to rot. If you can still stomach his company, that is.”
“I’m not Autumn. My name’s Jasmine.”
“But I’m talking to Autumn, aren’t I?” The Master’s eyes were alive as she spoke, malice dancing in them like marionettes. “I can see her in there, back from the grave. Unkillable. We’re similar, in that way. Death is for other people. Though maybe you can change that.”
“I’m not going to execute you,” I think. I hope. “But you’ve given me power over you. I have the power to hurt you, and after today, don’t think I won’t use it. You can start by turning off your siphon. Leave this place to its ghosts, like it should always have been.”
“But, why won’t you execute me?” the Time Lady pulled a puzzled face. “I mean, you’re being judge. You’re being jury. Might as well throw executioner in there too. That’d be justice, right?”
“No. That’d be…that’d be retribution.”
She shrugged at that. “What’s the difference?”
Jasmine was feeling sick. The headache was spilling out of her brain and into her whole body, making her limbs ache, making her stomach roil. Just shoot her! a voice was crying in her head. You’re never going to get another chance to end this creature. You have to stop her!
“Shut up,” Jasmine mumbled, rubbing her eye.
“Speak up, sweetheart,” the Master replied.
“SHUT! UP!” Jasmine re-steadied her aim, her finger inching closer to the trigger.
“That’s it! You’re getting it now!”
“Jasmine,” the Doctor said, keeping his voice calm. “Please put the staser down. The time streams in this place…they’ve been messing with your head. They have been since you arrived, I think. Those voices and feelings, they aren’t real, they aren’t you. She’s trying to manipulate you, to drag you down to her level. She’s trying to break us apart even more.” The Doctor breathed deep, through his nose, composing his words. “We came back here for retribution, right? For what she did to us? Killing her won’t do that. It’s just what she wants.”
“Yeah, he’s talking crap,” the Master said. Her voice is so much clearer than the Doctor’s. “He’s weak, too afraid to do what’s necessary. Not like you though, Autumn. You’ve always been willing to get your hands dirty when the heroes won't. And good for you. You can see there’s only one way to stop me, even if he refuses to. I mean…” the Mater laughed, a short sharp bleat that pierced the air. “Someone has to watch the watchmen.”
Autumn pulled the trigger.
In that moment, Jasmine had fallen away, the Doctor had fallen away, the whole of Darksong had ceased to exist. There was only Autumn, pointing her gun at the Master, ready to punish her for what she’d done.
But nothing came from the gun, nothing but an empty clicking sound, and then Autumn was gone.
“Oh,” said Jasmine, blinking back into existence.
The Master’s smile was wide, flashing her teeth like a set of fangs. “Thank you, Jasmine.”
The Time Lady was on her in an instant, grabbing the staser from her hand, kicking Jasmine’s leg from beneath her and twisting her arm behind her back. “No!” she heard the Doctor cry, but it was too late – Jasmine screamed as the Master snapped the bones in her forearm.
The floor rushed to meet her, and Jasmine put her arm out to break the fall…her broken arm.
The pain too sharp to even scream. Consciousness left her, and darkness reigned behind her eyelids for what felt like hours, but when her eyes opened, it had only been seconds.
The Master was standing over her, arming the staser, her face as hard as stone. “You see, Doctor?” she was saying. “Humans aren’t like us. They’re weak. Theit lives blur and flicker and fade like shadows on the wall. Their lives are just illusions. They collapse upon the tiniest inspection.”
“What’re you trying to prove?” the Doctor asked, his voice level and expression stone. “You just keep on destroying everything around you. Everything you touch you have to break. What is this even about?!”
“It’s about you!” The Master stepped over Jasmine, splayed out across the floor like a broken mess, clutching her ruined arm. It’s already starting to swell. The skin was turning pink and tight; the pain was real, but far away, like it was happening to someone else.
The Master paced back to the glass, looking the Doctor straight in the eye. “Look around us, Doctor. The world’s falling apart.”
“You’re the one tearing it apart. And it’s always me who has to run behind you, putting it back together.”
The Master shook her head. “No. It isn’t just me. Our lives are pairbound, yours and mine. No matter how far we run we snap back together, like an elastic band. All that energy causes a fallout, of course, but that changes nothing. We’re linked. We always have been.”
The Doctor scoffed. “What’s this, a proposal?”
“Of a kind,” the Master put her hand on the glass, trying to touch the Doctor’s face, but he was out of reach. “Look at her, Doctor. Look at Jasmine.”
“She’s a mess. You did that to her.”
“And look how it easy it was! I tore apart her whole identity with twenty-four hours and a few choice words. I made her a murderer with just one lie. I’d have killed her, if it wouldn’t make you angry.”
“I’m already pretty angry.”
“But look past her. Look at the whole universe. They made Rassilon president. Even as an animal I felt the tremor in the Matrix. The Time Lords are making ready for war. And they aren’t alone; even here it’s possible to see out into the universe. The astroscopes and temporal monitors still work.
The Daleks are making weapons by the millions, throwing enough smog out into their solar system to blot out their sun. They’re buying mercenaries, too – there are hundreds of millions of captured slave soldiers in the Dalek colonies, Doctor. Some are only armed with spears, or less, but they have the numbers. There are even rumours they’ve sent envoys to Goth, promising the Deathsmiths all the secrets of Gallifrey, should they join the Daleks in battle.”
“All very worrying. Not really my business.”
“You think?” The Master moved closer to the glass, her eyes wide and drinking in the dim green light. “Look at Jasmine. Look how easily the humans break apart. What do you think will happen to them when an armada of Daleks descends on them?”
“W…what?”
“They’ll die. All of them. The whole universe is going to blow away like ash. All their little lives, blowing about like dancers on strings, they’ll burn away to nothing. Unless we do something.”
“Is…is this what this was all about?” The Doctor seemed shocked, genuinely stunned. “A humanitarian appeal?”
“Why not? How many wars and invasions did we stop together? How many monsters did we throw back into the abyss?” She took a breath through her nose, composing herself. “I built an army here. My soldiers are unstoppable. Darksong is a weapon that could devastate the Daleks. We could save the universe. Together.”
“You? Saving the universe?” He scoffed. “Seriously?”
“I asked you if you’d go to war for me, a long time ago,” Jasmine could see something shine in the Master’s eyes. Is she…crying? “I’ll get my answer, tonight.”
“I’ll try to help. I always do. But I’m no soldier.”
“We’re all soldiers now. This war is going to devour everything. You can fight it now, or you can wait until it eats you.”
“Why do you even care what happens? All you talk about is how weak humans are, how they don’t deserve to live. Now you’re trying to use them to blackmail me?”
“Eurgh, why are you such a coward?!” the Master lashed out her fist, rapping it against the glass. The Doctor stepped back, eyes widening against the newly created crack in the wall. “Yes, they make you weak. I can make you strong again. They could never love you, not properly, because they can never understand you. Abandon the hero, and embrace what you are; strong, and powerful, and ready to take on the whole universe. Leave them behind. Come with me. Together we can take the universe.”
The Doctor shook his head. “You’re wrong. You’ve always been wrong. Justice – real justice, harmony and unity – that’ll always be stronger than death and darkness. You think this place gives you power, but all the cold and the rain gives you is weakness. Once your war’s done, and you’ve died, Jasmine and I will both still be standing. Maybe then you can understand.”
The Master’s tears had gone, the fire in her eyes replaced with burning cold. “You really believe that?” she asked quietly.
“Yes,” he answered. “I’ll help you. I’ve always wanted to help you. But no, I won’t fight for you.”
The Master looked away from him, her expression completely still. She nodded, slowly, then turned to look at Jasmine, and said: “Then die for her.”
She strode away from the pod, the malevolent, queen-like grace returning as quickly as it left. “I’m beginning my attack on the Capitol in thirty-five minutes,” the Time Lady announced. “I’m going to use the eye of harmony to break open a crack, and descend every one of my shadow soldiers on the city. If you can find a way out of Darksong before that, good for you. If not, I reckon the Faces I’m releasing will get you in about a day.”
The Master grinned, approaching the steps leading back up the tower. “Addios, amigos. Seems out story has reached its end.” With that, she launched up the stairs, and was gone.
Jasmine buried her head in the fold of her left arm, the one not broken, in a vain hope it’d bury the pain, too. It didn’t work. At least the Doctor didn’t abandon me, she thought. He might be a fourth-dimensional vampire that steals people’s faces, but at least he’s reliable.
“Jasmine?” the Doctor was saying. “Jasmine? Are you okay?”
“I think it’s broken,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position. She nodded to her injury; her wrist was totally immobile.
“Any other injuries?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Okay. There are medical supplies on the TARDIS that’ll sort that out quickly. Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
“Good. I need you to come up to the panel and press in one of the buttons – I can use the data slice to open it if you do that, but the Master wired a deadlock circuit into the panel, I can’t do it from the inside.”
She nodded, and gently brought herself to her feet, dragging herself up like a teenager reluctantly obeying her alarm. She wobbled, biting her tongue through the pain, but she managed to get to the control panel, using her good arm to hold in the button the Doctor directed her to.
Stepping out of the pod, the Doctor examined her arm, gently. “Is the pain bad?”
“Yeah. Adrenaline’s keeping me upright, though.”
“Best painkiller there is,” he said, trying to smile reassuringly. Once that would’ve meant the world to her, but now it just didn’t quite work. The world really can change in one night.
“I need you to go and find No, if you can,” the Doctor said, “Take her to a siphon room. She should know what to do in there.”
“You want me to wonder around an alien city, full of deadly shadows, on my own, with a broken arm?”
“You know I wouldn’t ask you to do that, unless I needed you to. But I think a lot of people are going to die tonight, and there’s a distinct possibility that could include us. I don’t think we have time for sentiment.”
Jasmine nodded. “I understand.” She swallowed. Unbidden, tears were welling in her eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find the Master, and I’m going to stop her launching her attack.”
“You mean you’re going to kill her?”
“I guess. I’ve killed her lots of times before. It’s tradition at this point.”
“And that’ll be justice, will it? For us?”
“No. But it’ll be the closest we’ll get in this place.”
Jasmine felt like she was about to choke. “Even if…if the worst happens, I don’t want to feel abandoned. At least give me a way to find you again.”
The Doctor frowned, then nodded. He pulled out the marble-sized data slice, and zapped it with his screwdriver. He pushed it into her good hand. “Here, I’ve programmed it to home in on the sonic. It’ll buzz to let you know you’re going the right way.”
Jasmine nodded. There weren’t any pockets in the dress, so she tightened her fingers around the small piece of glass.
The Doctor looked down at his feet, nodding, getting ready to follow his nemesis up the stairs. He twisted his feet, ready to leave…
…but instead, he stepped forward, gently cupping Jasmine’s face, and kissing her lightly on the forehead. “Don’t believe her when she calls you weak,” he said. “You lot – Robin and Tommy and you and all the rest of them – they’ve always been the best in me. Looking at your faces made me strong, when it mattered most. You give me courage to…to make amends for the things I’ve done. And I won’t ask you to forgive me, or forget how it is I came by the face I’m wearing, but…you were amazing, Jasmine Sparks. To live by you has been the greatest privilege I could ever hope for.”
He didn’t linger for a reaction. Instead, he turned, never looking back, and with a few strides of his long legs, was up the stairs, and gone.
Jasmine sobbed. She let the pain pour out of her, falling back and letting the wall of the flight pod take her weight. Tears fell like a waterfall, her ragged cries echoing long and loud off the stone. She wondered if the Doctor could still hear her.
Autumn’s voice had gone now, and she was alone. I don’t want to die here. Not in this terrible place. Soon enough she’d just be another shadow on the wall of Darksong, the dark and the cold consuming her totally.
Maybe I asked for this. Autumn sought the Doctor out, and she died for it. I did the same. Would she be reborn again? Was it her fate to live and die over and over, constantly chasing after the Doctor? Her mind went back to the painting she’d seen the first time she arrived, the one of the Master with a raven for a head. We will be reborn, it had read. Maybe she was my saviour after all.
She nearly dropped the data slice from between her fingers, but caught it just before it slipped. Jasmine held it up for closer inspection. It was so tiny, nothing but an insignificant ball of glass, but could almost have a whole other world, tucked away inside. I’ve seen so much more than most, it made her think. But still only a fraction of what I could have seen.
The back of her hand went to her face, and wiped the tears away. Strength is what she needed now, to make it through these last few hours. Deep breath, Jasmine Sparks. You still have a world to save.
She headed to the stairs, cradling her broken arm, heading downwards, off to find No.
***
No had gathered as many children as she could – nearly a hundred – in the hall outside the siphon room. They were a sea of blank, black masks, shuffling and whispering nervously to each other. None of them have names either. I can’t really call them No, too.
Children always hid around in the shadows of Darksong. The years had made them better at hiding, harder to see to the ordinary marauders, but they were there. And No never had any trouble finding other children. She could feel them, gently bleeding into the city, and gently bleeding into her too.
It should have taken more persuasion to bring the children together, but those who wore masks trusted each other more than most. When a child told you to run, you ran; when a child told you to hide, you hid; and when a child came to you, and said they needed as many of you to gather together, well, they must have a reason for it.
I hope I haven’t led them to something worse than hiding. All of them had been harvested at least once, nearly all of them more; that was the fate of a child in Darksong. They each hid behind their masks, hiding away, hoping not to be plucked out by some cruel passing adult. But if Slate, or someone else, were to turn up now…
“No,” a voice said behind her, softly.
No turned with a start, ready to run, but the voice had come from a familiar face. “Jasmine?” she said. The girl in the blue dress had turned ashen, so white she could’ve been made of ivory. Her hair was a tangled mess, plastered to her scalp with stress and sweat, and her eyes red and sore. She clutched her arm to her side as if it were broken. “What happened?”
“The Master’s attack,” the woman said. “She’s starting it in less than half an hour. The Doctor’s gone to try and stop it, but he said I needed to get you to a siphon room. He said you’d know what to do.”
“I…I guess I do, but…I thought he’d be here too, to make sure…” Reality was slowly dawning on her. It’s the worst case scenario. “Come, let me show you.”
Together, No and Jasmine entered the siphon room. It was still dark, but the Faces were gone; they were all being drawn to the main siphons, at the top of each tower, ready to be dropped like rain on their targets below. Eventually, they reached the centre of the room, looking up at the curved, bell-shaped piece of metal.
“We can do what the Doctors wants, from here,” No explained. “If the other children and I can funnel our regeneration energy into the siphon, our essence, then it’d clog the system, like he said. The critical mass it creates would implode the city.”
“How long would it take?”
“A couple of hours. Not long at all, in the grand scheme of things. Someone could technically stop it, if they reset the system, presuming they came to the siphon before the whole city was destroyed. But the damage…the number of people dead in the time…the Master could never recover her army.”
“And how much regeneration energy?”
No paused, then answered: “All of it.”
Jasmine looked at her. “What?”
“All of it. I, and the children outside…we’ll have to pour all our regeneration in to match the flow.”
“And…?” Jasmine’s throat sounded dry. “And what would that mean?”
No looked at her, staring at her with dark, porcelain eyes. “Did the Doctor really say nothing? Did he say there was no other way?”
“He...he didn’t say anything…”
You were stupid to think you could ever get away from here, No. It all started when she took that stupid name. It gave her too much presence, made her feel too real. Gave me too much hope.
“No, I don’t understand,” Jasmine was saying. “What’s going to happen to you? To you all?”
“You asked me why I wear a mask, earlier.”
“Yeah, and?”
No sighed. “Regeneration energy. It’s like…a Time Lord’s essence. It’s the thing beyond our physicality. It’s what makes us more than just our bodies.” With a deep breath, No lifted her hands, and took off her mask. “My essence is all I have left.”
Jasmine’s face fell when she saw No didn’t have one. There were no features, no eyes for her to look into, no skin, no nose, no head at all. Only empty space where a little girl should have been, wrapped up in a mask and black cloth.
“My god…” she said, fighting tears in her voice. “No, I am so, so sorry…”
“I can start the system so that it’ll take in the other children. Better not to tell them, I think…” No wanted to cry too. The pain in Jasmine’s eyes made her seem almost like…like a mother. “If I do this, Jasmine, I need to know…that saving you and the Doctor, letting you both escape and carry on living…would it be worth it?”
“It wouldn’t be worth you. Your life.”
“But if you died here, and the Doctor too, what would that mean? For the world outside Darksong?”
Jasmine swallowed, her throat dry and swollen. “It’d mean…the end. Of everything.”
If No had a mouth, she’d have smiled, sadly, with tears running down her empty face. “Then I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“You always have a choice.”
“No. I think my choice was taken from me the day Darksong went to war.”
She took a step back, looking up to the curved metal above her. “Jasmine,” she said. “I know it’s hard, when there’s so little of me left, but…try to remember me. I can barely remember who I was, before the night came. But if you can remember just something about me, even like this…” No lost her words. Like I lost everything.
She looked up to the siphon, and thought she could just about make out her reflection in the steel, such as it was. She didn’t let herself think. She reached out with her essence, flowing from where she stood to the siphon, touching it, threading herself through it…
Then No was gone.
***
Jasmine didn’t think her heart could break any more today, but when she saw No glow gold faintly beneath her robes, then disappear, to collapse into a heap of black cloth on the floor as if she were never there at all, the broken fragments were crushed into sand.
She didn’t cry, though. I’ve cried myself dry, today. Instead she wondered away from the centre of the siphon room, lost in the miasma of her thoughts, barely aware of the thunderous sound of the city collapsing around her.
Darksong is eating itself, at last, she thought, stopping to lean against a pillar as the room cracked and shook. Good. Let it have its fill.
There wasn’t a point in trying to run, or take shelter, or find the Doctor. The place was collapsing, she’d likely get crushed, and even if she didn’t, he probably had been. There was no resolve in her to stay and die, but right now, she lacked the energy to try and live, so she closed her eyes, ignoring the churning and rumbling around her.
But then she heard something that snapped them right back open.
“Little bird…” Slate’s voice drifted out of the darkness, all around her, full of malice and ill intent. “What have you done, little bird?!”
Seems I’m not happy to die after all, Jasmine thought as her body began to move, pulling her injured arm closer to her body, adrenaline flooding her. Fear took hold as she lowered herself, trying to keep as quiet as possible.
“What have you done?!” Slate kept calling. “The Master was right. You humans are so shallow. Even after we tear your Doctor down, you follow him to the bitter end.”
“I’m not following anyone, Slate,” Jasmine cried back, throwing her voice, then quickly moving to a different pillar, trying to draw him out, though how exactly she planned on subduing with a broken arm and no weapon, she wasn’t sure. “I’m just here to stop you.”
“A sweet thought. Justice, is it? Vengeance? Maybe you can’t decide, you flip between the two. Which is fair. It doesn’t matter, in the end. The darkness will consume you all.”
“Doesn’t sound much like what the Master promised you.”
“No, but I’ll come for her, too. But first, I’ve a little justice of my own to extract. You owe me a debt, little bird…”
Jasmine heard a snarl from behind her – she turned, but too late; Slate was upon her.
He shoved her to the floor, and Jasmine landed on her injured arm. She screamed so loud it drowned away the sound of the collapsing city, but she was cut off, a strong, rough pair of hands tightening around her throat.
Slate was choking the life out of her, his face twisted and snarling like an animal. She clawed at his arm and face with her good hand desperately, but it made no difference. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t think.
Then she noticed something. Without even thinking, she launched her hand forward, snatching a needle from the belt around Slate’s body without even thinking. Gold liquid sloshed around the glass tube as she pulled it back, then Jasmine launched it forward, slamming it into his neck.
Slate made a sound, a wet choking noise, as if he was trying to scream, but his throat wouldn't let him. His hands relaxed and he stepped away from Jasmine, staggering backwards, clutching himself.
Gold light began to play beneath his skin, gently at first, but growing fiercer with every passing second, til it burned like an inferno.
The regeneration energy, Jasmine realised. We blocked the system. It has nowhere to go.
Slate collapsed to his knees. His clothes were burned away, and his skin was turning black like burned paper. His hair was gone, and gold fire burned in his eye sockets.
He screamed. Then the light was gone, and nothing was left of Tartarius Slate but a pile of ashes, and a belt of needles, each filled with a gently glowing fluid.
With new-found strength, Jasmine pushed herself to her feet, picking up the belt and examining it closely. Somehow she’d kept hold of the data slice during the fight. My route back to the Doctor. And the Master, too, if he’d found her…
She slung the belt across her shoulder, adjusting the strap so it fit snugly across her chest, and strode out of the dark siphon room, making sure to tread through Slate’s ashes as she went.
***
Once the Doctor heard the city begin to collapse, he knew exactly where to find the Master.
“Hush little baby, don’t say a word…” her singing echoed across the stone, melancholy and beautiful, somehow managing to gently drown out the sound of crumbing stone and shaking foundations. “Momma’s gonna kill for you the whole damn world.”
She always could sing, the Doctor thought, as he entered the nursery. She was kneeling by the blown-out hole in the wall, clutching one of the dolls from the beds upstairs. Beyond her, in the city outside, the rain was lashing harder than ever. Shadows lanced and fell like waterfalls from the tops of the towers, cascading down like tears of ink and smoke, taking whole stones with them. Further back, he could see whole towers collapsing, being dragged into the cold abyss below.
“I don’t think your baby can hear you now, Master,” the Doctor said to her, approaching her slowly. “It’s over now. Time to end it.”
The Master sighed. “How is it we always come to meet in empty houses?”
“It’s like you said, we’re bound together. It’s where our bond was forged.”
“That’s true enough,” the Master laughed. “You’re here to kill me, then?”
The Doctor didn’t reply.
“It never ceases to amaze me, how in one breath you tell those who follow you that thou shalt not kill, that murder is wrong, then turn up at my doorstep, ready to execute me.”
“I’m not here to execute you,” he said. “I want to help you.”
The Master stood, turning around to face the Doctor. Her face was a mask of porcelain, or maybe stone. She stood right by the edge. “I could do it for you, I guess?” she took a step back, becoming perilously close to the drop behind her.
“I don’t want that.”
“I didn’t lie to your friend. There is only way to stop me.” She sniffed, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “If you aren’t going to stand with me, you might as well end it. All I wanted was for you to see the world as I see it. Dark, and cold, and needing saving. But you won’t even give me that. What have I got left to live for?”
“I don’t think it’s the world that needs saving. Not just yet, anyway,” the Doctor kept approaching her, until he was right in front of her, their faces only inches away. “Let me help you.”
“How?” she whispered.
“I’ll take you away. Somewhere quiet. No one will find us, and we won’t have to bother them.”
“No. No, it won’t work. The Daleks are still coming. The war will take everyone. There’ll be nowhere to hide, not from this.”
“Don’t underestimate my ability to hide from things.”
The Master chuckled. “Me? No, I could never do that.” Gently, she placed one hand on the Doctor’s chest. “We could still do it, though. Even without Darksong as a weapon, we could turn up at the Capitol, volunteer as soldiers, have a gun thrust in our hand and end this war as soon as it starts.”
“That’s what you always get wrong. War isn’t inevitable.”
“This one is. You made it that way. You were there at the beginning of the Daleks. You helped fire the first shot. Now you won’t finish what you started.”
“I made mistakes.”
“Then fix them.”
“I’m trying,” the Doctor said. “Help me help you.”
“And take us back to the old days? You know how to do that,” she moved her hand from his chest to his face, brushing his cheek lightly. “Either come with me, or send me over this edge. It’s your choice.”
“Yes, it is. But I don’t choose either of them.”
The Master sighed. She barely looks real, the Doctor thought. She was so pale she might’ve been made of ice, or a living sculpture, her black lips and hair like living shadow, woven into the stone.
She kissed him. Gently – with tenderness, not passion. He didn’t stop her. Instead his eyes closed for the moment their lips met. But as she pulled away, they widened again – in her hand, the Master held the staser.
He tried to move, but too slow; the red-hot bolt of energy slammed into his stomach, tearing a smoking hole in his side. Regenerate, he thought. I have to regenerate. But when he searched for the energy, it was blocked to him.
He collapsed into the Master’s arms. “Hush now,” she said, turning him around and laying him on the floor, his head almost rolling off the edge of the hole in the wall. Rain shot into his eyes.
The Master knelt on his chest, pointing the staser in his face, the barrel still hot. “Seems we’re both going to die here,” she said.
“Master…stop…please…”
“Stop what? This is what you wanted. Darksong in ruins, your enemies dead. No wars to fight for you. You’ve got everything you wanted. I think it’s only fair I get something I want, too.” She pushed the gun even closer, until it was right between his eyes. “If I can’t have you, no one can.”
The Doctor closed his eyes. Then then Master screamed.
The staser fell from her hand and over the edge as she writhed in pain, her back arching. She reached behind her, plucking something from her back and tossing it aside – a needle, empty, the Master’s blood covering the end.
Jasmine stood behind her, holding a new needle, filled with golden liquid in her good hand. Around her chest was a belt of others – eight, maybe ten; the Doctor was in too much pain to count.
Golden light shined beneath the Master’s skin. “You little bitch!” she cried, launching forward, ready to break Jasmine’s neck…but the human girl was prepared, thrusting the second needle into the Master’s ribs, leaving the Time Lady doubling over in pain.
The Master fell to her knees, and Jasmine thrust a third needle into her shoulder.
“You’re stronger than Slate was,” Jasmine said, preparing yet another phial of fluid. “It only took one to do him in. But I reckon just one more of these will be all that it takes.”
The Master spat blood that boiled. Her dress and hair had burned away, her skin turning black and cracking. Her eyes glowed gold, as did something deep in the back of her throat. She looked like a monster, a dying wraith.
“Finally found the courage to execute me, girl?” the Master’s voice was thick with pain, all distorted and unrecognisable.
“No,” Jasmine said, totally calm. “No, I’m not going to execute you. I’m give you a chance. If you’re quick enough, you could get to a siphon, reset the system and save yourself. Go now and you might just make it. Or you can say, and try to kill me and the Doctor. You do that, and I swear to god, I will kill you this time.”
The Master looked up, her cracking, blackening face deadly serious. Then she laughed. “God, eh? I didn’t think you of all people would take that name in vain,” she stood, her legs unsteady, backing up to the hole in the city wall. “You win this time, Jasmine. Congratulations. But don’t let it go to your head.”
The monster that was the Master cracked its shoulders, and straightened its back. “Autumn Rivers didn’t die. Not really. She lives on in you. But if she had died, properly, do you think she would’ve gone to heaven?” The monster’s grin split its face, the golden fire behind the burned teeth terrible to behold. “I think not. Which means you won’t be so lucky, Jasmine Sparks. I’ll see you in hell.”
The Master stepped over the side, disappearing into the darkness.
The Doctor’s world was darkening, losing focus, consciousness slipping in and out. No blood seeped from between his fingers as he clutched the hole in his belly – the wound had cauterised. But the pain was real. The burning.
Jasmine…he tried to whisper, but he could only manage to think it.
He saw stars. Not the real stars, hidden behind the violent clouds that were Darksong’s cage, but bursts of blue light behind his eyes, like he could see his synapses closing, one by one. So beautiful.
The light was coming together into a shape. Long and humanoid, a blue shadow, without a face he could see, but its eyes were warm.
An arm reached out to him, hooking itself around his shoulders, and began to drag him away. Jasmine…he thought again, before the lights dimmed once more.
***
Jasmine didn’t reach her arm out. But someone did, some force compelled her hand to reach up and take the staser. It was heavy between her fingers, her arm trembling with the weight, but all the same, she aimed the barrel at the Master’s head, as the Time Lady took a step back. Funny, she thought. This is the best I’ve felt all day.
“Go on, Autumn,” she was saying. “One staser bolt, right through my brain. I’d be dead before I hit the floor. You and the Doctor can fly away and leave Darksong to rot. If you can still stomach his company, that is.”
“I’m not Autumn. My name’s Jasmine.”
“But I’m talking to Autumn, aren’t I?” The Master’s eyes were alive as she spoke, malice dancing in them like marionettes. “I can see her in there, back from the grave. Unkillable. We’re similar, in that way. Death is for other people. Though maybe you can change that.”
“I’m not going to execute you,” I think. I hope. “But you’ve given me power over you. I have the power to hurt you, and after today, don’t think I won’t use it. You can start by turning off your siphon. Leave this place to its ghosts, like it should always have been.”
“But, why won’t you execute me?” the Time Lady pulled a puzzled face. “I mean, you’re being judge. You’re being jury. Might as well throw executioner in there too. That’d be justice, right?”
“No. That’d be…that’d be retribution.”
She shrugged at that. “What’s the difference?”
Jasmine was feeling sick. The headache was spilling out of her brain and into her whole body, making her limbs ache, making her stomach roil. Just shoot her! a voice was crying in her head. You’re never going to get another chance to end this creature. You have to stop her!
“Shut up,” Jasmine mumbled, rubbing her eye.
“Speak up, sweetheart,” the Master replied.
“SHUT! UP!” Jasmine re-steadied her aim, her finger inching closer to the trigger.
“That’s it! You’re getting it now!”
“Jasmine,” the Doctor said, keeping his voice calm. “Please put the staser down. The time streams in this place…they’ve been messing with your head. They have been since you arrived, I think. Those voices and feelings, they aren’t real, they aren’t you. She’s trying to manipulate you, to drag you down to her level. She’s trying to break us apart even more.” The Doctor breathed deep, through his nose, composing his words. “We came back here for retribution, right? For what she did to us? Killing her won’t do that. It’s just what she wants.”
“Yeah, he’s talking crap,” the Master said. Her voice is so much clearer than the Doctor’s. “He’s weak, too afraid to do what’s necessary. Not like you though, Autumn. You’ve always been willing to get your hands dirty when the heroes won't. And good for you. You can see there’s only one way to stop me, even if he refuses to. I mean…” the Mater laughed, a short sharp bleat that pierced the air. “Someone has to watch the watchmen.”
Autumn pulled the trigger.
In that moment, Jasmine had fallen away, the Doctor had fallen away, the whole of Darksong had ceased to exist. There was only Autumn, pointing her gun at the Master, ready to punish her for what she’d done.
But nothing came from the gun, nothing but an empty clicking sound, and then Autumn was gone.
“Oh,” said Jasmine, blinking back into existence.
The Master’s smile was wide, flashing her teeth like a set of fangs. “Thank you, Jasmine.”
The Time Lady was on her in an instant, grabbing the staser from her hand, kicking Jasmine’s leg from beneath her and twisting her arm behind her back. “No!” she heard the Doctor cry, but it was too late – Jasmine screamed as the Master snapped the bones in her forearm.
The floor rushed to meet her, and Jasmine put her arm out to break the fall…her broken arm.
The pain too sharp to even scream. Consciousness left her, and darkness reigned behind her eyelids for what felt like hours, but when her eyes opened, it had only been seconds.
The Master was standing over her, arming the staser, her face as hard as stone. “You see, Doctor?” she was saying. “Humans aren’t like us. They’re weak. Theit lives blur and flicker and fade like shadows on the wall. Their lives are just illusions. They collapse upon the tiniest inspection.”
“What’re you trying to prove?” the Doctor asked, his voice level and expression stone. “You just keep on destroying everything around you. Everything you touch you have to break. What is this even about?!”
“It’s about you!” The Master stepped over Jasmine, splayed out across the floor like a broken mess, clutching her ruined arm. It’s already starting to swell. The skin was turning pink and tight; the pain was real, but far away, like it was happening to someone else.
The Master paced back to the glass, looking the Doctor straight in the eye. “Look around us, Doctor. The world’s falling apart.”
“You’re the one tearing it apart. And it’s always me who has to run behind you, putting it back together.”
The Master shook her head. “No. It isn’t just me. Our lives are pairbound, yours and mine. No matter how far we run we snap back together, like an elastic band. All that energy causes a fallout, of course, but that changes nothing. We’re linked. We always have been.”
The Doctor scoffed. “What’s this, a proposal?”
“Of a kind,” the Master put her hand on the glass, trying to touch the Doctor’s face, but he was out of reach. “Look at her, Doctor. Look at Jasmine.”
“She’s a mess. You did that to her.”
“And look how it easy it was! I tore apart her whole identity with twenty-four hours and a few choice words. I made her a murderer with just one lie. I’d have killed her, if it wouldn’t make you angry.”
“I’m already pretty angry.”
“But look past her. Look at the whole universe. They made Rassilon president. Even as an animal I felt the tremor in the Matrix. The Time Lords are making ready for war. And they aren’t alone; even here it’s possible to see out into the universe. The astroscopes and temporal monitors still work.
The Daleks are making weapons by the millions, throwing enough smog out into their solar system to blot out their sun. They’re buying mercenaries, too – there are hundreds of millions of captured slave soldiers in the Dalek colonies, Doctor. Some are only armed with spears, or less, but they have the numbers. There are even rumours they’ve sent envoys to Goth, promising the Deathsmiths all the secrets of Gallifrey, should they join the Daleks in battle.”
“All very worrying. Not really my business.”
“You think?” The Master moved closer to the glass, her eyes wide and drinking in the dim green light. “Look at Jasmine. Look how easily the humans break apart. What do you think will happen to them when an armada of Daleks descends on them?”
“W…what?”
“They’ll die. All of them. The whole universe is going to blow away like ash. All their little lives, blowing about like dancers on strings, they’ll burn away to nothing. Unless we do something.”
“Is…is this what this was all about?” The Doctor seemed shocked, genuinely stunned. “A humanitarian appeal?”
“Why not? How many wars and invasions did we stop together? How many monsters did we throw back into the abyss?” She took a breath through her nose, composing herself. “I built an army here. My soldiers are unstoppable. Darksong is a weapon that could devastate the Daleks. We could save the universe. Together.”
“You? Saving the universe?” He scoffed. “Seriously?”
“I asked you if you’d go to war for me, a long time ago,” Jasmine could see something shine in the Master’s eyes. Is she…crying? “I’ll get my answer, tonight.”
“I’ll try to help. I always do. But I’m no soldier.”
“We’re all soldiers now. This war is going to devour everything. You can fight it now, or you can wait until it eats you.”
“Why do you even care what happens? All you talk about is how weak humans are, how they don’t deserve to live. Now you’re trying to use them to blackmail me?”
“Eurgh, why are you such a coward?!” the Master lashed out her fist, rapping it against the glass. The Doctor stepped back, eyes widening against the newly created crack in the wall. “Yes, they make you weak. I can make you strong again. They could never love you, not properly, because they can never understand you. Abandon the hero, and embrace what you are; strong, and powerful, and ready to take on the whole universe. Leave them behind. Come with me. Together we can take the universe.”
The Doctor shook his head. “You’re wrong. You’ve always been wrong. Justice – real justice, harmony and unity – that’ll always be stronger than death and darkness. You think this place gives you power, but all the cold and the rain gives you is weakness. Once your war’s done, and you’ve died, Jasmine and I will both still be standing. Maybe then you can understand.”
The Master’s tears had gone, the fire in her eyes replaced with burning cold. “You really believe that?” she asked quietly.
“Yes,” he answered. “I’ll help you. I’ve always wanted to help you. But no, I won’t fight for you.”
The Master looked away from him, her expression completely still. She nodded, slowly, then turned to look at Jasmine, and said: “Then die for her.”
She strode away from the pod, the malevolent, queen-like grace returning as quickly as it left. “I’m beginning my attack on the Capitol in thirty-five minutes,” the Time Lady announced. “I’m going to use the eye of harmony to break open a crack, and descend every one of my shadow soldiers on the city. If you can find a way out of Darksong before that, good for you. If not, I reckon the Faces I’m releasing will get you in about a day.”
The Master grinned, approaching the steps leading back up the tower. “Addios, amigos. Seems out story has reached its end.” With that, she launched up the stairs, and was gone.
Jasmine buried her head in the fold of her left arm, the one not broken, in a vain hope it’d bury the pain, too. It didn’t work. At least the Doctor didn’t abandon me, she thought. He might be a fourth-dimensional vampire that steals people’s faces, but at least he’s reliable.
“Jasmine?” the Doctor was saying. “Jasmine? Are you okay?”
“I think it’s broken,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position. She nodded to her injury; her wrist was totally immobile.
“Any other injuries?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Okay. There are medical supplies on the TARDIS that’ll sort that out quickly. Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
“Good. I need you to come up to the panel and press in one of the buttons – I can use the data slice to open it if you do that, but the Master wired a deadlock circuit into the panel, I can’t do it from the inside.”
She nodded, and gently brought herself to her feet, dragging herself up like a teenager reluctantly obeying her alarm. She wobbled, biting her tongue through the pain, but she managed to get to the control panel, using her good arm to hold in the button the Doctor directed her to.
Stepping out of the pod, the Doctor examined her arm, gently. “Is the pain bad?”
“Yeah. Adrenaline’s keeping me upright, though.”
“Best painkiller there is,” he said, trying to smile reassuringly. Once that would’ve meant the world to her, but now it just didn’t quite work. The world really can change in one night.
“I need you to go and find No, if you can,” the Doctor said, “Take her to a siphon room. She should know what to do in there.”
“You want me to wonder around an alien city, full of deadly shadows, on my own, with a broken arm?”
“You know I wouldn’t ask you to do that, unless I needed you to. But I think a lot of people are going to die tonight, and there’s a distinct possibility that could include us. I don’t think we have time for sentiment.”
Jasmine nodded. “I understand.” She swallowed. Unbidden, tears were welling in her eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find the Master, and I’m going to stop her launching her attack.”
“You mean you’re going to kill her?”
“I guess. I’ve killed her lots of times before. It’s tradition at this point.”
“And that’ll be justice, will it? For us?”
“No. But it’ll be the closest we’ll get in this place.”
Jasmine felt like she was about to choke. “Even if…if the worst happens, I don’t want to feel abandoned. At least give me a way to find you again.”
The Doctor frowned, then nodded. He pulled out the marble-sized data slice, and zapped it with his screwdriver. He pushed it into her good hand. “Here, I’ve programmed it to home in on the sonic. It’ll buzz to let you know you’re going the right way.”
Jasmine nodded. There weren’t any pockets in the dress, so she tightened her fingers around the small piece of glass.
The Doctor looked down at his feet, nodding, getting ready to follow his nemesis up the stairs. He twisted his feet, ready to leave…
…but instead, he stepped forward, gently cupping Jasmine’s face, and kissing her lightly on the forehead. “Don’t believe her when she calls you weak,” he said. “You lot – Robin and Tommy and you and all the rest of them – they’ve always been the best in me. Looking at your faces made me strong, when it mattered most. You give me courage to…to make amends for the things I’ve done. And I won’t ask you to forgive me, or forget how it is I came by the face I’m wearing, but…you were amazing, Jasmine Sparks. To live by you has been the greatest privilege I could ever hope for.”
He didn’t linger for a reaction. Instead, he turned, never looking back, and with a few strides of his long legs, was up the stairs, and gone.
Jasmine sobbed. She let the pain pour out of her, falling back and letting the wall of the flight pod take her weight. Tears fell like a waterfall, her ragged cries echoing long and loud off the stone. She wondered if the Doctor could still hear her.
Autumn’s voice had gone now, and she was alone. I don’t want to die here. Not in this terrible place. Soon enough she’d just be another shadow on the wall of Darksong, the dark and the cold consuming her totally.
Maybe I asked for this. Autumn sought the Doctor out, and she died for it. I did the same. Would she be reborn again? Was it her fate to live and die over and over, constantly chasing after the Doctor? Her mind went back to the painting she’d seen the first time she arrived, the one of the Master with a raven for a head. We will be reborn, it had read. Maybe she was my saviour after all.
She nearly dropped the data slice from between her fingers, but caught it just before it slipped. Jasmine held it up for closer inspection. It was so tiny, nothing but an insignificant ball of glass, but could almost have a whole other world, tucked away inside. I’ve seen so much more than most, it made her think. But still only a fraction of what I could have seen.
The back of her hand went to her face, and wiped the tears away. Strength is what she needed now, to make it through these last few hours. Deep breath, Jasmine Sparks. You still have a world to save.
She headed to the stairs, cradling her broken arm, heading downwards, off to find No.
***
No had gathered as many children as she could – nearly a hundred – in the hall outside the siphon room. They were a sea of blank, black masks, shuffling and whispering nervously to each other. None of them have names either. I can’t really call them No, too.
Children always hid around in the shadows of Darksong. The years had made them better at hiding, harder to see to the ordinary marauders, but they were there. And No never had any trouble finding other children. She could feel them, gently bleeding into the city, and gently bleeding into her too.
It should have taken more persuasion to bring the children together, but those who wore masks trusted each other more than most. When a child told you to run, you ran; when a child told you to hide, you hid; and when a child came to you, and said they needed as many of you to gather together, well, they must have a reason for it.
I hope I haven’t led them to something worse than hiding. All of them had been harvested at least once, nearly all of them more; that was the fate of a child in Darksong. They each hid behind their masks, hiding away, hoping not to be plucked out by some cruel passing adult. But if Slate, or someone else, were to turn up now…
“No,” a voice said behind her, softly.
No turned with a start, ready to run, but the voice had come from a familiar face. “Jasmine?” she said. The girl in the blue dress had turned ashen, so white she could’ve been made of ivory. Her hair was a tangled mess, plastered to her scalp with stress and sweat, and her eyes red and sore. She clutched her arm to her side as if it were broken. “What happened?”
“The Master’s attack,” the woman said. “She’s starting it in less than half an hour. The Doctor’s gone to try and stop it, but he said I needed to get you to a siphon room. He said you’d know what to do.”
“I…I guess I do, but…I thought he’d be here too, to make sure…” Reality was slowly dawning on her. It’s the worst case scenario. “Come, let me show you.”
Together, No and Jasmine entered the siphon room. It was still dark, but the Faces were gone; they were all being drawn to the main siphons, at the top of each tower, ready to be dropped like rain on their targets below. Eventually, they reached the centre of the room, looking up at the curved, bell-shaped piece of metal.
“We can do what the Doctors wants, from here,” No explained. “If the other children and I can funnel our regeneration energy into the siphon, our essence, then it’d clog the system, like he said. The critical mass it creates would implode the city.”
“How long would it take?”
“A couple of hours. Not long at all, in the grand scheme of things. Someone could technically stop it, if they reset the system, presuming they came to the siphon before the whole city was destroyed. But the damage…the number of people dead in the time…the Master could never recover her army.”
“And how much regeneration energy?”
No paused, then answered: “All of it.”
Jasmine looked at her. “What?”
“All of it. I, and the children outside…we’ll have to pour all our regeneration in to match the flow.”
“And…?” Jasmine’s throat sounded dry. “And what would that mean?”
No looked at her, staring at her with dark, porcelain eyes. “Did the Doctor really say nothing? Did he say there was no other way?”
“He...he didn’t say anything…”
You were stupid to think you could ever get away from here, No. It all started when she took that stupid name. It gave her too much presence, made her feel too real. Gave me too much hope.
“No, I don’t understand,” Jasmine was saying. “What’s going to happen to you? To you all?”
“You asked me why I wear a mask, earlier.”
“Yeah, and?”
No sighed. “Regeneration energy. It’s like…a Time Lord’s essence. It’s the thing beyond our physicality. It’s what makes us more than just our bodies.” With a deep breath, No lifted her hands, and took off her mask. “My essence is all I have left.”
Jasmine’s face fell when she saw No didn’t have one. There were no features, no eyes for her to look into, no skin, no nose, no head at all. Only empty space where a little girl should have been, wrapped up in a mask and black cloth.
“My god…” she said, fighting tears in her voice. “No, I am so, so sorry…”
“I can start the system so that it’ll take in the other children. Better not to tell them, I think…” No wanted to cry too. The pain in Jasmine’s eyes made her seem almost like…like a mother. “If I do this, Jasmine, I need to know…that saving you and the Doctor, letting you both escape and carry on living…would it be worth it?”
“It wouldn’t be worth you. Your life.”
“But if you died here, and the Doctor too, what would that mean? For the world outside Darksong?”
Jasmine swallowed, her throat dry and swollen. “It’d mean…the end. Of everything.”
If No had a mouth, she’d have smiled, sadly, with tears running down her empty face. “Then I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“You always have a choice.”
“No. I think my choice was taken from me the day Darksong went to war.”
She took a step back, looking up to the curved metal above her. “Jasmine,” she said. “I know it’s hard, when there’s so little of me left, but…try to remember me. I can barely remember who I was, before the night came. But if you can remember just something about me, even like this…” No lost her words. Like I lost everything.
She looked up to the siphon, and thought she could just about make out her reflection in the steel, such as it was. She didn’t let herself think. She reached out with her essence, flowing from where she stood to the siphon, touching it, threading herself through it…
Then No was gone.
***
Jasmine didn’t think her heart could break any more today, but when she saw No glow gold faintly beneath her robes, then disappear, to collapse into a heap of black cloth on the floor as if she were never there at all, the broken fragments were crushed into sand.
She didn’t cry, though. I’ve cried myself dry, today. Instead she wondered away from the centre of the siphon room, lost in the miasma of her thoughts, barely aware of the thunderous sound of the city collapsing around her.
Darksong is eating itself, at last, she thought, stopping to lean against a pillar as the room cracked and shook. Good. Let it have its fill.
There wasn’t a point in trying to run, or take shelter, or find the Doctor. The place was collapsing, she’d likely get crushed, and even if she didn’t, he probably had been. There was no resolve in her to stay and die, but right now, she lacked the energy to try and live, so she closed her eyes, ignoring the churning and rumbling around her.
But then she heard something that snapped them right back open.
“Little bird…” Slate’s voice drifted out of the darkness, all around her, full of malice and ill intent. “What have you done, little bird?!”
Seems I’m not happy to die after all, Jasmine thought as her body began to move, pulling her injured arm closer to her body, adrenaline flooding her. Fear took hold as she lowered herself, trying to keep as quiet as possible.
“What have you done?!” Slate kept calling. “The Master was right. You humans are so shallow. Even after we tear your Doctor down, you follow him to the bitter end.”
“I’m not following anyone, Slate,” Jasmine cried back, throwing her voice, then quickly moving to a different pillar, trying to draw him out, though how exactly she planned on subduing with a broken arm and no weapon, she wasn’t sure. “I’m just here to stop you.”
“A sweet thought. Justice, is it? Vengeance? Maybe you can’t decide, you flip between the two. Which is fair. It doesn’t matter, in the end. The darkness will consume you all.”
“Doesn’t sound much like what the Master promised you.”
“No, but I’ll come for her, too. But first, I’ve a little justice of my own to extract. You owe me a debt, little bird…”
Jasmine heard a snarl from behind her – she turned, but too late; Slate was upon her.
He shoved her to the floor, and Jasmine landed on her injured arm. She screamed so loud it drowned away the sound of the collapsing city, but she was cut off, a strong, rough pair of hands tightening around her throat.
Slate was choking the life out of her, his face twisted and snarling like an animal. She clawed at his arm and face with her good hand desperately, but it made no difference. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t think.
Then she noticed something. Without even thinking, she launched her hand forward, snatching a needle from the belt around Slate’s body without even thinking. Gold liquid sloshed around the glass tube as she pulled it back, then Jasmine launched it forward, slamming it into his neck.
Slate made a sound, a wet choking noise, as if he was trying to scream, but his throat wouldn't let him. His hands relaxed and he stepped away from Jasmine, staggering backwards, clutching himself.
Gold light began to play beneath his skin, gently at first, but growing fiercer with every passing second, til it burned like an inferno.
The regeneration energy, Jasmine realised. We blocked the system. It has nowhere to go.
Slate collapsed to his knees. His clothes were burned away, and his skin was turning black like burned paper. His hair was gone, and gold fire burned in his eye sockets.
He screamed. Then the light was gone, and nothing was left of Tartarius Slate but a pile of ashes, and a belt of needles, each filled with a gently glowing fluid.
With new-found strength, Jasmine pushed herself to her feet, picking up the belt and examining it closely. Somehow she’d kept hold of the data slice during the fight. My route back to the Doctor. And the Master, too, if he’d found her…
She slung the belt across her shoulder, adjusting the strap so it fit snugly across her chest, and strode out of the dark siphon room, making sure to tread through Slate’s ashes as she went.
***
Once the Doctor heard the city begin to collapse, he knew exactly where to find the Master.
“Hush little baby, don’t say a word…” her singing echoed across the stone, melancholy and beautiful, somehow managing to gently drown out the sound of crumbing stone and shaking foundations. “Momma’s gonna kill for you the whole damn world.”
She always could sing, the Doctor thought, as he entered the nursery. She was kneeling by the blown-out hole in the wall, clutching one of the dolls from the beds upstairs. Beyond her, in the city outside, the rain was lashing harder than ever. Shadows lanced and fell like waterfalls from the tops of the towers, cascading down like tears of ink and smoke, taking whole stones with them. Further back, he could see whole towers collapsing, being dragged into the cold abyss below.
“I don’t think your baby can hear you now, Master,” the Doctor said to her, approaching her slowly. “It’s over now. Time to end it.”
The Master sighed. “How is it we always come to meet in empty houses?”
“It’s like you said, we’re bound together. It’s where our bond was forged.”
“That’s true enough,” the Master laughed. “You’re here to kill me, then?”
The Doctor didn’t reply.
“It never ceases to amaze me, how in one breath you tell those who follow you that thou shalt not kill, that murder is wrong, then turn up at my doorstep, ready to execute me.”
“I’m not here to execute you,” he said. “I want to help you.”
The Master stood, turning around to face the Doctor. Her face was a mask of porcelain, or maybe stone. She stood right by the edge. “I could do it for you, I guess?” she took a step back, becoming perilously close to the drop behind her.
“I don’t want that.”
“I didn’t lie to your friend. There is only way to stop me.” She sniffed, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “If you aren’t going to stand with me, you might as well end it. All I wanted was for you to see the world as I see it. Dark, and cold, and needing saving. But you won’t even give me that. What have I got left to live for?”
“I don’t think it’s the world that needs saving. Not just yet, anyway,” the Doctor kept approaching her, until he was right in front of her, their faces only inches away. “Let me help you.”
“How?” she whispered.
“I’ll take you away. Somewhere quiet. No one will find us, and we won’t have to bother them.”
“No. No, it won’t work. The Daleks are still coming. The war will take everyone. There’ll be nowhere to hide, not from this.”
“Don’t underestimate my ability to hide from things.”
The Master chuckled. “Me? No, I could never do that.” Gently, she placed one hand on the Doctor’s chest. “We could still do it, though. Even without Darksong as a weapon, we could turn up at the Capitol, volunteer as soldiers, have a gun thrust in our hand and end this war as soon as it starts.”
“That’s what you always get wrong. War isn’t inevitable.”
“This one is. You made it that way. You were there at the beginning of the Daleks. You helped fire the first shot. Now you won’t finish what you started.”
“I made mistakes.”
“Then fix them.”
“I’m trying,” the Doctor said. “Help me help you.”
“And take us back to the old days? You know how to do that,” she moved her hand from his chest to his face, brushing his cheek lightly. “Either come with me, or send me over this edge. It’s your choice.”
“Yes, it is. But I don’t choose either of them.”
The Master sighed. She barely looks real, the Doctor thought. She was so pale she might’ve been made of ice, or a living sculpture, her black lips and hair like living shadow, woven into the stone.
She kissed him. Gently – with tenderness, not passion. He didn’t stop her. Instead his eyes closed for the moment their lips met. But as she pulled away, they widened again – in her hand, the Master held the staser.
He tried to move, but too slow; the red-hot bolt of energy slammed into his stomach, tearing a smoking hole in his side. Regenerate, he thought. I have to regenerate. But when he searched for the energy, it was blocked to him.
He collapsed into the Master’s arms. “Hush now,” she said, turning him around and laying him on the floor, his head almost rolling off the edge of the hole in the wall. Rain shot into his eyes.
The Master knelt on his chest, pointing the staser in his face, the barrel still hot. “Seems we’re both going to die here,” she said.
“Master…stop…please…”
“Stop what? This is what you wanted. Darksong in ruins, your enemies dead. No wars to fight for you. You’ve got everything you wanted. I think it’s only fair I get something I want, too.” She pushed the gun even closer, until it was right between his eyes. “If I can’t have you, no one can.”
The Doctor closed his eyes. Then then Master screamed.
The staser fell from her hand and over the edge as she writhed in pain, her back arching. She reached behind her, plucking something from her back and tossing it aside – a needle, empty, the Master’s blood covering the end.
Jasmine stood behind her, holding a new needle, filled with golden liquid in her good hand. Around her chest was a belt of others – eight, maybe ten; the Doctor was in too much pain to count.
Golden light shined beneath the Master’s skin. “You little bitch!” she cried, launching forward, ready to break Jasmine’s neck…but the human girl was prepared, thrusting the second needle into the Master’s ribs, leaving the Time Lady doubling over in pain.
The Master fell to her knees, and Jasmine thrust a third needle into her shoulder.
“You’re stronger than Slate was,” Jasmine said, preparing yet another phial of fluid. “It only took one to do him in. But I reckon just one more of these will be all that it takes.”
The Master spat blood that boiled. Her dress and hair had burned away, her skin turning black and cracking. Her eyes glowed gold, as did something deep in the back of her throat. She looked like a monster, a dying wraith.
“Finally found the courage to execute me, girl?” the Master’s voice was thick with pain, all distorted and unrecognisable.
“No,” Jasmine said, totally calm. “No, I’m not going to execute you. I’m give you a chance. If you’re quick enough, you could get to a siphon, reset the system and save yourself. Go now and you might just make it. Or you can say, and try to kill me and the Doctor. You do that, and I swear to god, I will kill you this time.”
The Master looked up, her cracking, blackening face deadly serious. Then she laughed. “God, eh? I didn’t think you of all people would take that name in vain,” she stood, her legs unsteady, backing up to the hole in the city wall. “You win this time, Jasmine. Congratulations. But don’t let it go to your head.”
The monster that was the Master cracked its shoulders, and straightened its back. “Autumn Rivers didn’t die. Not really. She lives on in you. But if she had died, properly, do you think she would’ve gone to heaven?” The monster’s grin split its face, the golden fire behind the burned teeth terrible to behold. “I think not. Which means you won’t be so lucky, Jasmine Sparks. I’ll see you in hell.”
The Master stepped over the side, disappearing into the darkness.
The Doctor’s world was darkening, losing focus, consciousness slipping in and out. No blood seeped from between his fingers as he clutched the hole in his belly – the wound had cauterised. But the pain was real. The burning.
Jasmine…he tried to whisper, but he could only manage to think it.
He saw stars. Not the real stars, hidden behind the violent clouds that were Darksong’s cage, but bursts of blue light behind his eyes, like he could see his synapses closing, one by one. So beautiful.
The light was coming together into a shape. Long and humanoid, a blue shadow, without a face he could see, but its eyes were warm.
An arm reached out to him, hooking itself around his shoulders, and began to drag him away. Jasmine…he thought again, before the lights dimmed once more.
***
Jasmine wasn’t sure how long has passed. A day, maybe. Longer. Or less.
She scratched at the blue cast on her arm. It had been on less than an hour, but it itched like hell. “Stop scratching it,” she heard the Doctor say from the TARDIS console. His voice is still weak.
She’d dragged him with one arm back to the flight pod, shutting the door and taking off with the data slice, getting away from the city. The strain had been so much she almost collapsed, but she wasn’t going to leave him. Leaving him wasn’t an option.
She’d watched the city fall away as they escaped, each of the great green towers becoming smaller and smaller, until she couldn’t tell whether they were disappearing from her view, or being consumed by the shadows below.
They found the TARDIS using the data slice, plonked in the middle of some frozen desert a few hundred miles north of Arcadia. Once in the medical bay, the Doctor patched himself up (no need to regenerate, thankfully), and sealed her arm in a cool blue paste, that hardened to a cast. “The material is full of nanomachines,” he said to her as he smeared it on. “They’ll fix you up.”
Now she was clean, and warm, and in her own clothes. Her bruises had healed, her cuts stitched and plastered, and the gentle, comforting thrum of the time rotor lulled her in and out of sleep. The Doctor really lived up to his name.
Something beeped on the Doctor’s watch. “Time for that to come off,” he said, making his way down the steps and towards Jasmine. He hobbled as went, his face still ashen from the injury he took.
He zapped her arm with the sonic screwdriver, and snapped open the cast, releasing a clinical smell into the air. Beneath, Jasmine’s skin was no longer swollen or busied. She flexed her wrist.
“There,” the Doctor said. “Good as new.”
“It still aches.”
“Well, I could actually get you a new one. Like a robotic one. But I didn’t think you’d be up for the whole amputation.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve done enough messing about with this arm for today.”
The Doctor smiled, and went back to the console, fiddling with buttons and knobs.
“So,” Jasmine said, sweeping her hair from her eyes. “Is it time for us to talk, now?”
The Doctor sighed, stopping his work. “I guess so.”
Silence lingered for a moment. Jasmine sighed – this was going to be hard work.
“Okay. I’ll go first,” she said. “I forgive you. I was always going to forgive. You aren’t like the Master said. You aren’t a monster; you try to help people. But…it’s hard. It’s hard to know this about you. I mean, I always knew people died because of you. You haven’t always done good things. But this is something so…so stark. And strange. It’s something I don’t quite understand.
That said…I won’t ask you to stop. I won’t ask you to die, you know. It isn’t your fault. But I…I think I need you to trust me. Be open with me. I don’t want any surprises like this again.”
The Doctor nodded, slowly, but didn’t look at her. “And what if I can’t do that?”
She frowned. “What?”
The Time Lord pulled a lever on the console, and the TARDIS came to a halt. “Eight,” he said. “I’ve had eight faces. The one I was born with, seven I regenerated into. I don’t know the names of the people they belonged to. I set the TARDIS to scan for them, people with small footprints. People who…will be missed less.”
“They’re always going to be missed by someone.”
“I know. That’s why I try to make amends, to live up to them, if that makes sense. But it’s like you said. It’s hard, when someone sees you differently.”
Jasmine looked to the TARDIS door. “Where are we?”
“Earth.”
“Why?”
“So you can go home.”
Something tightened in Jasmine’s chest. No. No it’s not fair. “And why are you doing that?”
“Because…I can’t look at you, anymore.”
She launched to her feet. “Screw you!” she cried. “Screw you! I went through hell today because of you! Literal hell! I stood by and watched a child die – no, I watched her kill herself – to get back to you. I killed people. I was dragged and beaten and frozen, and even when I nearly lost myself I stood by you.
And after all that – after the worst day of my goddamn life! – you want to just…drop me off? Like we shared a table on train? That isn’t fair. I forgave you. I wanted to carry on, to make this work. And now you’re doing this?!”
“You nearly died today. Alone, in the cold and the dark. I can’t put you in that position again.”
“Oh you selfish prick, don’t you dare make this about that!” Jasmine choked back tears of anger. “I signed up for that. On day one I knew this was dangerous. I lived two lives with you, remember? Every second of your life is dangerous.”
“Some seconds are more dangerous than others,” finally, the Doctor looked at her. “She was right. The Master, I mean. She tore me down, cut away at me right to the bone. And maybe you can help piece me back together, I don’t know. But it’s like you said. You went through hell today. I won’t ask you to take that responsibility. Not whilst you don’t quite know me, now.”
“But you aren’t asking. You’re just…kicking me out.”
“No. I’m just…asking you to go.”
“I…” Jasmine chocked on her words, so hard she thought her head might burst. “I don’t want it to end like…like this…”
“I don’t either. But I’m sorry Jasmine, I don’t think I have a choice.” He took a deep breath, stood upright, his shoulders back like a general about to give an order. But instead he spoke like a child, sure that he was right but not quite understanding what he was saying, his voice a whisper. "When you've spent a few days, weeks, maybe months back on Earth, you'll realise. You'll thank me. I'm doing this for you, Jasmine, so that you learn the most valuable lesson a companion of mine can ever learn. The universe can be a terrible place, but you come from somewhere so safe, so perfect. There are no monsters on Earth."
She didn’t try to stop the tears, now; they flowed freely down her face. She looked to the blue TARDIS door, trying to imagine the world beyond. The human world. Earth. I can barely even picture it.
She looked back to the Doctor. She hated him, and loved him. She wanted to hit and kiss him, to tear apart his console and hug him so tight he wouldn’t be able to breath.
But none of that happened. Nothing happened. Instead, they just shared a moment of silence, staring at each other across the TARDIS.
“Bye, then,” Jasmine said, finally, when she couldn’t bear it anymore. She turned, and didn’t look back as she left.
The street outside was dark, and had the Doctor stepped out, he would probably have worried about where he was leaving her. But after Darksong, Jasmine almost felt ownership over the streets of London. They were easy, almost.
The streetlamps lit the path as she stepped out onto it, casting long shadows onto the pavement. But nowhere did the shadows writhe, or stand, or try to kill her.
Jasmine turned and watched the TARDIS fade, the groaning, wheezing sound more melancholy with each beat, until it had gone completely.
She hugged herself tighter, and wiped the tears from her face. Alone, she thought. Again. She gave herself a moment, just one moment, to properly consider that, to try and reach out to herself and summon pity, like she might for someone else. Then she shook her head, cleared her thoughts, and began to walk. She would be fine. She had one advantage over the Doctor, one thing that he would never quite understand.
She knew where she was going.
She scratched at the blue cast on her arm. It had been on less than an hour, but it itched like hell. “Stop scratching it,” she heard the Doctor say from the TARDIS console. His voice is still weak.
She’d dragged him with one arm back to the flight pod, shutting the door and taking off with the data slice, getting away from the city. The strain had been so much she almost collapsed, but she wasn’t going to leave him. Leaving him wasn’t an option.
She’d watched the city fall away as they escaped, each of the great green towers becoming smaller and smaller, until she couldn’t tell whether they were disappearing from her view, or being consumed by the shadows below.
They found the TARDIS using the data slice, plonked in the middle of some frozen desert a few hundred miles north of Arcadia. Once in the medical bay, the Doctor patched himself up (no need to regenerate, thankfully), and sealed her arm in a cool blue paste, that hardened to a cast. “The material is full of nanomachines,” he said to her as he smeared it on. “They’ll fix you up.”
Now she was clean, and warm, and in her own clothes. Her bruises had healed, her cuts stitched and plastered, and the gentle, comforting thrum of the time rotor lulled her in and out of sleep. The Doctor really lived up to his name.
Something beeped on the Doctor’s watch. “Time for that to come off,” he said, making his way down the steps and towards Jasmine. He hobbled as went, his face still ashen from the injury he took.
He zapped her arm with the sonic screwdriver, and snapped open the cast, releasing a clinical smell into the air. Beneath, Jasmine’s skin was no longer swollen or busied. She flexed her wrist.
“There,” the Doctor said. “Good as new.”
“It still aches.”
“Well, I could actually get you a new one. Like a robotic one. But I didn’t think you’d be up for the whole amputation.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve done enough messing about with this arm for today.”
The Doctor smiled, and went back to the console, fiddling with buttons and knobs.
“So,” Jasmine said, sweeping her hair from her eyes. “Is it time for us to talk, now?”
The Doctor sighed, stopping his work. “I guess so.”
Silence lingered for a moment. Jasmine sighed – this was going to be hard work.
“Okay. I’ll go first,” she said. “I forgive you. I was always going to forgive. You aren’t like the Master said. You aren’t a monster; you try to help people. But…it’s hard. It’s hard to know this about you. I mean, I always knew people died because of you. You haven’t always done good things. But this is something so…so stark. And strange. It’s something I don’t quite understand.
That said…I won’t ask you to stop. I won’t ask you to die, you know. It isn’t your fault. But I…I think I need you to trust me. Be open with me. I don’t want any surprises like this again.”
The Doctor nodded, slowly, but didn’t look at her. “And what if I can’t do that?”
She frowned. “What?”
The Time Lord pulled a lever on the console, and the TARDIS came to a halt. “Eight,” he said. “I’ve had eight faces. The one I was born with, seven I regenerated into. I don’t know the names of the people they belonged to. I set the TARDIS to scan for them, people with small footprints. People who…will be missed less.”
“They’re always going to be missed by someone.”
“I know. That’s why I try to make amends, to live up to them, if that makes sense. But it’s like you said. It’s hard, when someone sees you differently.”
Jasmine looked to the TARDIS door. “Where are we?”
“Earth.”
“Why?”
“So you can go home.”
Something tightened in Jasmine’s chest. No. No it’s not fair. “And why are you doing that?”
“Because…I can’t look at you, anymore.”
She launched to her feet. “Screw you!” she cried. “Screw you! I went through hell today because of you! Literal hell! I stood by and watched a child die – no, I watched her kill herself – to get back to you. I killed people. I was dragged and beaten and frozen, and even when I nearly lost myself I stood by you.
And after all that – after the worst day of my goddamn life! – you want to just…drop me off? Like we shared a table on train? That isn’t fair. I forgave you. I wanted to carry on, to make this work. And now you’re doing this?!”
“You nearly died today. Alone, in the cold and the dark. I can’t put you in that position again.”
“Oh you selfish prick, don’t you dare make this about that!” Jasmine choked back tears of anger. “I signed up for that. On day one I knew this was dangerous. I lived two lives with you, remember? Every second of your life is dangerous.”
“Some seconds are more dangerous than others,” finally, the Doctor looked at her. “She was right. The Master, I mean. She tore me down, cut away at me right to the bone. And maybe you can help piece me back together, I don’t know. But it’s like you said. You went through hell today. I won’t ask you to take that responsibility. Not whilst you don’t quite know me, now.”
“But you aren’t asking. You’re just…kicking me out.”
“No. I’m just…asking you to go.”
“I…” Jasmine chocked on her words, so hard she thought her head might burst. “I don’t want it to end like…like this…”
“I don’t either. But I’m sorry Jasmine, I don’t think I have a choice.” He took a deep breath, stood upright, his shoulders back like a general about to give an order. But instead he spoke like a child, sure that he was right but not quite understanding what he was saying, his voice a whisper. "When you've spent a few days, weeks, maybe months back on Earth, you'll realise. You'll thank me. I'm doing this for you, Jasmine, so that you learn the most valuable lesson a companion of mine can ever learn. The universe can be a terrible place, but you come from somewhere so safe, so perfect. There are no monsters on Earth."
She didn’t try to stop the tears, now; they flowed freely down her face. She looked to the blue TARDIS door, trying to imagine the world beyond. The human world. Earth. I can barely even picture it.
She looked back to the Doctor. She hated him, and loved him. She wanted to hit and kiss him, to tear apart his console and hug him so tight he wouldn’t be able to breath.
But none of that happened. Nothing happened. Instead, they just shared a moment of silence, staring at each other across the TARDIS.
“Bye, then,” Jasmine said, finally, when she couldn’t bear it anymore. She turned, and didn’t look back as she left.
The street outside was dark, and had the Doctor stepped out, he would probably have worried about where he was leaving her. But after Darksong, Jasmine almost felt ownership over the streets of London. They were easy, almost.
The streetlamps lit the path as she stepped out onto it, casting long shadows onto the pavement. But nowhere did the shadows writhe, or stand, or try to kill her.
Jasmine turned and watched the TARDIS fade, the groaning, wheezing sound more melancholy with each beat, until it had gone completely.
She hugged herself tighter, and wiped the tears from her face. Alone, she thought. Again. She gave herself a moment, just one moment, to properly consider that, to try and reach out to herself and summon pity, like she might for someone else. Then she shook her head, cleared her thoughts, and began to walk. She would be fine. She had one advantage over the Doctor, one thing that he would never quite understand.
She knew where she was going.
Next Time: Machiavelli and the Empty WorldTravelling alone, the Doctor finds himself on a ghost world, where the crew of the Machiavelli, the universe's most advanced military unit, are as confounded by its mystery as he is.
But they're not alone. The crew have brought with them a prisoner - a woman with a dark secret and a terrible name, who knows the Doctor better than anyone... Machiavelli and the Empty World will be published on Saturday 22nd October. |
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