The Wintertime Paradox

by Dave Rudden

And then he reached up to the circlet and snapped it in half.

  After the darkness of the winter hellscape, the sunshine outside was terribly bright. Bill pulled out her own sunglasses, and she and the Doctor found a bench to sit on. Security was trying to stop people from going back into the convention centre en masse. Lots of people were taking photos.

  ‘Do you think they’ll be all right?’ Bill asked.

  Bill had been expecting a tearful hug when the holographic landscape had dissolved, but the Lawals weren’t that kind of family. Instead, the two of them had just stared at each other, as if Bill and the Doctor weren’t there. That was the thing. The day had been saved, all right. Today, at least. Everything else is up to them.

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘I think they have a better chance of it now that they’re actually talking, instead of just remembering all the horrible things they’ve said to each other. After that, it’s up to them. Which is how it should be.’

  ‘Just for a second in there,’ Bill said, ‘I thought I might have had it easier having a mum who’s just memories. I’d win every argument. She’d always agree with me. But after seeing the reality …’

  ‘You have both, Bill,’ the Doctor said. ‘Never forget that. Now, what say I bring you to an actual sci-fi space cannon?’

  Bill grinned. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Good. Now, your typical sci-fi space cannon works like a funfair hall of mirrors …’

  4

  For the Girl Who Has Everything

  Section 314 of UNIT sits under the Tower of London, and both of its doors are locked.

  The first door is located behind a modest reception area seemingly no different from the reception area of Section 315 next door, or indeed from any other reception area in this part of the Tower. The grey of the floor tiles and the beige hue of the ceiling lights are standard government issue, as are the cheap plastic chairs in a line against the wall. The reception area is windowless, which is not uncommon, and a single vent keeps stale air in weak rotation around the glass-fronted counter and the three free-standing shelves at the back.

  A casual observer might note the OUT OF SERVICE sign on the ticket dispenser and the skin of dust on the counter and conclude that Section 314 does not see a lot of traffic. They might assume that the department is forgotten, or neglected, or that it has no purpose at all. However, that conclusion would be a mistake. This is not the fault of the casual observer. This room has never seen a casual observer, and no casual observer has ever seen it.

  Section 314 is the Grey Archive, and it is one of the most dangerous rooms on Earth.

  It is not the only archive beneath the Tower. There is the Red Archive – the list of entities that have threatened Earth before and may do so again – and the Blue Archive, where every transmission between humans and alien-kind is pored over for future diplomatic advantage. There is the Black Archive – the ultimate repository for extraterrestrial technology deemed lethal enough to be locked away forever.

  Section 314’s abandoned atmosphere is more than a disguise. It is a mission statement. Beyond the careful blandness lies the most advanced equipment government money can buy, operated by the sharpest minds UNIT can hire, borrow or steal. Every inch of the archive – from the secrets lurking on its shelves to its curated facade of neglect – has been built to the precise specifications of the greatest and most paranoid minds of the human race. All for one simple purpose: to test extraterrestrial artefacts for use, value and danger.

  However, despite all this, despite the extensive perimeter defences and the inner precautions against accident or contamination or disaster, the design of the Grey Archive has one fatal flaw.

  Section 314 has two doors.

  Its designers are only aware of one.

  And, at 7.28 p.m. on Christmas Eve, the second door unlocks.

  17:56.

  Petronella Osgood is annoyed.

  Not at the clock. She likes the clock. The clock is one of hers. Built from prototype psychic paper and scavenged Nestene plastic, it shows you the time. Which, yes, is a clock’s basic purpose – nothing hugely special there – but this clock reads you as you read it, and shows you whatever time you need to see, anywhere in the galaxy. There are further uses too, once Osgood figures them out. Word is the top brass is thinking of implementing it UNIT-wide. Osgood is proud of the clock. It isn’t bad, for her first month on the job.

  No, what Osgood is annoyed at is mostly Christmas and slightly herself.

  ‘It’s not going to go any faster if you keep staring at it, Osgood,’ Douglas calls from his desk. His briefcase is on his lap.

  ‘Unless it does,’ Blair adds. He has edged his chair outwards, hunching over his briefcase in the manner of a sprinter waiting for the starter’s pistol. ‘Does it?’

  ‘No,’ Osgood says wearily. ‘At least, I don’t think so. I still have a couple of tests left to run.’

  ‘Well,’ Niki says, stretching, ‘if they’re not done now, they can wait until after Christmas. It’s two minutes to six. I say we call it. Happy holidays!’

  Everyone bolts, grabbing coats and stowing work tablets in desks. Osgood doesn’t blame them. From where they are, the reception area is at least half an hour’s walk away.

  Architecture inside the Grey Archive is … complicated. Not as you enter, of course. Section 314’s reception appears as government issue as they come. It’s only when you make your way to the shelves that things get … well, UNIT. Walking past the shelves takes you to the back of the room in three long strides. Walk between the shelves and you end up somewhere else entirely.

  Between the first and second shelves there is a corridor so long it shouldn’t fit beneath the Tower of London, let alone in the room you just left. This corridor leads to the office in which Osgood now sits: an open-plan sprawl of blocky analysis equipment and recently abandoned desks, each with its own little dash of personality – a potted plant, a family photo.

  But it’s walking between the second and third shelves that yields the real treasure: mile after mile of storerooms packed with crates and chests and artefacts of alien origin. The more obviously dangerous of these sit in lead boxes or hang in the glittering beams of stasis-lock. Others languish in government-issue cardboard boxes – partially because cursory scans have declared them inactive, and partially because there is only so much lead to go around.

  The Grey Archive is understaffed and underfunded. The only thing they’re not short of is room, thanks to experimental spatial-folding technology borrowed or stolen from a race so advanced it gives Osgood a headache. Whatever the source, this technology has given the Grey Archive the architecture of a fairy tale. Turning a corner then turning back won’t necessarily return you to the same spot. Doors disappear if you approach them from the wrong direction. Clearance here is less about passcodes and access cards and more about learning the routes of an ever-changing maze, about keeping a living map in your head.

  It’s weirdly poetic, in the way that only old and tired government institutions can be – the Grey Archive’s business is uncertainty, so much so it’s baked into the very walls. Only the Chief Scientific Officer of UNIT knows how big the Grey Archive really is, but speculation puts it at roughly the size of London.

  Niki pauses at the door. ‘You sure you don’t want to come for a drink or something?’

  Osgood’s phone pings. She doesn’t need to look at it to know what it says. ‘I’m actually quite happy here. Thank you though.’

  Niki sighs. ‘Just don’t get lost. And, Petronella?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Merry Christmas.’

  In a storeroom deep in the Grey Archive, there is a black metal box that looks a little like a coffin and a little like a womb. The green liquid that fills it has been inert since UNIT acquired it in the incident referred to as ‘The Sontaran Stratagem’.

  At 19:05 the liquid begins to bubble.

  At 19:15 it begins to seethe.

  And, at 19:28, the surface of the liquid
is broken by a hand that turns in the air like a flower seeking light.

  The box is a Sontaran cloning pool. From above, it very much resembles a door.

  Osgood’s phone pings again. Nova must be getting desperate.

  Sister.

  Ping.

  You’re being unreasonable.

  Petronella Osgood is not being unreasonable. She is very rarely unreasonable, actually, because the Osgoods are an old UNIT family, and to them reason is important. Reason is why Petronella Osgood did her Christmas shopping in October, but now has fifteen new messages from her sister, who didn’t.

  Ping.

  Look, I just forgot, OK?

  Ping.

  And I don’t have time to go in to town now. You know what it is like on Christmas Eve!

  Nova Osgood is entirely unreasonable. Being unreasonable suits her. The laws of physics touch Nova Osgood lightly. She gets away with stuff in a way that Petronella never has. It’s something to do with her hair, and her dimple, and most likely something to do with her name, which, like her smile, is a blinding cosmic event.

  Petronella is a scientist. It would be unreasonable for her to think that names had anything to do with personalities, which is why she tries not to think about how her sister’s name refers to something fleeting and spectacular, while Petronella is a Dutch name that means ‘rock’.

  Ping.

  This happens every year. Every year.

  There’s an air of healthy competition in the Osgood household when it comes to Christmas presents, and every year Petronella Osgood comes out on top. There is planning. There is research. She takes it seriously. But, every year, Nova doesn’t.

  Petronella, please! Just nick Dad something from the office!

  Frank Osgood isn’t UNIT. He could have been. Their father has built things in his shed out of old radios and bits of string that would put half the UNIT staff to shame. He’s never explained why he didn’t apply, why he’d rather spend his time building electron telescopes and scanning for evidence of aliens than ask any one of a dozen family members who could not only provide said evidence but also probably a home address. But maybe that’s the reason. Maybe he likes the mystery, and UNIT is all about taking the mystery apart.

  Either way, it’s this odd little detail that makes Petronella go the extra mile when it comes to her dad’s Christmas presents. She sources rare photographs of suspected alien activity. She finds blueprints for Mars probes that don’t officially exist.

  But she never, ever steals from work.

  This Christmas, she managed to source the journal of US pilot Kenneth Arnold, the very first civilian to report seeing a UFO. There are hundreds of confiscated pilot reports in the Grey Archive, but she found this one using her own contacts and her own money, because doing otherwise would be cheating. Cheating is Nova’s thing. Petronella, like her namesake and unlike her sister, is extremely subject to the laws of physics, and this Christmas she has decided to use this to her advantage.

  I’ll go have a poke around the storerooms where there’s no phone reception, she thinks. And if that makes me miss Nova’s messages, well … it’s hardly my fault, is it?

  Stealing things from work. The idea.

  The green liquid bubbles and froths.

  Sontaran technology, like everything about the Sontaran Empire, is deceptively simple. They are a clone race, grown in their millions and imprinted from birth with a hunger for war and victory. As such, their technology is designed to be efficient. Intuitive design is essential when you’re born on a battlefield.

  The UNIT technicians seeking to deactivate the cloning pool were easily able to locate and remove its power cube. The biodata storage drive came out as easily as the magazine of a gun.

  However, Sontarans also believe in fail-safes. They believe in victory at any cost. Any clone can be a hero. Any defeat can be a door to revenge. All cloning pools are designed with a backup generator and reserve biodata, kept at minimum power to avoid detection. At full capacity and with a living, connected source of DNA, Sontaran cloning pools can create a near-perfect copy. In the absence of these essential components, however, this particular cloning pool has created monsters instead.

  No two are alike. The pool did whatever it could with the scraps of code rotting in its servers. One clone is hideous, with muscly human-length arms dragging behind its squat Sontaran frame. Another is so tall it scrapes the ceiling, spine curved like the blade of a scythe. The third crouches low on knuckled feet, its two heads blinking brand-new eyes.

  And the fourth simply waits as the pool gives a final, churning gurgle. Something bobs to the surface of the liquid.

  It is a simple spiked disk. Cloning pools cannot produce metal, so it is made of hard Sontaran bone.

  A mark of rank. These things are important, culturally.

  The fourth clone picks it up and affixes it to its bare chest.

  ‘Sontar,’ it slurs, ‘ha.’

  Turn right, then left at the end of the corridor.

  Osgood consults her tablet, scrolling through page upon page of confiscated alien tech. By her count, she has taken 113 turns into the archive’s vast stores, each change of direction like a link in a chain.

  Take the second door. No, the third, because it’s a Tuesday after six.

  Osgood steps through the door, closes it, then opens it again on a completely different corridor from the one she just left. She finds herself wondering, as she often does, whether the spatial-folding technology simply replicates the same fifty feet of corridor, or whether UNIT spends an utterly ludicrous amount of money on grey carpet.

  The little storeroom she enters isn’t technically her office. She’s too junior to have one of her own. However, nobody seems to have noticed the little desk she’s set up between teetering stacks of boxes, or the prototype Nestene clock she’s hung on the wall, or the little Christmas tree her dad gave her.

  Everyone on the team has their areas of interest. Douglas likes weapons. Niki has written fascinating studies on Abzorbaloff tech. And everyone but Osgood scrambles for the ‘good’ stuff, the career-changing artefacts. Anything that might get them noticed by the Chief Scientific Officer. Some technicians treat the Grey Archive like a stepping stone. An airlock. A place to pass through to get to their next assignment.

  There’s a lot of … tat in the Grey Archive. That’s why they need so much room. Everything that comes into contact with aliens must be analysed. There are as many boxes here dedicated to Cardiff quarry gravel as there are potentially world-ending threats. That’s why Osgood loves it. She has exactly the same amount of interest in a Silurian tea-set as she does in antimatter drives.

  More than that, this is an airlock. It’s transformative. It’s a monument to how anything can be changed by a brush with the majestic.

  This is a place where rocks meet the sky.

  With a smart little flourish of her sleeves, Osgood selects a random box from the stacks surrounding her desk. She could just look up its barcode on the tablet, but sometimes it’s nice to do a lucky dip. You never know what you might find.

  ‘After all,’ she says to herself, ‘it’s Christmas Eve.’

  That’s when she notices that the clock has changed.

  Which is not, by itself, a reason to panic. Changing is what clocks do. Except that now, instead of Nestene-plastic numbers on a psychic-paper face, its display is flashing a single word.

  RUN.

  RUN.

  RUN.

  It is, Osgood realises as the first monster kicks down the door, telling her the time.

  Elsewhere, the fourth clone is exploring.

  It has discovered, first of all, that there are barriers to victory. This is not unexpected. The cloning pool had no access to a live subject on which to base its clones, and no Sontaran mainframe to educate them. Compromises had to be made. The fourth clone, human and handsome and more intelligent by far than its siblings, is that compromise. It does not know where it is. It knows nothing about the Grey
Archive, or humanity, or Earth. It understands hardly anything of the empire that created it, bar the necessity for victory.

  But it is an extremely quick learner.

  Now, it stalks through the corridors, occasionally sniffing the air. Everything looks the same. Grey carpet, white walls, storeroom after storeroom packed with locked crates or boxes containing equipment that seems either useless or lacking in decent Sontaran simplicity.

  There are trees too, which the clone finds strange – trees set up in corners and hung with glowing bulbs. Frivolous, it decides, after eating a couple. Frivolous and deserving of destruction.

  Nevertheless, for the purpose of navigation, the clone memorises the placement of every sparkling wall hanging and every flashing light. It has never heard of spatial folding, but it can tell that there is something wrong with the architecture here, and it is already devising countermeasures.

  There is always victory to be had. All the clone must do is find it.

  Its siblings have been sent out in different directions, to return with their own data. They probably won’t. The fourth clone knows this, and the knowledge pains it. It was created apart from them, and despite their programmed understanding of rank and obedience, their base hungers will undoubtedly lead them off course.

  The fourth clone is very smart, and very alone. This is the way of those chosen to lead.

  It smiles suddenly as a thought occurs to it, then it turns gracefully on a heel to pad back the way it came. It has a very good memory. Retracing its steps is easy. Tilting its head back, it lets out a long, low roar.

  Maybe its siblings will hear it and return. Maybe they won’t.

  But, if the fourth clone finds the pool’s power cube, it can make all the siblings it needs.

  Osgood has always meant to clean her storeroom one day. The fact that she hasn’t saves her life.

  The beast is massively muscled. The door doesn’t slow it at all. What does slow it, however, is hitting the three crates of dwarf-star alloy stacked in front of Osgood’s desk. There is a particularly nasty snap as the creature rebounds. The crates don’t even shudder. Osgood winces. She doesn’t know a lot about dwarf-star alloy, except that once she stubbed her toe on it and felt it for weeks.