by Cavan Scott
CIRCE: You’ll just have to put up with this one. I coped with all the Emil Keller / Kalid / Professor Yana stuff over the years.
MISSY: Oh, we did have a laugh, didn’t we?
CIRCE: I don’t remember laughing much.
MISSY: I did, though. Your face! I lived for that moment. Off with the wig and – Ha! The way your jaw dropped. I mean, I knew that sometimes you already knew it was me and you were just doing the face to please me. That was so sweet of you.
CIRCE: I am not sweet.
MISSY: Don’t be silly. All the times I could just eat you up! Crunch you with your celery! Actually, I have a theory about you and jelly babies, I’ll have to tell you about it some time.
CIRCE: ANYWAY. I was about to expose your plan.
MISSY: Yes, you were, weren’t you. I was looking forward to hearing what it was.
CIRCE: There had to be a reason why you included nearly all the Tudor women in your little gang. Some of them, after all, didn’t need your advice. Mary and Elizabeth were already female rulers in a man’s world. Then I thought about what came after the Tudors. The very next ruler after Elizabeth was James I. And do you know what James I did? He granted Royal Charters for various organisations – such as universities. One of those universities included the institution that later became St Luke’s – the very place where you are now incarcerated. So. No James I – no charter – no university – no St Luke’s – no vault. You were throwing stones into the Tudor puddle and hoping the Stuart dynasty splashed out of existence. Almost anything could have done it – one of the wives bumping off Henry, Bloody Mary burning a few more men here or there, James’s mum getting rid of Darnley before they’d done the dirty, Elizabeth deciding she wasn’t going to let some Scottish boy take over her throne. Only one of those things had to happen, and you’d go free. But you knew I’d be watching you.
MISSY: Well, most of the time it’s been the little hobgoblin with glasses, but yes, carry on.
CIRCE: You were clever, I’ll give you that. You did it in an openly sneaky way.
MISSY: Well, wasn’t I the clever-clogs. What does that mean exactly?
CIRCE: You asked for the components to make a space-time telegraph, slipping them in among other deliberately chosen bizarre requests so it wouldn’t seem blatant, but knowing I’d spot you. Which I did, long before Nardole, I’d like to point out for the record. Then you began your supposedly secret operation, again knowing I’d be fully aware of what you were doing. You were banking on me being so pleased I’d caught you out that I’d never spot what you were really up to. All the other historical women – Boudicca, Marie Curie, Helen of Troy – they were just window-dressing. Your first, last, and only goal was to prevent James I taking the throne of England so you could escape captivity.
MISSY: Oh, brilliant. Quite, quite brilliant. One of those little applauding hands pictures.
CIRCE: You forget how well I know you.
MISSY: Yes, oh yes! Oh Doctor, you know me better than I know myself! I fall at your feet in humble admiration! I have been caught out! My plan has been exposed! You are the biggest brainbox in the whole of Fairyland. I throw myself at your feet in supplication.
CIRCE: All right, there’s no need for all of that.
MISSY: But how can I resist when your giant brain is making me go all gooey and girlie?
CIRCE: Look, we’ll take apart the space-time telegraph and say no more about it.
MISSY: But I want to say some more! I want to say how your giant brain must be encased inside a BIG HEAD!
CIRCE: What?
MISSY: So full of yourself! And so full of doggy doo-doo. All that just to stop a university being built? There are a hundred easier ways I could have sorted that, and you wouldn’t have known a thing about it. But what difference would it have made anyway? You’d just have built this silly vault somewhere else. Plus – you know, I did agree to this. Obviously I’m not enjoying it. But if I really wanted to get out – *really* – then I’d be out. I think you know that deep in your little hearts.
CIRCE: So if that wasn’t your plan – what were you doing?
MISSY: My plan was exactly what I said it was. To help women.
CIRCE: In order to disrupt history.
MISSY: In order to make things better!
CIRCE: What, really?
MISSY: Yes, really! Look, I did a wee bit of reading, and it turns out that for most of the history of this planet, men have treated women a teensy bit badly. As a woman, I object to that, so I decided to help. I didn’t try to keep it secret from you, not even a little bit. Because I thought you’d *approve*!
CIRCE: You thought I’d approve of you telling women to stab men and turn their insides into spaghetti!
MISSY: YES! Telling them to turn on their oppressors! Isn’t that what you always do? I was trying to be like you!
MISSY: Are you still there?
MISSY: You’ve gone all quiet.
MISSY: Shall I sing a song to pass the time? Any requests? I do a mean Lulu impression. *We-e-eee-ee-ee-elll –*
CIRCE: You’re saying that not only did you feel empathy for certain humans, you wanted to help them, and you wanted to be like me?
MISSY: No, I didn’t say any of that.
CIRCE: You did, it’s still there on the screen.
MISSY: I was lying. It was the James I thing really.
CIRCE: I think, in your own way, you really were trying to do a good thing. You are changing.
MISSY: Wash that sassy mouth out! I just wanted some historical ladies to get all stabby-stabby on King James, then whoops! I’m out of the Vault, bye-bye Doctor and little bald hobgoblin man.
CIRCE: You wanted to right an injustice.
MISSY: Will you stop saying that! You’re giving me a headache. Anyway, my plan failed. Whichever one it was. Still stuck in the Vault, human history still rubbish to women.
CIRCE: There are other ways you can help get them justice.
MISSY: Not bleedin’ likely, guv’nor. Ungrateful lot! Throwing all my brilliant ideas back in my face! I’m 100% done with human women. Hate the lot of them. Hope they all use lead-based make-up and die. Next time I’ll pick someone else to help.
CIRCE: Aha!
MISSY: Not that I’m saying there’ll be a next time. Or that I was trying to help anyone in the first place.
CIRCE: So why were there so many Tudors on your list?
MISSY: Just because I read a good book on them. Books are good. You should read a book sometimes. You might learn something. Plus there was a lot of burning and beheading. Enough to make any girl’s hearts flutter. Anyway, nice talking to you, Doctor. I have to go now, the hobgoblin has brought me a cup of tea and I need to dunk things in it.
MISSY has left the conversation.
*
Dear Doctor,
These are the things she’s asked for this week:
1 x pair of time tweezers.
A book on what intelligent species there are on this idiotic planet apart from humans.
1 x pack of chocolate garrottes.
Yours sincerely,
Nardole
N. Book is OK. I don’t think chocolate garrottes are a real thing. And what on Earth are time tweezers? D
D. Apparently if you pluck your eyebrows, they regrow backwards in time so you never have to do it again, but your past self might get a hairy chin or something ohhhhhh.
*
Your Andromeda.gal.ax order #ZZ9-ZZZ-F
Delivery Update
Hello Mr N A Rdole!
We’re going to deliver your package today.
Delivery Information:
‘Intelligent Life on Earth: Real or Myth?’ (jellyback) by X’c’zzEvnh.
This is the final part of your order. Your order is now complete.
*
INVITATION
Dear Rattus rattus 1
You are invited to join RAT (Rodents Against Terrans).
I can’t be doing with apes, they’re basically just
extra-hairy humans, and I’m totally off the sea following a bad experience with some reptiles in the 1970s (or was it the 1980s?) so the dolphins are out too, which means the rats have won the lottery! You’re pretty much as intelligent as humans but do they treat you like you are? No! Rat traps! Rat poison! Lab rats! Rat baiting! Flushing you down the loo! Now, there’s at least one rat for every human on Earth, you can reproduce at a frankly embarrassing rate and your teeth grow five inches in a year, so things are stacked in your favour. You had a good try with plagues back in the day, but it’s time to take things to a new level. RATS RULE!
RSVP
Your friend,
Missy
Alit in Underland
Richard Dinnick
The scarecrows were mumbling again. They did that from time to time. It was one of the weird things about coming to the homestead. The eerie muttering did not bother the two people Alit was following. She had seen them arguing with Hazran and the other new arrival – the funny bald man, Nardole. She often hid in the shadows and secretly listened to what the grown-ups were talking about. Mostly it was just boring stuff, but this time it was quite good.
Alit loved exploring and finding stuff out. She always had. To do that, though, meant she didn’t always do as she was told or stay this side of the fence. As far as she was concerned, you could only find out how far you could go by going too far. At least that’s what her mum had always told her. So she was good at hiding in shadows and around corners, eavesdropping and watching. Adults didn’t really notice children, and even if they did, they assumed that being small meant they couldn’t understand what was going on.
Alit had a pretty good idea.
The bearded man who called himself the Master told Hazran that he planned to go down to Floor 508 to see if there was a way to stop the scarecrows and whoever was making them … to escape from something he called the Exodus. His friend, or girlfriend, or whoever she was – the woman called Missy – said she would go with him.
Alit was interested in the woman. She had the craziest hair the little girl had ever seen. She acted kind of nice but also a bit scary, too. Like she almost had a heart but not quite. The Master, on the other hand, was an odd and frightening man – all nasty comments and exaggerated gestures. Hazran had already told the children to stay out of his way because, she said, he was a cowardly bully.
Nardole said he didn’t think going back down to the lower levels was a good idea and that they should wait for the Doctor to wake up.
‘You might need to ask permission before you do something,’ the Master said. ‘I do not.’
‘Nor do I,’ Alit breathed softly. ‘And I’m going to keep an eye on you.’
Everyone knew you shouldn’t go out at night. That was when the scarecrows came. Hazran made the children hide under their beds while the grown-ups went out with guns and shot at the scarecrows. But not tonight.
As Missy and the Master made their way across the nocturnal landscape of greys and blues, there was nothing to disturb their progress and Alit followed them easily – the holographic moon above giving just enough light by which to see.
Whatever the Master was hoping to find, something told Alit he wasn’t going to share it with anyone but Missy. And if it could help, if it could stop the scarecrows, somehow, or in their escape …
‘Escape,’ she breathed. Alit loved the sound of the word like she loved the feeling of breaking the rules. It was why she’d been sent to Hazran in the first place: to be kept under someone’s eye for her own safety. But Alit was just as good at sneaking out of the house undetected as she was at following people.
The Master and Missy were deep in conversation and didn’t notice Alit as she trailed them through the woods. Every now and again, one of them would turn round and gaze into the semi-darkness. Alit would hide behind a tree or lie flat on the ground, trying to control her breathing – half excited and half scared.
Alit could hear them as they neared the hole the spaceship had made when it crashed through the floor. The place where she’d first met them. She now scooted round behind them so that she was hiding behind the wreck of the shuttlecraft the strangers had arrived in. Alit peered around the corner of the ship at the two grown-ups. They were staring into the metallic hole the ship had made when it erupted through the floor.
The Master was shining what Alit took to be a torch into the crater. ‘There!’ He pointed with his other hand. ‘Superstructure walkways between the ceiling of the level below and the ground of the level above.’
‘Oh, yes!’ Missy sounded impressed. ‘Clever. Probably used for holo-emitter access and maintenance.’
‘I agree,’ the bearded man replied. ‘But then, I would, wouldn’t I?’
Soon Missy had fetched the metal rope ladder from the downed shuttle and was spooling it over the edge of the crater. When it was fully extended, Missy started the precarious climb down into the maw of darkness the shuttle had created, and the Master followed.
Once they had both disappeared from view, Alit slipped from the side of the ship and eased forward to crane her neck over the crater. She couldn’t see them, but she could still hear them – bickering with one another. It was clear they were both crazy, and even an adventurous soul like Alit knew when she should quit and head for home. But then she turned around and saw it standing there.
A scarecrow.
Like the others that the grown-ups placed on crosspieces during the day, it was dressed from top to toe in silver with an eyeless stocking over its head and two tubes feeding some form of liquid into holes where the nostrils should be. It was also all crooked and hunched; its head to one side like it was listening to something very faint. And even though it had no eyes, Alit could feel it looking at her. Alit’s own eyes widened in fear, and she almost let out a little scream. She managed to stifle it, aware that the Master and Missy were somewhere below her on the ladder.
The ladder! Alit turned and saw it dangling in the darkness. Could scarecrows climb? If they could, she guessed, they would be really slow. It was her only chance.
Just as the ghostlike figure of the scarecrow was almost upon her, Alit launched herself away from it, grabbing for the safety of the ladder. She managed to catch one of the rungs with both hands and caused the ladder to swing and twist.
‘Oi!’ came a manly voice from below.
‘Wheeeee,’ the unmistakeable voice of Missy joined in, sounding like a child on a swing.
Alit quickly climbed down and found the two grown-ups staring at her as if she were a bug in their jam. They were standing on a metal floor belonging to a corridor that had been severed by the shuttle when it had blasted through the floor. It continued on the other side of the crater, receding into darkness. The Master was pointing his torch device at her, but it was not lit.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, frowning.
‘You don’t need your laser screwdriver!’ Missy said. ‘She’s from the homestead. Alit, wasn’t it?’ She moved forward and plucked Alit from the ladder before plonking her unceremoniously on the floor. Then she squatted and examined Alit’s face. ‘My question would be: why did you follow us down here?’ Missy smiled a very unconvincing smile.
‘The scarecrow!’ Alit said and pointed back up the ladder. She certainly wasn’t going to tell them the truth: that she didn’t trust them and wanted to know what they were doing.
‘Scarecrow?’ the Master asked. ‘You mean the partially converted Cyberman?’
Alit was confused and couldn’t hide it on her face, wrinkling her nose and knotting her brows.
Missy sighed. ‘Of course she does. But she doesn’t know what a Cyberman is, do you?’
Alit shook her head.
‘Not yet, anyway,’ the Master said with some relish. ‘Let it catch her. She’ll find out. The scarecrow will get himself a brain …’
‘And boost the Cybermen’s numbers?’ Missy rose and gave an exaggerated nod. ‘Just what we want. Besides, Alit looks useful. Small. Agile.’ She stoo
d up again, levelling her umbrella down the dimly lit walkway. ‘Shall we go this way?’
The Master turned on his heel and began to walk in the opposite direction. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This way.’
Alit looked up at Missy, wondering how the woman would take this defiance from her friend.
‘You’re probably a wee bit scared now, aren’t you?’ Missy asked in a whisper. ‘The scarecrow? The dark? Even Mr Grumpy-Beard there!’ She waved her brolly at the receding back of the Master. ‘S’OK, though. I promise!’ Missy took the little girl’s hand in hers and squeezed just a little too tightly. ‘There’s only one thing you should be scared of around here and it isn’t any of them!’
The space between floors was only just tall enough for the grown-ups to walk without banging their heads. This access space was made up of straight corridors with endless junctions. The walls were completely smooth other than where there were control panels or monitoring stations and these were pretty few and far between. Each time they found one, the group would stop so the Master and Missy could make an examination.
Alit was fascinated by all this. Both of them had such a sense of purpose, such confidence in what they were doing. As if nothing could really harm them. Alit wished she was like them, but every now and again doubt would sweep through her, nagging at her that she should be back in bed, let other people worry about this. But she’d seen that scarecrow up close, seen the relentless way of it. Alit knew that nowhere was safe now.
The Master speculated that there must be some kind of service lift: an elevator that only served the access space and the level below. They started to search for it. However, every time they thought they’d found it, it would turn out to be an auxiliary generator or a holo-emitter relay or some other piece of equipment. Anything but a lift.
Strip-lights provided some dull illumination. This world of tight, narrow corridors, burnished metal and constant twilight was very much an alien one to Alit. Her home was one of green fields and cosy farm buildings, barns and windmills, however artificial. But now she knew what lay beneath it: a dark and shadowy world with weird, distant noises and the threat of the unknown around every corner.