‘I can do good here. You get a time machine and you can fly off in it. Hand on hearts, right now I can’t imagine you’d do any more harm than I’ve already done.’
He looked straight at the Eyeless, a glint in his eye.
‘You’re a strategist, you’re a rational being. It’s a good deal. Particularly for you… individually.’
The Eyeless turned its head slightly.
‘Nothing wrong with a bit of ambition,’ the Doctor assured it, raising an eyebrow. ‘Eh? Know what I mean?’
The Eyeless held out its hand.
‘Say no more,’ the Doctor said.
The Eyeless blocked his way. It held out its left hand, palm up.
‘You can’t have it yet. Let’s go outside, then I’ll destroy the weapon.’
It stayed where it was, twitched its fingers.
The Doctor strained to look around it, both sides.
‘Oh… all right.’
Its glass wrist had begun to ripple, eager for the trophy.
‘Handy,’ said the Doctor, his mouth managing to flicker at the pun. ‘You’ll never lose the key this way. And, of course, if you’re… stuck with the key, you, uniquely among all the Eyeless, get to be the TARDIS captain.
Primus inter pares, eh? If you’ll pardon my Welsh.’
The Eyeless looked down at the TARDIS key. The possibilities started to surge through its mind. It leapt for the Doctor, greedily gripping the lapels of the Doctor’s coat with a six-fingered hand, the Eyeless’ mind grabbing for the Doctor’s mind.
There was something he wasn’t saying, wasn’t there?
His secret. That it was the Doctor who—‘Oh, shut it,’ the Doctor snapped, shrugging off the grip of the glass hands. The psychic onslaught continued and for a moment, they were eye to eye. The bright green, unblinking, stolen eyes. The Doctor and the Eyeless both understood what had to happen next, and that it would soon all be over.
‘You’re a thief,’ the Doctor said softly, his mouth close to the side of the Eyeless’ head. ‘A murderer. And I meant everything I said, and you had your chance and you blew it.’
The Eyeless thrust its hand into the bag to grab the weapon. The Doctor threw his hand out to stop him.
A hand brushed against the weapon, grabbed it.
The weapon fired.
A moment later, the Doctor was alone in the darkness.
He strode from the wreckage. He emerged from the great gash in the side of the dead Fortress, into the sunlit Car Factory. The weapon was still in the bag slung over his shoulder. Rubble and smashed glass and bits of rag were strewn over the factory floor. Great chunks and beams of the concrete ceiling had come down.
The silence pressed against his eardrums.
He’d survived. At least he assumed he had. Perhaps, like Gyll, he only thought he’d survived. He didn’t know exactly what the weapon had done. Why it had spared him. He didn’t know if it had spared anyone else.
He might truly be alone, now.
He needed to get back to the TARDIS. He turned, wanting companionship, more than anything, but there was no one beside him.
It was a warm afternoon, so he took off his coat and folded it over his arm and Alsa’s bag and what was inside the bag. He could feel the sun against his face, at least.
He must be alive.
He had scoured the darkness. The instant the weapon had been activated, the Eyeless had gone. He had been the only thing left in there, the only trace of life.
There had been no light, no sound, the air had been perfectly still. All there had been was the metallic smell, faintly like dried blood, and the press of his feet through the soles of his trainers down onto the platform, and the throb of the bruise on his temple. Without those, it would have been oblivion, nothing. He had felt numb, dissociated. It had crossed his mind that he was imagining everything, merely remembering. Then he had understood: if he could have those thoughts, he still existed.
He thought, therefore he was.
Now, outside, sunlight and silence streaming over him, he sat on a metal block. He ached all over. Behind him, the Fortress was creaking, cracking.
He thought of the weapon destroying all life. Not just the Eyeless, but all the humans here, all the trees and other plants and bacteria, then out into the universe, its fingers poking into the gaps between space and time and rooting out every life form on every world and between all the worlds, striking so swiftly no one could even see it as it went about its work.
Everyone dead. Everyone dead but him.
Had that happened? How long would he be left travelling on his own? How long would he need to accept there was no one else? How many dead planets would he have to visit?
The rubble that had tumbled down had blocked every way out but one. One of the vast machines – the sonic screwdriver the size of a car wash – hadn’t buckled. Its arch now formed a short tunnel, the one way out of here.
It also gave him something to do. He found the control panel for the machine, which was on the side facing the Fortress. He brushed off the dust and fragments from it.
The device was fully charged. It absorbed sound, and there would have been plenty when the floors above it collapsed.
He whispered things to the machine, told it some of his fears and secrets.
‘Doctor!’ a voice called.
It was Dela. She ran over to him, through the arch and to the other side, and was rather surprised when he grabbed her, pulled her off her feet and gave her such a hug she almost snapped in two.
‘Bad day?’ she asked, when he finally let go.
‘Oh, you know… I stole an infinitely powerful super weapon, exchanged text messages with the dead, had an ethics debate with a psychotic teenage girl and a fight in pitch blackness with an army of glass men. An average sort of Saturday, really. It’s still Saturday, isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s still Saturday morning. Are… are you all
right?’
‘The Eyeless that killed Jall is dead.’
‘The one with her eyes?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Thank you.’
He nodded. ‘They’re all dead.’
And eventually Dela said it was probably for the best.
‘And the weapon?’ she asked.
Hesitation.
‘Doctor?’
‘The Eyeless didn’t get their hands on it,’ he told her.
‘It’s in the bag.’
The bag was draped over his shoulder.
‘The joke is… the joke is that it didn’t work. Twice, now, the weapon has failed to do what it was designed to do.’
‘This is what it does when it fires a dud?’
‘Yes.’
They sat in silence for a little longer.
‘I miss—’ Dela said.
‘I thought—’ he said at the same time, then, ‘Go on.’
‘No, you first.’
‘I thought it might have destroyed everything.’
‘Everyone but you.’
‘Everyone but me.’
‘The weapon could really do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘We still might be the last two people.’
‘Yes. What were you going to say just now?’
‘What? Oh… I miss the birdsong,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I
don’t have the grand thoughts you have.’
The Doctor broke into his first grin since emerging from the Fortress.
‘Why haven’t you destroyed the weapon?’ she asked.
‘I will… I will now,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Right now.’
The pair of them stood, helping each other up.
‘Well,’ said the Doctor, then seeing Dela’s expression, ‘Um, why are you looking at me like—?’
A waft of perfume and the bag was tugged hard off his shoulder.
The Doctor turned to see Alsa, a wild sneer on her face, her nose caked in dried blood. He ducked out of the way as she swung the bag at him. No, not at him – at Dela.
The metal cylinder inside the bag connected with the side of Dela’s head, and she slumped.
‘It’s quite effective at close range, yeah?’ Alsa noted.
Alsa had felt the Eyeless die through their own senses.
Those that had been gunned down, those in the ships, they’d just faded away. They had never meant anything to her… but when the one with green eyes went, there was a moment when Alsa thought she’d also become nothing.
As soon as she’d seen the archway, she knew the Doctor would have to come out this way. She’d waited, kept out of sight as Dela had gone past. As soon as she saw the Doctor leave the Fortress, she’d just known the weapon was in the bag. Her bag. She had no idea how – it wasn’t just because there weren’t many other places it could be, she really could sense it.
This had been her plan right from the first moment
she’d heard about the weapon, realised what it could do: let the Doctor get it, force him to give it to her. Alsa stepped back into the arch, blocked the only way out. The thing in the bag was twice as heavy as she’d been expecting. She couldn’t look at it yet, couldn’t take her eyes off the Doctor, needed to keep both her hands free.
‘You killed the Eyeless.’
‘Yes.’
‘All of them?’
‘Here, yes. Beyond that, I don’t know.’
She had fleeting images of other worlds, pulses of intense emotion, flakes of esoteric science and history, remembered what it had been like to briefly be an Eyeless.
Was that memory all that was left of them?
‘Alsa, that Eyeless had started to infect the others. It couldn’t see any further than itself. It thought its problems were the universe’s. And you think the same, don’t you?’
‘But it’s OK, because I’m just a kid? Go on then – push off. Leave me to it. You’re not going to solve anything.’
‘Your civilisation will survive. It will take time, many generations, before it thrives. But it will survive.’
‘I saw a way out of this.’
Alsa hefted the bag, and she saw the Doctor flinch.
‘It would mean even more death. Everything touched by that weapon becomes corrupted.’
‘I thought that you were our saviour. I thought you could change things. I thought the Eyeless would.’
‘I know,’ the Doctor said, not taking his eyes off her.
‘And I’m sorry you thought that.’
‘All I wanted was to be treated the same as an adult.’
‘Oh… you really don’t want me to do that,’ he told her darkly.
‘I’ve never wanted anything else from anyone!’ Alsa shouted, holding up the bag. ‘I just want someone to take me seriously! If I’ve got to use this weapon to do that—’
‘“Seriously”?’ the Doctor said. ‘Oh, I can do seriously.’
The Doctor held his arm out, pointed the sonic screwdriver up above her head. Alsa looked up. For the first time, she registered that this archway was part of a machine. A metal bolt above her head slid shakily back and locked into a new configuration.
The machine was humming. Blue lights started flickering all around her on the sides of the archway, in weird patterns. There were three other bolts – one on either side, one between her feet.
Alsa steadied herself, stared right at him, mouth open, eyes narrow.
‘That machine is like my sonic screwdriver,’ the Doctor said. ‘You’re standing in the resonator cage.’
Alsa shrugged, partly to look brave, partly because she didn’t understand what the Doctor meant.
The Doctor pivoted his arm around, pointed it at a pile of engines. The tip of his sonic screwdriver flared and the engines just fell apart, the tiny components cascading down.
The Doctor turned to aim the sonic screwdriver back at Alsa. She didn’t look up the next time he activated it. The bolt to her left slid back and locked into place, just like the first. The Doctor blinked, lowered the sonic screwdriver.
‘Two more bolts to go,’ she told him, feeling brave,
proud of herself. She had the strength for this, she knew that.
‘I think the Eyeless altered your mind,’ the Doctor said.
‘That would be so much easier, wouldn’t it? You could kill me in good conscience, then.’
The Doctor lowered his sonic screwdriver.
‘Oh I could never kill you, Alsa,’ he said. His voice was tinged with sadness. ‘But what about you? Could you kill? Really?’
Alsa already had one hand tugging on the bag’s flap, and now she saw the weapon for the first time. It was a metal tube, that was all. It was humming to itself.
‘This is it?’ she asked.
It surprised Alsa how calm the Doctor looked.
‘Touch it, it will activate,’ he said. ‘It’ll kill everyone you want it to.’
She’d won. Alsa knew she’d beaten the Doctor. That’s why he was so calm – he knew there was nothing else he could do. He couldn’t even kill her.
Why was she hesitating? Dela was slowly coming round, shaking her head and getting unsteadily to her feet, watching Alsa warily. Was it because of Dela that she was hesitating?
The Doctor was looking right at her. ‘There are no rules here, now,’ he said. ‘No Jennver. No monsters forcing you to do anything. No authority. No laws. No witnesses. You can do whatever you want to me. Anything you want to Dela. No one can stop you, no one can punish you afterwards.’
Alsa thought about it. It sounded like the ultimate
freedom.
‘Do it and no one will tell you off, or hold you to account.’
Alsa looked down at the weapon again. It would be so easy to shut the Doctor up. Very easy.
‘You’re on your own. No one but yourself to blame.’
He let that sink in.
‘It’s up to you. Your choice. I made my own choice just now. Will yours be any different? Do what you want.’
Alsa could feel something beneath the metal surface of the weapon, something inside it, around it, working into her like roots and damp into an old wall. She could almost feel it starting to eat away at her.
‘All it does is destroy?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘This isn’t a trick?’
‘You know it isn’t.’
‘Yeah… I know.’
Alsa couldn’t make herself move. Couldn’t decide. She could destroy anything. Everything.
‘It’s not easy, is it?’ the Doctor said.
‘No.’
‘The fate of all life in the universe is in your hands, Alsa. Literally in your hands.’
‘This is what it’s like for you all the time?’
‘Oh yes,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘And doesn’t it just drive you mad?’
Alsa stepped off out of the arch, wrapped the bag closed and handed it to the Doctor.
‘Help me,’ she said.
The Doctor took the bag, weighed it in his hand. There was no relief in his eyes. Why would there be, now he had the weapon weighing him down again?
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Alsa told him. ‘I live here. I don’t know anywhere but here. You could take me back.’
‘Back?’ Dela asked.
‘His TARDIS is a time machine. He could take me back to before. He could take us all back.’
The Doctor was shaking his head. ‘It doesn’t work like that. That isn’t what happened.’
He’d wrapped the bag around itself, cocooned the weapon.
‘Destroy the weapon,’ Dela insisted. ‘You can at least do that. Do it now.’
‘Yes.’ The Doctor paused, looked down like that genuinely hadn’t even occurred to him. ‘I need to get it away from here. I have to get back to the TARDIS.’
‘The Eyeless said they had taken possession of it.’
‘We don’t need to worry about the Eyeless any more,’
the Doctor said quietly.
‘Take me with you,’ Alsa said.
‘All right,’ said the
Doctor, distracted. Then he looked up sharply, realised what he’d said. Dela was staring at him, empty-eyed.
‘I’ll come back,’ the Doctor told Dela. ‘I’ll…’
He paused. Looked at Alsa, then Dela, then up at what was left of the ceiling.
‘Actually, yes. Come on, Alsa. I know how we do this.’
‘You can help me?’
‘Squaring circles. What I do best,’ he declared happily.
He indicated the arch to Alsa. ‘Lead on, McDuck.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘No, you don’t. Lost in translation. But you will understand. That’s the point.’
‘I’d better.’
‘I wouldn’t mind an explanation, too,’ Dela said.
‘All in good time,’ the Doctor chuckled.
The three of them stepped through the arch. Alsa was holding Dela’s hand.
After walking another twenty metres or so, the Doctor turned back. ‘Hang on, I almost forgot.’
He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the archway, and the final bolts fell into place. The air filled with sound which then spiralled into the archway, building and building and compressing. Finally, the energy released in a single burst, which shot out away from them, hit the Fortress, took it to pieces.
The black metal walls slipped apart, avalanched, sploshed down into the lake far below. Each layer fell away in turn, faster and faster as the supporting structure was weakened, pieces of pipe and gantry and platform and gun turret and doors and light fittings, until the whole Fortress had gone, and there was nothing but sunlight and fresh air and the sound of tons of metal crashing into the water in its place.
Dela, Alsa and the Doctor were laughing, but couldn’t hear each other. They had to clamp their hands over their ears.
The Doctor kept his promises to both Alsa and Dela.
Now, a large blue wooden crate, decorated with rows of square panels and a flashing light on top, arrived in the centre of the settlement.
A messenger boy had run to Dela even before the strange noise it made had fully died down.
The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, looked up at the huge metal sculpture that now dominated the central square.
‘That’s new,’ he noted.
‘It’s old,’ Alsa told him, puzzled, stepping out after him.
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