Doctor Who: The Time Splicer: The Imitation Games

by Cour M.

  “A sagrien entered. Which way did he go?”

  The crowd member pointed the way and kept running. Martha and the Doctor pursued. As they entered a public transit landing, they were met by the sight of Weldon working a trans-mat while he held a victim around her neck.

  Out of the side of his eyes, Weldon saw the Doctor and Martha raise up her gun. He turned to them and raised up the woman by her neck.

  “Drop the gun, Martha!” He bellowed. “Drop the gun!”

  Martha didn’t.

  “I heard you,” she assured him, “but I’ve known you long enough to know that it won’t change anything. You’ll still threaten her.”

  “Clever girl.”

  “Weldon,” Eight urged.

  “You’re too late, Doctor,” Weldon declared, “my rocket of purebloods has reached the stratosphere, are heading to Ptorian, and the Mecrellans are too busy with the bombs to chase it.”

  “But I’ve still got you here. Look around you. Is this what you want? A universe that will be against your species forever?”

  “The sagrien shall bear witness to returning to the master race.”

  “There is no master race!” Eight bellowed, “not anymore. Because every time a race aspires to that, they lead to their own destruction. Your species is at peace now. Change the order of the purebloods, let them accept the half-bloods, and just live on Ptorian as you always have been.”

  “Are you about to offer me mercy, Doctor?”

  “I’m offering it to you one last time, but after this, never again. So, will you have peace with me, or conflict?”

  “The Professor who I fought so long ago—and he was truly the Doctor all that time. And now he’s telling me that he, the Doctor, the man who is supposed to help, who is supposed to be a healer, a wise man, is offering me conflict. This means, that after all this time, I won, didn’t I? He’s not a Doctor any longer. He’s a warrior.”

  “That is not my name.”

  “It is now.”

  “No, it’s not,” Martha answered for him, “a Doctor does not mean that he should stand by and let you burn the universe. It means, he is here, to protect it. And protecting often means that you must take a stand. There is a difference between being a killer and being a defender. Now let her go.”

  Suddenly, they heard a sound come from a tunnel. To Martha’s knowledge, it sounded like the tube on the underground. And by the sound it was making, she was correct.

  “Let her go,” Weldon Jinn echoed, “Martha, for once we agree.”

  Weldon threw the woman on the tracks where a train rolled in from the tunnel. The Doctor jumped to the woman, rolled her off the tracks and laid on top of her as the train rolled in right next to them.

  On the other side, Martha shot at Weldon, but he activated the trans-mat and jumped in it. She aimed for his leg and shot, but the trans-mat was bullet proof. Light emerged around him as he began to be teleported.

  “Martha, till the next time,” he offered as a farewell, and then he disappeared.

  The train fully passed by, the Doctor looked up from the woman and saw Martha kneeling, out of disappointment. Weldon Jinn was nowhere to be seen.

  He had gotten away.

  ⌛

  “Martha,” The Doctor stated, helping the woman onto the landing, “are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she sighed, turning away from him. “He got away. Doctor, I failed, and he got away.”

  “Well, then I’ll just have to get him later. Now, I’m not in the mood to see you hate yourself, so come on,” Eight took her hand and yanked her up. “We have to help with the bombs. The TARDIS can take them into space and we can let them self-destruct, if we have the time.”

  Martha perked up.

  “We already did,” she removed a recorder from her pocket. “We have Weldon deactivating it.”

  Eight smiled at her.

  “Clever girl.” Eight turned to the woman, “you, get yourself checked out by a doctor, and you,” he said to Martha, “come along, Jones!”

  With Martha, he rushed back to the motorbike, and they rode back to the TARDIS. Once they parked the motorbike in the control room, Eight turned on the TARDIS and they materialized in Hall-H, where Ten and Satsuki were overseeing the bomb.

  “How much time do we have left?” Eight asked as he and Martha rushed forward. The clock on the bomb read a minute and a half.

  “Where’s Weldon Jinn?” Ten asked.

  “I failed, he got away,” Martha admitted, removing the recorder from her pocket. She raised it up and played it as Weldon Jinn’s voice sounded.

  “I will never deactivate it,” Weldon’s voice repeated.

  “That’s no use,” the captain said over them. “He’s saying that he won’t deactivate it.”

  “We don’t need the whole sentence,” Satsuki pointed out.

  “Precisely,” Martha confirmed, pausing the recorder at the right spot, “we just need the one word.”

  She lowered the recorder down to the bomb and pressed the play button on the recorder.

  “Deactivate!” Weldon’s voice spoke, and Martha clicked it off again.

  The clock stopped.

  And the bomb was deactivated.

  Martha breathed out as Eight took the receiver from her.

  “Captain, take this and transmit it over every receiver for the bomb squads so that they can deactivate them.”

  “You’re the Doctor,” the captain replied, his tone suddenly changing for the better. He took the recorder and they all were left to wait.

  One by one, reports came in that the bombs were being deactivated. However, there was one bomb left, in the Brendun neighborhood, and they were all left in anticipation.

  Ten looked at Martha.

  Martha looked at Satsuki.

  Satsuki looked at Eight.

  Eight looked at no one.

  He just waited.

  As the seconds wound down.

  Until it reached the very last one.

  ⌛

  “They got it!” the captain reported. “the last bomb has been deactivated.”

  Ten, Satsuki and Martha breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “It’s done,” Satsuki sighed, “it’s done.”

  “Oh, dear Satsuki,” Eight contradicted, “you and I both know that it’s never done.” He offered her his hand. “Come on, we have to show them something.”

  “What?” Martha asked.

  “Don’t ask questions,” Eight commanded, “just bring him along.”

  Martha took Ten’s hand, helped him up and they followed Eight.

  “There’s something that my future self has to see.”

  ⌛

  They went to the TARDIS, and Eight materialized right near the edge of the Imitation Games of the Gang Wars of London.

  “It happens in the 23rd century,” Eight informed Ten, “of the Earth’s future. Or our past. Whatever perspective you choose.”

  “You really did pursue him through the Gang Wars?” Satsuki said, “Doctor, you could have been killed.”

  “Always worrying about me,” Eight chuckled.

  “Stop acting like you don’t like it.”

  Eight laughed as they emerged. Yet when they did, he ceased his guffaw immediately. There they were, on the outskirts of the audience, near the picket line of protestors. Before them were the Gang Wars, in the five blocks of dilapidated buildings. The victims chosen to kill each other were still engaged in full on kill or be killed combat. Thousands of people in the crowd cheered as the two sides were slaughtering each other.

  “Monstrous,” Ten replied, gazing at it. Up until that point, he hadn’t seen the more vehement acts behind the games, but only could imagine it. Now it was before him and he was appalled.

  “It’s the third day of this Gang War, actually,” Satsuki reported, “five hundred men and women have been fighting, each day.”

  “How many casualties?” Martha asked.

  “410 people died the first day,
and 321 died the second day. This is the final day of the war.”

  “And when will it end?”

  “When at least 300 people get killed. Which means, very soon.”

  “But why do they keep fighting? Why don’t they run away?”

  “If they don’t cooperate and fight, the government has no qualms in detaining their families or anyone closest to them.”

  “They threaten to kill their loved ones if those who are chosen do not cooperate,” Eight summed up.

  “And all while this was happening, all while these people had bombs that could have destroyed their city,” Martha magnified, “this was going on. They were just cheering away.”

  “Yes, they were. And to them, it makes a great deal of sense.”

  “And you brought me here,” Ten replied, irate.

  “Yes, I did,” Eight replied simply, “because I needed you to see what I saw when I first came here. And feel how powerless you are to stop it.”

  Ten swallowed and looked away.

  “We are never too powerless,” Ten replied simply.

  “You see,” Eight summed up, referencing their success when diffusing the bombs, “sometimes, even when you win, you still don’t win at all.”

  ⌛

  The Gang Wars of London Imitation soon came to an end, and they began to walk back to the TARDIS. As they did, they neared the picket line.

  In the crowd of poster-holders, Martha saw Daphne again.

  “Hey,” Daphne cried, “did you catch that sagrien bloke?”

  “No, he got away.”

  “Ah, well, sometimes you win some, and sometimes you lose some.”

  “How about today for you? How did the protest go?”

  Daphne looked around, momentarily dismayed.

  “Sometimes you win some, and sometimes you lose some. We lost again.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Oh well,” she perked up, “we’ll try again tomorrow.”

  She nodded goodbye to Martha and followed the rest of the protestors as they departed.

  Chapter 16

  Martha and the Magister

  When they all boarded the TARDIS again, Martha went to the washroom and took a shower. As she got out of it, she was met by Eight, with a bathrobe in his hand.

  “Is that for me?” She asked, as she was covered in two towels.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  Martha took it greedily.

  “Brilliant!”

  Martha rushed back into the bathroom, put on the robe and exited, looking absolutely horrid.

  “This has got to be the ghastliest robe I’ve ever worn, and I love it!”

  “I knew you would.”

  There was a wistful look in his eye that put a damper on the mood.

  “Sorry,” she apologized, though she didn’t know why, “are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, I just… not much of a win today. I just realized that perhaps, in my eagerness to make sure the Eye of Harmony connection was stable, we did not get here sooner.”

  “You did what you had to do. Really, think about it. If the star was not stable, then we could have leveled the entire Magna-city. Or more. Including killing millions of people. I’m sorry. Since we entered your life, we’ve made things more complicated.”

  “It’s fine, and it’s clear that this was how it was meant to be.”

  Eight escorted Martha to her room, and when she got there, he lingered in the doorway.

  “What is it?” Martha asked.

  “You know that I know that something is wrong with you,” he stated suddenly. “you warned me about it before.”

  “I really was stupid about the things that I told you, wasn’t I?”

  “Time will tell. But since it might affect this mission, I must check.”

  Eight raised his hands to her head and placed his fingers around her hairline.

  “What are you doing?” Martha asked.

  “Don’t worry, I’m just going to read your thoughts.”

  “And you expect me just to let you?” Martha chuckled.

  “Yes, I do,” Eight guffawed gently, “don’t worry, I just need to check something, and I promise, I won’t judge you. No one’s mind is anything less than the stuff of nightmares.”

  “Well, as long as you aren’t afraid or upset with me for what you see.”

  “I’m the one entering your mind without asking permission first, so…”

  Eight entered her mind, and he saw images of her walking around the planet, her adventures with the Doctor, her childhood with her family, flashes of her with her first boyfriends—even the things she tried to hide, and she was ashamed.

  “Doctor…”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not appalled,” Eight reassured her, “that memory is a common one. And it’s a very common emotion.” And then she saw Ten kiss her, them sleeping in the same bed together when they met Shakespeare, and when Martha professed her love for him when the Doctor had made himself human.

  “You see it, don’t you?” Martha asked.

  “Yes, you were in love with me—well, future me.”

  “Yes,” Martha sighed.

  “It’s fine. Nothing to feel wrong about. Our wife couldn’t even stand the sight of us when we first met her.”

  “Really?” Martha asked, feeling lighter.

  “Yes. The pains of romance, you know. We often just choose to forget it.”

  Eight continued to read more into her thoughts, and then he entered memories of her dreams; the dreams she had of his old school friend. Thus, he recalled his first encounter with the Master when he had regenerated in San Francisco.

  “The Master!” Martha and the Doctor said at once.

  ⌛

  Eight released Martha’s face and took a step back.

  “What did you say?” He asked.

  “You said it too.”

  “Yes, because I saw him in your mind.”

  “And I saw him in yours.”

  “You saw into my thoughts?”

  “It was just a glimpse. He’s all that I saw. That was the face he had when he regenerated?”

  “No, it was not. It was the face of the man that he used as a vessel.”

  “He used a human as a container for himself? Like, he possessed the person?”

  “Yes.”

  “A Timelord can take over another lifeform like a meat-suit,” Martha whispered, disturbed, “the essence of the Timelord can fill someone?”

  “If the essence of the Timelord is desperate, then yes. The remains of the Timelord can transfer into another.”

  “That is frightening. So… the Master can come back?!”

  “Not if I burned his remains. Did I do it?”

  “Yes, Ten told me that he did. I wasn’t there to see it.”

  “But if I said I did it, then I would have. And I would have checked to make sure that his essence did not try and escape into another.”

  “You promise me,” Martha spoke, her voice low and hollow.

  “You’re afraid?”

  “Yes, Doctor. Now, I admit, that I am truly, properly, afraid.”

  “And that’s why you dream of him.”

  “It’s a repercussion to the psychological damage that came along with the experience I had,” Martha argued, “nothing more.”

  “Except that he rests in your psyche. And you’re afraid that a part of him lives in you. And then, another part of you worries that you are going insane.”

  Martha looked at her feet.

  “Martha, I entered your mind. Therefore, you know that I am correct, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” Martha confessed, “I am afraid of that.”

  “Martha,” Eight rested his forehead against hers, “I know that the Master has the strength to enter a person’s mind and stay there. But I promise you, that’s all he is. He’s a memory. He’s just a nightmare.”

  “And that’s where he always is,” Martha pointed out, “and he won’t leave.”

  “You’
ve had him as one for too long now. And it’s time for you to dream again.”

  “I don’t know how, though.”

  “All right, I’m going to let you in for a second,” Eight informed her. He placed his hands on her head again.

  “What will I see?” Martha asked.

  “Gallifrey. When I was a child, and it was beautiful. Before it was in ruins, and before I grew up, and it was ruined for me.”

  Eight allowed her into his mind to see selective images of parts of Gallifrey. From the orange of the skies, to the sweeping plains that glistened under the atmosphere.

  “It is beautiful!” Martha remarked.

  “Yes, it is. And while the skies burn orange, it feels like nothing bad will ever happen. Gallifrey stays, and the Master cannot change it, or destroy it—or destroy you. Let the orange of our skies light up your nightmares, and allow them to burn.”

  He released Martha from his grasp, and she felt lighter.

  “Now,” he kissed her forehead, “get some sleep.”

  “Yes. Goodnight, Doctor.”

  “Goodnight, Martha.”

  He left her to retire to bed as he went to his own room.

  ⌛

  Martha pulled on her pajamas, did a little more knitting, and drifted off into sleep. As she did so, she prepared for the traditional nightmares, where she would either have a drawn out villainous discussion with the Master, or he annihilated her in a coldhearted manner and she woke up, covered in sweat.

  One of her eyes closed.

  Then the second one closed as well.

  She sighed out.

  And she fell asleep.

  Into the place where dreams rested

  And nightmares lived.

  “What was the name again?”

  Martha blinked and opened her eyes.

  She was standing in a fancy restaurant that was in a building that overlooked a river.

  “Sorry, what was that?” Martha asked.

  She was in front of a woman, the hostess at the desk.

  “What was your name again?”

  “Oh,” Martha replied, confused about what was happening. “Sorry, it’s Jones, Martha Jones.”