by Doctor Who
Glass snowed down on the Doctor, tearing at his hands and face. He could see the door at the end of the gal ery open and the Mechanical starting towards him.
Then the bul et bounced up off the floor and tore through a vital cable. The lights went out, plunging the Doctor into utter darkness.
He had relaxed his grip on Wyse slightly as the glass scythed into his hands. Wyse renewed his struggles, heaving backwards in an effort to break the Doctor's hold. At the same instant, something cannoned into the Doctor and sent him sprawling to the floor – the Mechanical, as confused as the Doctor by the loss of the lights.
There was a pale glow from the next gal ery, where the lights were stil working. As his eyes adjusted, the Doctor could make out the tal shape of the Mechanical above him reaching for where Wyse had been. But the man was no longer there. The Mechanical stepped back, as if perplexed. The Doctor pul ed himself to his feet, looking round in the hope of catching a glimpse of Wyse.
Instead, he caught the ful force of Wyse's attack – felt the man's shoulder in the smal of his back, forcing him violently forwards into the clock face.
The glass shattered as the Doctor crashed head-first into it. Metal stanchions twisted and broke away. Cold air and clammy fog blasted into the Doctor's face and he felt himself twisting, tumbling, falling.
Through the clock. Into space. Three hundred feet above the ground.
No one could hear, she was sure. Rose hammered on the door. She heaved and shoved but without success. Her cheeks were wet and she brushed at them absently with the backs of her hands as she shouted and yel ed and prayed for someone to come and help.
'He's dying!' she screamed.
But there was no answer.
In the corner of the room, Freddie's breathing was shallow and rapid. The most accurate mechanical clock in the world ticked away the unforgiving seconds as the blood slowly dripped from his body.
Once the clock struck the hour and the weights dropped, Wyse knew that the process would start. He would have perhaps fifteen minutes to get to the ship before the atmosphere became unstable. Ten for safety. He crept slowly along one of the gal eries behind the clock face. The lights stil worked here, but he was listening for the slightest hint of a mechanism that was not the main clock.
He had two options. He could go to the ship now, and hope that the Doctor's friends were unable to stop the mechanisms. If everything went according to plan, he would be safe in the ship when she powered up, ready to leave this pathetic planet far behind. Or if not, then at least he was free and able to try again, if only he could escape from the Painted Lady and her Mechanicals.
On the other hand, he could stay until the mechanism activated. He could make sure that everything worked, and stil have time to escape to the ship. There was an element of risk, but Shade Vassily was not one to shy away from danger. He had al owed himself to be sidelined once, by agreeing to exile rather than almost certain death. He would not shirk his responsibilities – his destiny – again.
He stepped out of the gallery. He paused to savour the cool breeze from the broken clock face that gusted along the adjacent gal ery, and to listen to Rose's screams and shouts for help. The others would surely be paying more attention to her than to hunting for him. He smiled and started up the stairs towards the belfry.
The wind was blowing holes in the fog. The air was stil cold and damp, but through the tattered fog there was a magnificent view of London. Under other circumstances, the Doctor might have been impressed.
But just now he was hanging by tired fingers from the bottom of the clock face, struggling to hold on.
Under the clock, the tower extended outwards slightly. Hardly a ledge, but enough for the Doctor to have col ided with it as he fel . He had bounced, slid, scrabbled, and final y managed to get a grip. Hardly even that. His fingers were latched on to the final edge of stonework. Stonework make slippery by the fog and the London grime that coated it.
One hand slid off. The Doctor frowned. He reached back up, trying to grab hold. But it was too far away. He tried again, reaching as high as he could, feeling the stitching in his jacket give way under the arms. He couldn't possibly die needing a new jacket. The Doctor gritted his teeth, ready for one last try.
His hand swung up again, clutching at the air, finding nothing. At the same moment, he felt the fingers of his other hand slipping from the ledge. 'Sorry, Rose,' he said quietly.
Then his free hand slapped into something solid. Instinctively, he grabbed it, held on tight. And whatever it was held on to him. The Doctor was moving – not fal ing, but being hauled upwards. A moment later he found himself sitting on the ledge he had been so desperate to cling to. It was surprisingly wide.
Sitting beside him was Repple. 'You looked like you needed a hand.'
'Several.' The Doctor looked up, and saw that it was an easy climb back through the shattered clock face and into the tower. He got cautiously to his feet, and slapped Repple on the shoulder. 'Thanks. I owe you.'
'We must stop Wyse,' Repple said simply as he climbed up after the Doctor.
The Doctor was already easing himself careful y over the broken metal frame and the remains of the broken glass. 'Too right. No time to hang around.'
They stood together in the darkened gal ery, feet crunching on the broken glass. The muffled sound of Rose's shouts reached them from the clock room, but it was impossible to make out her words.
'She's always impatient,' the Doctor said. 'You sort out Rose and Freddie. OK?'
'Very wel , Doctor.'
They were hurrying along the gal ery, back towards the stairs. 'And then see if you can jam the mechanism in the rooms below somehow. Anything to slow things down. Where's Melissa when we need her?'
'I do not know. What wil you do?'
The Doctor started up the stairs, taking them two at a time, hauling himself along by the handrail.
'The drop of the weights when the clock strikes is the trigger. He must have a tap into that system, in the belfry.' He disappeared round the corner of the stairs, voice echoing back down, above Rose's shouts. 'I'm going to disconnect it.'
Rose was almost hoarse from shouting. She thought she heard the Doctor cal ing from outside, and paused to listen. But there was nothing. She looked back at Freddie – he seemed incredibly pale. She tried not to look at the red puddle growing beside him. How much blood was there in a boy's body? Must be several pints. Five, maybe. She tried to imagine how much that was, thinking of when she had dropped a slippery milk bottle in the kitchen. A beer mug knocked over down the pub...
Freddie smiled weakly at her. She tried to smile back.
Behind her, the door gave a massive crack. Rose ran over to Freddie, and together they watched as the wood splintered and broke round the lock. Someone was forcing their way in.
'Friend or foe?' Rose wondered out loud.
The lock gave way with a screech of tearing metal. Screws fel to the floor, fol owed by the lock itself. The door swung open, and Repple stepped into the room.
'Whose side are you on?' Rose demanded. 'Come to that, just who are you, anyway?'
He strode quickly across to them, and knelt beside Freddie, examining the gash in his leg. 'I am on your side,' he said. 'And I am just finding out who I am.' He looked up at Rose. 'Why isn't this healing?'
'Because he's a haemophiliac. I should have realised.' Only now, only when she said it out loud, did Rose start to cry. She could hear Freddie telling her how his stepfather wouldn't dare hit him – tel ing her before the boy even knew he was a prince. She could see his mother's tortured face and wondered how she could cope every day knowing the slightest scratch could kill her son. She thought about the one thing people remembered about the Romanovs. That and the fact they were dead. Now her innocent stupidity was kil ing Freddie.
Through her tears, she saw that Repple had torn away the leg of Freddie's trousers and was using the sodden material as a tourniquet. She hadn't even thought to do that for him.
'It
wil help,' Repple said. 'But it won't stop it. We need to close up the wound. Cauterise it in some way.'
Rose blinked back her tears and wiped her face on her sleeve. 'Sonic screwdriver,' she remembered. 'The Doctor said it can cauterise wounds.'
'Find him. Get it.'
Repple ran with her to the door, his hand on her shoulder. 'Hurry,' he said quietly, so Freddie would not hear. 'He doesn't have long.'
The stairs led into a large open area at the top of the tower. The bel s were hung central y – the largest, Big Ben itself, in the middle, with four smaller quarter bells clustered round it. There was a wooden platform under the bells, slightly raised from the stone floor that bordered the room. The wal s were broken by open arches giving views out over London.
The Doctor ran into the belfry, up and over a smal iron bridge that led to the far side of the room. More steps led up to the topmost gal ery but he ignored these. On the far side of the room he found Melissa, stooping beside a vast metal gril e that covered the whole of one side of the belfry.
'Ventilation shaft,' he gasped. 'They light a fire at the bottom to draw the air through the building.'
Looking across they could see the shorter but wider Victoria Tower at the other end of the palace.
'There's another one in there,' the Doctor added with a nod. He looked down again. 'Oh.'
'Yes,' Melissa said, as they both looked into the shaft. It was fil ed with machinery. 'I did think perhaps Vassily was hiding in one of these shafts.'
'He's real y gone to town on this,' the Doctor said.
Melissa straightened up. She pointed across towards the bel s, indicating the heavy hammer that was standing slightly proud of the side of Big Ben. 'He has attached a mechanism to the hammer, and thence to the weights.'
The Doctor ran to look. 'Yeah. Tricky.'
'It can be disconnected,' she said, joining him. But, as you say – tricky.'
'We've got about five minutes. One false step and the weights fal . Big Ben would sound an early death knel .'
One of the shadows close to the top of the stairs moved, detaching itself from the gloom and stepping up on to the raised bridge over the bel platform. 'Step away, Doctor,' Wyse said. He was pointing his revolver at them. 'And you,' he added, moving the gun slightly to point at Melissa.
'I'l leave it to you then,' the Doctor whispered.
Wyse was walking slowly along the bridge, keeping the gun level. Melissa's black and silver mask turned to stare blankly at the Doctor. 'You'd trust me?'
At the end of the bridge, Wyse paused. He could come no closer without moving behind one of the quarter bells, giving them a moment to escape.
The Doctor kept his eyes on Wyse as he replied to Melissa's question. 'You're not a kil er. Not real y.
You'd rather be saving lives than chasing monsters, admit it.' The Doctor gave an encouraging smile. 'We al would.'
'We should not pretend to be what we are not,' she agreed. And Melissa Heart removed her mask.
Wyse froze at the sight of her face. Not horrified, but startled. Melissa ignored him and turned to the mechanism attached to the hammer. The Doctor launched himself across the platform, under the quarter bell, crashing into Wyse's midriff.
The gun clattered to the floor – bounced and tumbled across to come to rest close to one of the arched openings.
The Doctor wrapped his arms round Wyse's legs, bringing him down. A foot broke free and kicked savagely at the Doctor's face. He winced under the impact. 'I'l keep him busy,' he gasped to Melissa. He let go with one arm, and fumbled in his pocket while trying to keep hold of Wyse with the other arm. 'Here, you'l need this!' He managed to draw out the sonic screwdriver, and tossed it across to Melissa.
She caught it easily, and set to work.
The bandage was painful y tight round the top of his leg, but Freddie thought it was helping. There seemed to be less bleeding, though the scratch was stil dripping blood into the growing pool beside him.
'I was a hero, wasn't I?' he asked weakly.
Repple nodded. 'Yes.'
'I never knew I was a king. I thought I was just an ordinary person.'
'Yes.' Repple looked away. Freddie thought he was going to say something more, but he was silent.
'That's al I wanted, real y. But it's good to be a hero,' Freddie said when Repple said nothing more.
Repple got to his feet. 'I never knew it,' he said, 'but I just wanted to be an ordinary person too. Now it seems we al get to be heroes.' He looked down at Freddie, his expression as blank and unreadable as a mask. 'I have to go now. You'l be al right. I promise.'
'Please – I don't want to be alone. You wil come back?'
Repple paused in the doorway. He turned slowly to look at Freddie. 'I wil come back,' he said. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but it seemed to Freddie that the man was smiling.
The Mechanical had methodical y checked each of the gal eries behind the four clock faces. But it had not found its target. It paused at the end of the final gal ery, examining the shape in the shadows beside the door.
Just a cat, limping slowly and painful y back towards the stairs. The Mechanical stepped over it and out into the stairwel . It caught a glimpse of a figure moving quickly down to the lower levels of the tower. It clicked through the possibilities and options, then started down the stairs in pursuit.
Too late, the Doctor realised what was happening. Wyse was dragging him along, crawling across the floor.
They had clattered and bumped down the steps from the bridge, and the Doctor was still holding tight to the man's leg. Wyse was stretching out across towards one of the archways. Towards the gun.
The Doctor hauled him away. But Wyse managed to claw back a few inches. His fingers were brushing against the gun. Another few seconds and he would have it.
A face appeared close to the Doctor's – right beside him on the floor. Rose, kneeling down and staring at him urgently.
'I need the sonic screwdriver,' she said. She was snapping her fingers. 'I need it now!'
The Doctor stared back at her. He glanced at Wyse, at the hand closing on the gun. 'Rose!' he said in annoyed astonishment.
'What?' She glanced where the Doctor had been looking. 'Oh. Hang on.' With a sigh, she stood up, stepped over the two struggling bodies, and kicked hard at Wyse's hand as he managed to get hold of the gun.
The gun skidded across the floor, through the archway and out of sight.
'Right.' She was kneeling beside him again. 'Sonic screwdriver.'
'Melissa's got it,' the Doctor managed through clenched teeth. Wyse's fist cracked into his jaw, snapping the Doctor's face round. When he looked back, Rose was gone.
'I need it,' Rose pleaded.
'You'l have to wait.'
'I can't. Freddie's dying.'
'We'l al die if I don't finish this,' Melissa said.
Rose swal owed, trying not to look at Melissa's face. She could grab the sonic screwdriver, wrench it away from the woman and then leg it. But Melissa was right, that wouldn't help. But if she waited...
'Hurry, then!'
Melissa glanced at her. For once, Rose could read every nuance of her expression.
The huge main cogwheel glistened with oil and grease. Repple walked al round it, examining every aspect. Easy enough to jam some of the smaller components. But if this main wheel turned, it would break through everything else. This was where he needed to do the damage. Stop this wheel and everything else would grind to a halt.
But there was nothing he could see that he could be sure would stop the wheel. Nothing that would withstand the enormous force once it started to move. Above him he heard the first chimes of the quarter bells as ten o'clock arrived. With a mechanical groan, the cogwheel began slowly to move, teeth biting into the gears and levers it was designed to operate.
The noise inside the belfry was deafening. Rose could not begin to imagine what it would be like when Big Ben itself struck in a few seconds.
Melissa handed Rose the
sonic screwdriver without comment.
'You've finished?' Rose gasped in elation between the chimes.
'No,' Melissa shouted back. 'It is too late.'
The air itself seemed to shudder as Big Ben struck the first chime of the hour.
Rose ran. She jumped over the struggling forms of the Doctor and Wyse. She ignored Wyse's laughter. Her thoughts were only of Freddie. It didn't matter that everyone else was about to die, that the world around her was coming to an end. Only that she save Freddie. For a few precious seconds at least.
'Rose!' the Doctor's voice screamed at her between the chimes. 'Tell Repple to stop the mechanism. Stop the main wheel. Stop it now!'
There was excitement and anticipation in her steps as she hurtled down the stairs ful pelt. Not too late then, not yet. She had to get to Repple. Save Freddie, and the world. Simple.
The Doctor was now struggling to escape from Wyse, not to hold on to him. With a shout of anger and determination, he wrenched himself free, rol ed over, leaped to his feet. He spared Melissa a glance. She was stil working at the mechanism attached to the hammer, scrabbling at it with her long fingers in the split second the hammer was stil before crashing into the side of the bell as it struck the hour. Hoping to disable Wyse's device so that if they survived this time it didn't just start again when the clock next struck.
Maybe she was doing it because there was nothing else she could do. Or maybe she was confident that the Doctor could stil save them. That possibility of her returned trust galvanised him, and with a final angry kick at Wyse the Doctor raced for the stairs.
Rose clattered past the clock room. 'I'm coming, Freddie,' she shouted, as she kept going, down to the prisoner's room and the main mechanism.
The huge cogwheel was already beginning to turn. Repple and the Mechanical had torn apart a separate piece of the mechanism and had a metal bar thrust in between the cog's teeth. But even as Rose watched, the bar snapped, the broken end disappearing behind the cog as if being eaten by some industrial monster.