Doctor How and the Illegal Aliens

by Mark Speed

  "It's not a trick," said Peterson.

  "How do you know?"

  "That thing is distracted by amber lights. Didn't you see? Now, get out of my way."

  "Miss Peterson –"

  "It's Doctor Peterson, Mr Thickett. In scientific matters you have to give way to my superior training. This, Mr Thickett, is just such a time."

  "We will be talking about your conduct in this situation at your next performance review," seethed Thickett.

  The Doctor continued creeping towards Where. The creature jerked to the right to bring its full attention on him. "Good boy," he said. "You don't like eating things."

  Peterson began flicking switches up in the viewing gallery.

  "No luck?" called the Doctor.

  "I'm trying, I'm trying," said Peterson. "Keep it distracted."

  "Easy for you to say."

  The creature took a step towards the Doctor. He inched back, then began skirting around behind his Spectrel, away from Kevin and Jackson.

  "Don't leave me, Doctor!" shouted Kevin.

  "No one's abandoning you, Kevin," said the Doctor, continuing to circle round to the creature's right. "You're the least of my worries right now because you're doing very well."

  He came back into the creature's view from behind his Spectrel. The creature shifted position once more to keep him in sight. "Oh, drat, double-drat, drat squared, and drat to the power of drat. You're not at all mesmerised by my Spectrel's light are you, my coleopteran cretin? Oh, who gave you a big body but kept your brain the size of pinhead? I would love to know. You're so brainless you could be a human politician." He kept on moving round and the creature shifted again to keep him in view.

  "Can't you, like, shine an amber light from your Ultraknife?" said Kevin.

  "Oh, thank you Kevin. I really hadn't thought of that."

  "It's just that it can –"

  "Well, it just can't flaming well do that. Alright?"

  "Sorry, just trying to help."

  The creature lunged at the Doctor, who leapt sideways as it slammed into the wall, sending a shower of concrete fragments rattling to the floor.

  "It's not happy, Doctor Peterson."

  "I can see that, Doctor," said Peterson. The sound of her desperately flicking switches was audible over the intercom.

  The Doctor moved towards the main exit, which was as far away from his own Spectrel as he could be in the chamber without backing into a corner. He raised his Ultraknife as the creature began moving towards him again.

  "Kevin, start dragging that chap over to the Spectrel, will you? Put your hands under his shoulders and drag him."

  "He's going to take a hostage," said Thickett. "I'll make sure he gets fifteen years for that."

  Kevin pulled Jackson towards the telephone box. The severed lower leg was now hanging on to the upper part of the limb by a couple of shreds of tissue.

  "Got it!" said Peterson.

  The Doctor heard a click above him and glanced up at the traffic light. "You're colour-blind, Doctor Peterson – that's green."

  "I'm nearly there."

  The beast hunkered down on its feet, ready to leap forwards again at the Doctor. He held up his Ultraknife and braced himself. "I don't want to do this, beastie," he said softly. "It might hurt all of us as much as it'll hurt you."

  Click.

  The beast jumped, the Doctor dived, rolled to the side and scrabbled to his feet, his Ultraknife still pointing at the beast. The creature had leapt onto the wall and was caressing the amber light with its antennae.

  "Okay, Kevin, let's go!" shouted the Doctor. He ran to help Kevin pull Jackson the last couple of yards to the door of the telephone box. "We need to get David. Hurry."

  They each put their hands under one of Where's armpits and pulled with all their might to drag him next to Jackson. "If he recovers, he's going on a diet immediately," gasped the Doctor. "Now, get that man into the Spectrel."

  On the other side of the chamber, Jackson's colleague staggered to his feet, taking in the situation. He bent down to pick up his heavy spanner again.

  The Spectrel's door swung open. Kevin got behind Jackson's head and pulled him the last couple of feet into the Spectrel. They disappeared and the door closed.

  "See that?" gasped Thickett. "Kidnapping."

  "Right, come on, you big lump," said the Doctor, grabbing his cousin under the armpits. The Spectrel's door opened again.

  Jackson's colleague lumbered towards the Doctor and raised the spanner.

  The Doctor fumbled for his Ultraknife and jabbed at it. The man collapsed and the spanner clanged to the floor. "Sorry!" said the Doctor. With a loud grunt he pulled his cousin into the Spectrel and disappeared. The door closed.

  Peterson and Thickett looked at each other, then back down at the chamber. The creature was halfway up the wall next to the main exit, grinding its lower body against the surface. The other member of their team was lying unconscious in his Noddy suit on the floor. The chamber itself was a wreck – a gaping hole towards one corner, and damage to the wall in a couple of places.

  "I don't know what you propose to do now, Miss Peterson," said Thickett.

  "What I intend to do, Mr Thickett? You chose to take Where's Spectrel."

  "How am I going to explain this to the minister?" wailed Thickett. "And what do we do with the creature? Our communications are still jammed. We're helpless."

  "He's still here," said Peterson.

  The red telephone box continued to glow in the chamber below.

  "He's still got our internal communications jammed," said Thickett.

  "I doubt there's much anyone could do to help us."

  The door of the Spectrel opened again, and the Doctor stepped out and glanced around. "Look, sorry about the mess. Technically it's not my fault. This thing – or maybe these things plural, are after either my cousin or me. We don't know why. They seem to home in on the signal from a weakened Spectrel. Bit of an own goal, bringing one here after my cousin's Spectrel had been pinpointed by whoever it is. I do hope you're insured."

  "What are we going to do about that creature?" asked Peterson.

  "I've not seen it go quite that long. Oh, there we go." Fluid splashed onto the wall beneath the creature. A few drops hit the armoured steel door to its left, and the metal hissed. "Quick, turn the light off!"

  Peterson turned off the amber light. The creature lay motionless on the wall.

  "I think we can save your man Jackson's leg," said the Doctor. "He'll probably have a hell of a limp."

  "That's kidnapping. I'm going to have you for that, Doctor How. I know what you're up to – you're going to interrogate him under duress and steal our secrets."

  "Oh, please, Mr Thicko –"

  "It's Thickett, and I'm proud of it."

  "I can't imagine what you might possibly think you have that's worth knowing that I don't know already, or couldn't find out if I could be bothered to spend a nanosecond hacking your systems, Mr Thicky."

  "Thickett!"

  "Whatever. Look, we'll pop Jackson somewhere safe. Probably a bit later today, if that's alright."

  "Where?" asked Thickett.

  "Tsh. Can't have you knowing my movements in advance, Mr Twit."

  The creature began to stir.

  "For the last time, it's Thickett. That... that thing could break into the control room. We have to stop it. You have to get rid of it, Doctor. I'll hold you personally responsible for this."

  "Really, it'll get bored in a minute. Needs a post-coital snackette. It'd be great if you had some volatile petroleum products," said the Doctor. "Look, if it's okay with you I'll be off for now. But I'd be grateful if you could go back to defending the Realm from those who would do harm to Her Brittanic Majesty's citizens, or whatever it is you're supposed to be doing, rather than hassling harmless helpers."

  The creature dropped to the floor. The Doctor stepped into the Spectrel and raised his hand to wave.

  "It's going to get Smith!" said Thick
ett. "Turn that light back on!"

  "No!" shouted Peterson and the Doctor simultaneously.

  Thickett pushed Peterson out of the way and flicked the switch.

  Click.

  The Spectrel's door slammed shut and it winked out of existence. Peterson jumped on top of Thickett, slamming him onto the floor of the control room, pinning him to it with her body.

  The departure of the Spectrel took the jamming from the control room's systems, which began to reboot. An old-fashioned steady alarm-bell rang, and a modern siren warbled into life.

  Nothing happened for a couple of seconds. Peterson raised her head a fraction, and Thickett opened his mouth to reprimand her. If they had been able to see out of the control room, they would have seen that something had happened. If they'd turned their heads to the monitors, they would have seen them wink into life just in time to show the last two seconds of images that they would ever display.

  The creature's acid ejaculate had melted through the wiring of the traffic light. There had been a spark as the light had been turned on, and a small flame had been ignited. It flashed down the wall and licked around the posterior of the creature, where fluid still dripped from its failed congress. The creature breathed out through the spiracles in its abdomen, and a yellow flame lit off the breath that came out of two on its right side, like a couple of miniature flares from an oil refinery. The twinge of pain made it breathe in sharply with shock. Deep inside the tubes of the creature's respiratory system the flame found the perfect mix of oxygen and combustible vapour.

  The explosion blew out the bullet-proof windows of the control room from their surrounds and a couple of pieces of burning black body casing and a mandible bounced off the far wall and hit the floor. Oily black smoke poured off the body parts as yellow-orange flames crackled furiously from them.

  "Stay on the ground!" shouted Peterson. She crawled beneath the thickening layer of smoke to where she knew there was a fire extinguisher. She grabbed it and sprayed the fragments with inert powder.

  The door burst open, and four Ministry of Defence firemen in breathing apparatus ran into the room. They pulled Thickett and Peterson out into the corridor, where a pair of medics clapped oxygen masks on their faces.

  "Smith! Get Smith! He's in the chamber," shouted Peterson.

  "How and Where!" said Thickett.

  "This one's not making much sense," said one of the medics to a doctor, who had just arrived, out of breath.

  "The Doctors! It was the Doctors!"

  "Who?" asked the doctor.

  "No! Not Who. How and Where!" said Thickett.

  "Shock," said the doctor to the medics. "Just relax, sir," he said to Thickett. He took out a syringe and tapped it for bubbles as he squeezed the plunger. "Going to feel nice and sleepy now."

  "No! Get Who, you nincompoop! Get the Doctors!"

  "That's it," said the doctor. "I'm a doctor and I'm here now. Breathing deeply now, and going to sleep. Relaaaax. That's it."

  A man arrived in a military Noddy suit. "Smith and Jackson," he panted. Where are they, Peterson?"

  "Jackson's being looked after by the Doctor," said Peterson. "Smith...... Oh, God. Smith's down there, in the chamber."

  "So this is Jackson?" said the doctor.

  "No, that's Thickett," said Peterson. "Jackson had an accident, the Doctor... Oh, never mind." She turned to the man in the Noddy suit. "Smith was down there when the explosion happened."

  "He's not there now," said the man in the Noddy suit. "No bodies. No human bodies."

  "The Doctor must have come back for him. Thank God for that."

  "Shock," said the doctor to the man in the Noddy suit. "She'll be fine. The other one was hysterical. Had to sedate him. Come on, Miss. Don't try to stand yet – we don't know what sort of damage you might have."

  "It's Doctor," she said. "I'm a doctor. Well, not that kind of doctor. Not your kind of doctor – my kind of doctor."

  "Oh, dear," said the doctor. He took out another syringe and tapped it for bubbles.

  "No, that's really not necessary, doctor. I'm perfectly alright."

  "Of course you are. How about a drink or dinner sometime?"

  "Thank you, but I think I'm going to be extremely busy for the immediate future."

  "Give me a hand, will you?" said the Doctor, collapsing back into the Spectrel, with Smith's head landing on his stomach. The soles of the man's boots had melted at the edges, and gave off an acrid smell of burnt rubber.

  "I saw the explosion on the projection," said Kevin, taking Smith's weight off the Doctor. The two of them dragged the unconscious man to a clear piece of floor. "It was awesome! Wait 'til you see the replay."

  "Great – I nearly lost my neck and you want to put it on You've Been Framed. I do hope that little incident made up for your earlier disappointment about the lack of monsters in your life. How are the other two?"

  A couple of med-bots were tending to Where and Jackson. Kevin hadn't been that impressed when the two white boxes had each hovered in from under their respective passenger seats and taken up position over a patient. Then he'd watched in wonder as tiny hatches opened up all over the one assigned to Jackson, and intricate sensors and slender robot arms had reached out to tend to his leg. Two ancillary med-bots had arrived seconds later. One cut away the head and neck of the Noddy suit and planted an oxygen mask over the man's face. The other carried a plastic pouch of fluid, and used three arms to cut open the Noddy suit on Jackson's left arm. After peeling away the suit and the clothing from underneath, a fourth arm inserted the intravenous drip. Kevin had gone in closer for a look as microscopic stitches were made in veins and arteries, and tiny squirts of various fluids applied to the flesh. He'd had to look away when a drill began cutting into a bone.

  "Like, these med-bots are the coolest thing ever. I so want to take one back to show my Mum. The guy with the amputated leg seems alright. I don't know about Dave, though."

  The med-bot above Where was hovering in position above his chest.

  "I don't think I know about David either," said the Doctor. "He has the family traits of compulsion and bravado – that's mostly what did for him."

  "Can you explain, in really simple terms, what happened?"

  "What happened was fifty years of neglect – both of himself and his duty."

  "Like, I think I've heard that bit."

  The Doctor sighed and sat at the Spectrel's controls. "There's a kind of symbiosis between a Time Keeper and his Spectrel. A bit like a married couple in many respects. As the relationship grows, you grow into each other. For whatever reason, David chose to opt out. It was the Sixties, I suppose. We were all tired and jaded after the War. But in my view we were entering a new and much more dangerous age. Humans had finally learnt to unleash the power of the nucleus and the atom – though you've still a long way to go in controlling them. So far as David was concerned, the genie was out of the bottle and it was up to others to perform different duties. You know, sometimes a routine life can seem like an adventure. He was obviously abusing the relationship with his Spectrel. Using her to ferry passengers around London is just the pits, frankly. You saw his lifestyle – drinking, smoking... not to mention a terrible diet."

  "Yeah, but what about what happened back there?"

  "Hmm? Oh, heart attack. You see, just as his Spectrel was weakened by his lack of care for it, so he was weakened. That little incident we had with the beast at his place reawakened something in him. As I'd hoped, the old David was still in there. You saw how much better he was. He got a decent night's sleep and then overdid it. Simple as, as your generation would say. Luckily, he does have a second heart. But it's not like the second one is in any fit state either."

  "And his Spectrel?"

  "She clearly decided she was better off elsewhere."

  "But, like, where?"

  The Doctor swept his open hand in a broad arc.

  "So... when will she be coming back?"

  The Doctor shrugged.

 
; "Well, at least David's alive and the monster's dead, innit? And that Thicko guy didn't get anything. So, like, round one to us. Right?"

  The Doctor snorted. "Let us compare ourselves to where we were just a short while ago. We had two Time Keepers and two Spectrels. We now have one of each. We now also have a couple of unwanted passengers and have further piqued the interest of Sixteen. Oh, and so far as they're concerned, it looks like we were party to an attack which resulted in a massive explosion at one of their most secret locations. With the destruction of the monster, we've lost another piece of evidence that might have told me who the hell is doing this to us. Another day like this and they will have won." The Doctor glanced at his watch. "In fact, given that it's not even noon, we could be utterly defeated by tea-time."

  "Do we still have that map of the underground thing in Essex?"

  "Yes."

  "Can't we, like, do something with that?"

  "There it is. The unrelenting optimist – the reason I hired you. Thank you, Kevin, for your can-do attitude. Yes, we could take a visit. But a number of different treaties to which I am a signatory – and in a couple of instances an enforcer of last resort – as well as common decency and sense, dictate that we have to look after Tweedledum and Tweedledee over there first. Furthermore, what you would call in your lexicon the baddies are just a tad cheesed off at the moment."

  "Alright, alright – don't go wholesale with it. Like, we do have the advantage of surprise, innit?"

  "Ah, you're looking at a Battle of Midway option, eh?"

  "Um..."

  "He with the best reconnaissance, and who refuels and reloads first, wins."

  "Right you are. That was it: the Battle of Midway option. You got me."

  The Doctor got up and wandered over to Smith's unconscious body. The med-bot tending to him had cut away the Noddy suit's head to let him breathe more easily. It had the end of a clear plastic tube clipped to his nostrils. It turned a sensor to the Doctor, who nodded in response. "Well, he's fine. Just needs to stay sedated. Won't remember much."

  He turned to Jackson's med-bot, which popped out a similar sensor to communicate with the Doctor. "Remarkable, even by our standards. Helped that it was such a clean cut. And, of course, that we acted so quickly. Surgery will be finished in the next few seconds –– all veins and major nerves reattached. Ah, here we go."