Dr. Who - BBC New Series 48

by Borrowed Time # Naomi A Alderman

  ‘Does that mean,’ said Rory, ‘that it’s very, very bad if one of them spots us?’

  ‘Yes, Rory,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s positively catastrophic!’ he spat out gleefully. ‘If one of them sees us then all the others that come later in the time stream instantly know where we are, because they remember it in their own past. Clever, isn’t it?’

  Rory pointed down a little side street off to the left. He knew he’d been right about what he’d seen in that office building. Walking almost casually, its head cocked to one side, baring its diamond-shaped teeth just a fraction, was a Blenkinsop.

  ‘Run!’ shouted the Doctor.

  They ran through the streets of the City of London, along office-building-lined Newgate Street, where Rory was sure he saw a Symington or a Blenkinsop in every window, across Holborn Viaduct then, doubling

  back, along Smithfield Street and round the medieval buildings of Cloth Fair and Rising Sun Court.

  ‘Amazing isn’t it, the City?’ shouted the Doctor.

  Rory glanced behind him. The Blenkinsop wasn’t gaining on them, but it wasn’t losing much ground either.

  The Doctor wasn’t out of breath at all. That’s what you got for having two hearts, Rory guessed.

  ‘All these buildings,’ he continued. ‘All different periods of history. Did you know this part of London has been continually inhabited for more than two thousand years? No, I suppose not since neither of you took History. It’s up to me to teach you, I suppose. See that over there?’ He pointed to a quite modern-looking building with leaded windows and cream-coloured plaster arches at the base. ‘Oldest house in London that is. I was there when they laid the foundation stone.

  Really nice bloke - Tom something - shame what happened with the Alicagorians later. Ah well, at least the house is still here.’

  ‘All very interesting, Doctor,’ Amy panted, ‘but maybe when we’re in less danger of being eaten?’

  The Doctor was leading them in a wide circle. They passed more offices and sandwich shops, then took a sharp right at Barbican station.

  ‘Oh, now I have to show you this,’ said the Doctor, as they ran down another street and came to a small park screened from the road by trees. ‘Postman’s Park, have you been here before? Amazing place! All these plaques,’

  he pointed at a row of tiles underneath an awning, are for ordinary people who sacrificed themselves to help others.’

  He stopped suddenly in front of the memorial.

  ‘Amazing,’ he said. ‘You get so little time, and yet you use it to help other people.’

  ‘Yes this is all interesting,’ said Rory, ‘but Doctor, shark-men are coming!’

  Three Symingtons and a Blenkinsop rounded the corner, teeth bared, eyes rolling.

  ‘Oh… yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Well, now we’re not anywhere too crowded…’

  He grabbed Amy’s wrist and aimed the sonic screwdriver at it.

  ‘Er, what are you doing, Doctor?’ asked Amy.

  ‘Voiding the warranty.’

  He pressed three buttons on Amy’s watch in quick succession, and aimed another burst of his sonic screwdriver. The watch let off a burst of sparks, which travelled upwards into the air. As Rory watched, the sparks turned, directing themselves back in the direction of the Bank. The Symingtons and Blenkinsops stopped dead in their tracks, looked around in puzzlement, then, as if in answer to a call from behind them, all turned around and ran purposefully in the opposite direction, away from the Doctor, Rory and Amy.

  ‘Are we safe now, Doctor?’ asked Amy.

  The Doctor opened his eyes very wide. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not at all. We’re not going to be safe until the very last one, or in fact the very first one of those creatures is off your world. But if you mean “Are they going to try to kill us in the next twenty minutes?” safe, then yes, we’re safe.’

  ‘So, um,’ said Amy, staring at her watch, which had a couple of residual sparks adhering to the face, ‘what

  did you do?’

  ‘I did to your watch in a controlled way what happened to Nadia’s in an uncontrolled way, do you see?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No reason you should, very complicated temporal physics, have I mentioned I’m a genius? I’ll try to make it very simple. A bit of your time is now back at the Bank, so that is where the Symingtons and Blenkinsops will think you are, at least for a while. Now do you understand?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’re safe for the moment,’ said the Doctor, speaking very slowly ‘but we have to identify whichever one is first in the time loop possibly by some kind of regressive -temporal analysis to prevent the spread of the Time Harvester watches in the first place, plus we need to find the containment device where they’re storing the time - very tricky business, time storage, get one of your parameters wrong and your storage tank will age ten million years overnight - we’ll need to find it and deactivate it. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Do you mean’ said Amy, ‘that we have to get rid of the shark-men and get everyone’s time back?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, pouting a little.

  ‘That,’ said Amy, ‘I can get behind.’

  Chapter

  10

  ‘Firstly,’ said the Doctor, ‘we need a friend in the Bank.’

  ‘What about Nadia?’ said Amy, ‘she can go in there for us any time, look around, find things out.’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘She’s too unstable, temporally. We’ve seen her age and get younger by twenty years in thirty seconds. Plus she’s doing something important for me back there already.’

  Rory and Amy exchanged a look.

  ‘You didn’t tell us that Nadia was doing anything important?’

  ‘She’s keeping an eye on the TARDIS. Most important thing of all. Anyway, we need someone who can go into the Bank without arousing anyone’s suspicion -

  Symington, Blenkinsop or human - and look at files, find out what’s going on and who first brought those watches to the Bank.’

  ‘What about—’ began Rory.

  ‘Just a moment, Rory, I’m thinking. We need someone who’s heavily involved in this already, who might have borrowed more than they realise…’

  ‘But I was going to s a y - ‘ said Rory.

  ‘Just a minute, Rory, I have to think this through.

  We need someone we can trust, just an ordinary bloke, an everyday, normal person who’s in over their head, and—’

  ‘Andrew Brown!’ shouted Rory.

  ‘Calm down, Rory, no need to shout.’

  ‘Andrew Brown,’ said Rory again, a shade more calmly. ‘He’s borrowed loads of time. I’ve seen him in three different places at the same time in the Bank. He’s probably up to his neck in debt and…’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so? Come on, let’s go and find him. At home’s best. We don’t want to go back to the Bank for the moment.’

  ‘But how will we know where he lives, Doctor?’ asked Amy. She scratched at the watch strap on her wrist. It was beginning to irritate her skin, just like Nadia’s did.

  ‘Directory enquiries,’ said the Doctor.

  Nadia dragged her bag along the storeroom corridors, looking for somewhere quiet to wait. The TARDIS was back in one of the large unused basement rooms at the end of the corridor. The Symingtons and Blenkinsops were fascinated by it, but none of their clawing and pawing was getting them in. Still, she needed to make sure they didn’t try anything more extreme - the Doctor had told her that the TARDIS’s Hostile Action Displacement System would stop them actually getting in, but would also mean the whole box moved somewhere else - and he preferred not to have to go hunting for it. ‘Very boring,’ he said, ‘not to mention incredibly embarrassing. Like losing your car in a car park. If I remembered to set it.’

  So, she had a watching brief. She could do that.

  She pulled her bag into a storeroom whose door was unexpectedly propped open by an overturned mailroom trolley, wedged the door slightly ope
n with a few files and sat in the dark. Once an hour, she’d venture out to see if anything had happened to the TARDIS. Other than that, she’d wait.

  The Doctor was trying to remember a number.

  ‘112358e963i? Or did it have something to do with Pi?’

  ‘If you want directory enquiries, Doctor,’ said Amy, ‘there are loads of numbers. They all start 118

  something.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean, not what I mean at all,’

  snapped the Doctor, ‘there’s a new galactic system that’s just been introduced, trial run, fun to give it a go, let’s have your phone.’

  Amy, with a dubious expression, handed him her mobile phone. He dialled about 25 numbers and made a series of high-pitched whines into the handset. Amy raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It’s connecting! I’ll put it on speakerphone! Isn’t this fun?’

  ‘Galactic Enquiries,’ said a woman with a low buzzing voice, ‘which name do you require?’

  ‘What was the name again, Rory?’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Um, Andrew Brown. London,’ said Rory.

  ‘Searching for you.’

  ‘There are going to be loads of Andrew Browns,

  though, aren’t there?’ said Rory.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ whispered the Doctor, ‘they’ve got a system for dealing with it! That’s what they say, anyway.’

  ‘I’ve found 2,361 Andrew Browns living in the Greater London area,’ the voice said smoothly, ‘including several species and organisations with similar names, for example the Ah N’Drubrn Clan of Warrior Molluscs currently residing in the Thames and the End, Rue, Burn Doomsday Cult intending to destroy the city in a little over 271 days from now.’

  ‘I told you she wouldn’t be able to— wait, what was that? Destroy the city?’

  ‘Well come back for them later, Rory. Or, hmm, actually I think I’ve dealt with them earlier. Later. I will have dealt with them earlier later already. Why don’t human languages have tenses for these things?

  If we were speaking Old High Gallifreyan, you’d have understood me before I started talking. Tell me,’ he addressed the woman on the phone, ‘what is the best way to find the Andrew Brown we’re looking for?’

  ‘I will ask you a few brief questions,’ she said, ‘to find your party. Is your party human?’

  The Doctor turned to Rory. ‘Is he human?’

  Rory raised both eyebrows.

  ‘Yup, human, yup.’

  ‘Male or female?’

  The Doctor looked at Rory. Rory looked back.

  ‘Male,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Hmmm.’ The woman paused. ‘Brown hair, brown eyes, bit of a bump on his nose?’

  ‘Umm,’ said Rory, ‘not a bump exactly but his nose

  is quite…’

  ‘Quite a long nose?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Rory.

  ‘And does he have an air of vague discomfort? As if he were…’

  ‘As if he’s constantly late for something! Yes!’ shouted Rory.

  ‘I’ve narrowed it down to fifteen possibilities for you.

  Is he a fan of snooker, do you know?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Is his mother’s name Margaret?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know these things?’ Rory said. ‘I know where he works if that helps: Lexington Bank.’

  ‘Sorry, we don’t hold that information.’

  Rory rolled his eyes.

  The Doctor whispered, ‘I did hear the system was at a very experimental stage…’

  ‘Now this is a bit of a long shot,’ said the woman on the phone, ‘but does he have a stain on his tie today?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Rory. ‘Yes, it’s—’

  ‘Custard?’

  Egg!’

  ‘Very good,’ said the buzzing woman. ‘I’ve got your man. Displaying his address for you now.’

  The screen flashed up a message and then went dark.

  ‘She didn’t even wish us a nice day,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘How do we know hell even be here, Doctor?’ said Amy.

  ‘It is a workday, after all.’

  They were walking down a suburban street in North London, looking for Andrew Brown’s flat. It was late afternoon. Amy wondered idly how many times she’d lived this particular hour already. She felt that she’d seen the sun getting low on the horizon surrounded by pink-streaked clouds like that quite a few times now.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rory, ‘even if he’s been using the watch a lot to get ahead at work, surely he’d only use it when he’s actually at the office.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Amy, ‘no one would be so stupid as to use something like that for fun, would they?’

  Rory didn’t know what she’d done. There hadn’t been any point telling him. The Doctor would fix it and then it’d all be fine and there’d be no reason for him ever to know.

  They rounded the comer. Amy’s voice dwindled to nothing.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rory, ‘I think he’s here.’

  There was no need for them to wonder which was Andrew Brown’s flat. He was everywhere on it, and in it. There was an Andrew Brown on a ladder painting the window frames. And an Andrew Brown trimming the hedge. An Andrew Brown was taking out the rubbish, and another Andrew Brown was cleaning the car. Inside the ground floor flat, they could see an Andrew Brown talking on the phone. And one cooking in the kitchen.

  And another working at the computer. And another playing a video game. One was just walking up the path to the front door as another was coming out in a rush.

  They were all going about their business apparently totally unaware of the others’ presences, but managing never quite to bump into each other, as if they were in a well-choreographed ballet.

  ‘How do his neighbours not notice?’ muttered Amy.

  She was thinking of her parents’ house in Leadworth.

  There was something really horrible about the way the house covered in Andrew Browns looked. As if he’d stopped being a person and was more like an infestation.

  She hated the idea that she’d made her parents’ house look like that. That she was doing it right now, at the same time that she was here.

  ‘Oh, British people are very polite, you know. Don’t upset the neighbours, don’t complain if they make lots of noise, try not to notice if they’re clearly travelling in time. Stiff upper lip, Pond! Excuse me?’

  Several of the Andrew Browns turned round at the same time. Amy wondered if they now all remembered seeing the Doctor at various different points across the past few days. It must get boring, mustn’t it? It had been quite fun while she’d been living the same day over and over, but now she came to think of it… didn’t Andrew Brown want to see what was going to happen tomorrow?

  The Andrew Brown washing the car squinted at them, then his face cleared into a smile: ‘Hang on, I know you from the Bank, don’t I? Doctor Schmidt? The expert from Zurich? How can I help you?’

  The Andrew Browns went back to what they were doing.

  ‘Clever,’ said the Doctor. ‘You must be the earliest, am I right? So the others remember that you talked to me, so they don’t have to talk to you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Tricky thing, time travel.

  Especially if you’re not biologically designed for it. I expect they’ve got some gizmo in that device on your wrist so you don’t have to worry about it yourself. I tried something like that myself once with the TARDIS

  psychic circuits when I kept bumping into myself - got into a terrible mess, no one could see my reflection for weeks, gave the people of Transylvania quite a fright.

  Let me just take a look.’

  The Doctor lunged for Andrew’s wrist, all floppy limbs and clownish gestures and nonsense-talking.

  Andrew, more amused than frightened, let him look.

  The Doctor held Andrew’s watch up to his ear, then held the wrist between thumb and forefinger.
>
  ‘How much have you borrowed, Andrew?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘We haven’t got time for this, Andrew, at least you certainly haven’t. Mr Symington and Mr Blenkinsop, how much time have you borrowed from them?’

  ‘I, um, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I think you do, Andrew, I think you really do. How much time have you borrowed? It’s important. Really, really important.’

  Andrew ran a hand through his hair. He stared at the Doctor and then glanced at Amy who smiled winningly.

  Andrew smiled back. He took a deep breath. ‘A few days? Not more than a week. And I try to pay it back when I can, only…’

  ‘Yes, it feels nasty to pay it back, nice to borrow it, totally understand. I think you’ve borrowed more than you reckon, Andrew.’

  ‘Well, I, er, I don’t know, maybe ten days? A couple of weeks?’

  ‘I think it’s more than that, Andrew.’

  The Doctor whipped the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and made a few passes with it over the watch.

  ‘Nothing in my right hand, nothing in my left hand…

  well, all right, a sonic screwdriver in my left hand.

  And… alakazam!’

  A glowing display hovered in the air in front of the watch, just like the one the Doctor had made appear from Amy’s watch in the boardroom.

  ‘Wow,’ said Rory.

  ‘Oh,’ said Amy. ‘That’s…’

  ‘BORROWED TIME TOTAL SINCE LAST

  REPAYMENT: 9 DAYS, 1 HOUR. INTEREST TERMS: 5 MINUTES PER HOUR, PER HOUR. TOTAL TIME

  OWED: 55,000 YEARS.’

  Andrew Brown sat down with a plonk on his driveway. All the other Andrew Browns around the house vanished, one after the other. The window frame went back to being unpainted, the cooking smells vanished from the kitchen.

  ‘Ah, I see you’ll decide not to borrow any more, very wise given you owe them more than the lifespan of five hundred people. Hang on.’ The Doctor cocked his head to one side. ‘You owe them more than you can possibly pay back…’