Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones

by Mark Speed

  “Okay, okay.” Kevin stepped back from the bed. The Doctor’s eyes were closed and his breaths were becoming longer and deeper.

  Trinity gave a short and low growl, and nudged his leg. She walked to the door and looked back at him. He understood that he was to follow her out.

  She led him back to the control room, where he sat on one of the seats that lined its circumference. The seat felt his mood and transformed into a steamer format. Trinity jumped up next to him and sat staring at him. He reached out a hand and she nuzzled her head against it.

  He looked at the control console. None of it meant anything to him. They could be anywhere in space and time and he’d be none the wiser.

  “I feel so alone, Trini.”

  She yowled back at him.

  “Yeah, well you can’t talk back, can you? And if you can, please don’t – it would freak me out right now. I just dunno what to do.”

  Trinity offered her head for him to stroke again. He realised how exhausted he was, and how comfortable the steamer chair was. Accepting there was nothing he could do, he fell asleep.

  “Am I the only one,” asked Commander Bunce a little awkwardly, “who needs to use the loo?” Her two British colleagues shifted in their seats, out of discomfort that was more social than physical. They had been shepherded into a corner of Schlutz’s office after being frisked by the security goons.

  Colonel Schlutz looked over at them. His men were now searching every nook and cranny for the second time. There was no trace of the jar or its contents so far.

  “Very well,” said Schlutz after a long pause. “But you’ll have to do your business under supervision from a female officer.”

  “Oh, really, Colonel. I must protest in the strongest –”

  Schlutz cut her off with a wave of his hand. He pressed a button on his desk. “Send in a female officer to escort Commander Bunce to the john. After that, let her go. We got her contact details.”

  Commander Bunce was red with silent fury when a female officer arrived to escort her out. Schlutz hesitated for a moment and then dismissed the two agents who’d been conducting the search of his office.

  “But we haven’t found it yet, Colonel,” said the more senior of the two.

  He waved them out, closed the door behind them, then sat back down in his seat. He motioned for his two British colleagues to sit down again. He stared at Doctor Peterson in silence for an uncomfortable length of time. Seeing that she wasn’t unnerved by this, he finally spoke. “Doctor Peterson. Camilla, if I may. As far as I understand it, you’re kinda the X-Files lady of the British Secret Service.”

  Peterson shrugged modestly. “MI16 was set up to exploit the technology that emerged from Nazi Germany after the Second World War. The remit then was to debrief their scientists, get the blueprints of inventions to the right experts. That sort of thing. The remit now is to scour the globe for other technologies we might adopt.”

  “Sure.” He hunched forwards towards her. “I’ve been watching you. In a freezer full of snowmen you’d be the coolest customer in the room. Nothing about this surprises you.” He paused for a couple of seconds. “I’ve read your résumé, if you’ll pardon my French. I’ve also read the reports you filed about last week’s events.”

  Sir Adrian spluttered. “Those are MI6 internal only. How did you –”

  “Come on, Sir Adrian. A mouse can’t fart in MI6 without us knowing about it. Sorry, but that’s the truth.” He turned back to Peterson. “You saw some pretty amazing stuff last week. I bet you can take a good guess at what happened today. And I bet you can take a good and highly educated guess at what happened to that jar. Am I right?”

  Doctor Peterson smiled. “If you’re looking for an educated guess, then I suppose I’m your best bet, yes.”

  “Tell me. Is it possible for a jar like that to just disappear? You know, in ways science can explain right now?”

  “Of course it is. Quantum theory would give you odds of – let me see – about a sextillion to one on that happening in any one year for all the matter to suddenly decide it wanted to be somewhere else. Multiply that by the number of seconds in a year and divide that by the number of seconds we weren’t looking at it, and there’s your answer. Rounding it up, about fifty-three quintillion to one. The lifetime of the universe isn’t even going to be long enough for that to have happened of its own accord. Rather unlikely. Quite literally utterly improbable, in fact.”

  “Nice. Very smart.” Schlutz leaned back in his chair. “So you’ve just told me – in your own sweet little way – that it didn’t happen by chance.”

  “Correct.”

  “So that means it had to have happened deliberately.”

  “That would be the logical conclusion, yes.”

  “Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. So, tell me. Who took the damned jar? Was it you?”

  “Given that you apparently have access to all of our secrets, you know we haven’t got the technology to produce that kind of camouflaged suit, nor do we have some kind of – let’s call it a magic wand – with which to ‘biff’ monsters.”

  “So who does?”

  “Search me. Oh,” she laughed. “You already did.”

  Schlutz let out a chuckle against his better judgement. He found Peterson’s charm irresistible. If he wasn’t married he liked to think he’d be asking her these questions over a candlelit dinner for two and not caring much about the answers.

  “Or maybe the jar was a construct of our collective imagination?”

  “Nah,” said Schlutz. “I don’t buy mass hysteria amongst security personnel. These guys are professionals. They literally have been through wars and not been affected.”

  “Joe,” said Sir Adrian, showing his fatigue. “Can’t you just accept that you were bested today? Sometimes a prize fighter gets bested by an opponent with a lucky punch. And it happens in asymmetric warfare. Think of Afghanistan and Iraq. We had to accept that we were bested last week. Granted, we Brits are a bit more used to being bested than you are. But, really, once you get used to it, it’s not that bad. You shrug your shoulders and get on with doing the things you can do well.”

  “Damn it, Sir Adrian! I suspect my guys were bested by some guy from the ’hood in London today. How d’ya think that feels? And then he sneaks in here in the middle of a meeting and helps himself to evidence. How the hell am I gonna explain that?”

  “Aliens,” said Peterson, simply.

  “Aliens?” said Schlutz.

  “Of course,” she said. “Why not?”

  “Aliens,” said Schlutz to himself. “Aliens. Sure, why not the freakin’ Tooth Fairy while we’re at it?”

  “Okay,” said Peterson. “Parties unknown.”

  “Parties unknown,” repeated Schlutz. “Parties unknown. Yeah, I can live with that. I guess I’ll have to learn to.” He got to his feet and stretched his powerful frame. “Come on, guys. It’s been a long day. I’m takin’ you out for a drink and a bite to eat. I owe you that much, at least.”

  Schlutz guided them back through the security section, then out into the main body of the embassy. He signed them out at the staff entrance, returning a salute from a uniformed marine. “You wanna pick your French back up?” he joked to Peterson.

  Schlutz declined a car and an escort, and they strolled out into the dusk of Vauxhall. As they waited at some pedestrian lights, they watched as the rush hour traffic flowed over the manhole which had been at the centre of the day’s events. There was nothing to show that anything of any significance had taken place.

  They reached a bar and grill, where Schlutz appeared to be well-known by the staff, who seated them quickly.

  “You know, maybe you shouldn’t think that you were in any way bested today, Joe,” said Doctor Peterson.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “These parties unknown did us a favour, didn’t they?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, by all accounts they knew exactly how to deal with these deadly
anemones, didn’t they? We even saw one of them being ‘taken down’, as you would put it.”

  “Yeah, I guess you can look at it like that.”

  “I think it just hurts that they knew what to do and, well, none of us did. Not us, not the Met Police, and not your guys.”

  “I guess it also hurts that one of their guys got the better of a whole bunch of our best guys.”

  Sir Adrian spoke up. “But what counts is that the threat has been eliminated. Am I right, Joe? Both of us can go back to our respective superiors and tell them that everyone’s safe. The big stink is over.”

  Schlutz thought for a few moments. “I guess so. But it kinda irks me that there are… I dunno… people – parties unknown – out there who are better than we are. And also that they know they’re better than we are. Who ain’t even afraid of us.”

  “Steady on,” said Sir Adrian. “We’ll have to get you British citizenship if you carry on like that.”

  The three of them laughed. A waiter arrived and placed their drinks on the table.

  “A toast,” said Colonel Schlutz, picking up his glass. “To parties unknown.”

  “To parties unknown,” repeated the other two.

  Peterson smiled to herself. To Doctor How, she thought, and drank her cranberry juice.

  Several miles away, in the boating lake of a South London park, a polyp caught another perch. During daylight hours it was aware of larger creatures moving across the surface. They propelled themselves by way of two large limbs which they splashed in the water.

  It had stalked one into the shallows and tried stinging the body, but to no effect. An exploration had found it to be made of dead plant matter covered by a synthetic film. And yet it had detected other vibrations coming from deep within the body. The same sorts of noise it associated with the animals whose flesh it had enjoyed in a previous incarnation.

  Under cover of darkness it had discovered a large group of them. They were completely silent, and they made none of the noises they made during the day. It had spent a couple of hours exploring a couple of the creatures, extending its tentacles into the crevices within, finding the bodies to be completely hollow. But there was a strong smell of those tasty soft-fleshed animals it had enjoyed.

  For now the polyp was satisfied enough catching fish, but if supplies dwindled, its instinct would be to explore one of those hollow-bodied creatures when it was making animal noises.

  Doctor How stirred on his bed and rolled over, reaching for the sheet. Instead, his hand found the lapel of his jacket, and pulled. The feel of the jacket’s material and the resulting tug on his shoulder triggered something in his brain, and his level of consciousness went up a notch. He realised that he had slept in his suit. The question of why he’d slept in his suit threw the answer into his head, and he remembered the extreme pain and discomfort, and that he’d been put to bed by Kevin the night before. He knew exactly what the time was. After all, he was a Time Keeper.

  He sat bolt upright.

  Kevin.

  He shouldn’t have left Kevin alone in charge of the Spectrel for over twelve hours. He reassured himself that Trinity would have kept the lad in order, and that besides everything else, the Spectrel wouldn’t have let him do anything anyway. Nothing that didn’t require immediate operational attention, at least.

  He put his shoes on and laced them up. For some reason they displeased him this morning. He found himself rotating his ankles so that he could look at them from a variety of different angles. This carried on for several seconds.

  Kevin.

  He leapt up off the bed and walked down the corridor towards the control room.

  “Trinity!” he said, putting a hand to his chest. Something didn’t feel quite right. “You gave me a bit of a start there.”

  Trinity had reverted to her spider form, probably to eat her morning meal. She studied the Doctor for a couple of seconds.

  “What? Did my regeneration go okay? What is it? Tell me.”

  Trinity’s head bobbed up and down a couple of times, then stopped. She ran up onto the ceiling and let the Doctor pass underneath, keeping her eyes on him.

  “Oh, be like that then.”

  His bladder felt very full, so he went to the facilities adjacent to the control room first.

  A few seconds later he burst into the control room, followed by Trinity.

  “Kevin!” he shouted. “Kevin, wake up lad!”

  Kevin fell off the steamer seat and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  “Wassup, Doc?”

  “Kevin!” said the Doctor, shaking him by the shoulders.

  “You’re up. That’s great. Like, how’d the regeneration go?”

  “I know who the Babushka Lady is!”

  “What?”

  “I know who the Babushka Lady is, Kevin.”

  “Like, I don’t see what the big deal is. I know you know I like conspiracies and that, but I’m more worried about you and your regeneration. You get me?”

  The Doctor was clutching his shoulders and looking into his eyes.

  “I am the Babushka Lady. It’s me.”

  “But…”

  “I’m a woman.”

  “Oh my life, Doctor. Oh.” Kevin stared. “I, like. I dunno what to say, man. Woman.”

  “You have to help. I have a real emergency on my hands.”

  “I can see that. You still look like a man. Exactly like a man, in fact. Are you sure you’re just not a bit – you know – tired or something?”

  The Doctor felt the stubble on his face, and grimaced. “You’re right! But I’ve just been to the loo and I can assure you that… down there it’s all changed. And my chest.” The Doctor patted his chest, which was lumpier than it had been previously.

  “So that’s the emergency? We have to get you some kind of operation? Shall I get the med-bots?”

  “No, no! All that can wait. Look!” He pointed at his feet. “I have got to get rid of these shoes.”

  Historical notes

  Doctor How’s piece on the Kennedy assassination is based on historical facts, and you might be surprised at some of them.

  Winston Churchill volunteered to serve as an infantry officer in WWI after resigning as an MP. He was called away from his trench by a telegraph message. There was no one there to meet him when he arrived at the rendezvous and there was no record of any telegraph message. On returning to his trench he discovered that a German artillery shell had landed where he would have been standing on duty. His life was saved by an apparent mistake… unless that mysterious message was an intervention?

  JFK’s elder brother, Joe, was killed piloting a plane filled with explosives. These weapons were to have been used to destroy German U-boat pens in France, which were too well fortified to be damaged by conventional bombs. A pilot was needed for take-off and would then bail out, after which the aircraft would be flown by remote control from another aircraft. On too many occasions the planes exploded on take-off, or early in flight, and the concept was abandoned.

  Tube Alloys was the codename for Britain’s nuclear weapons programme during WWII, but it was of course the American Manhattan Project which succeeded. As an aside, Trinity was the codename for the first nuclear explosion, which took place in the Jomada del Muerto desert in New Mexico on July 16th, 1945.

  Jack Kennedy suffered from Addison’s Disease from an early age. There is speculation that many of his symptoms actually resulted from his abuse of steroids. That he was a womaniser is a matter of record. He was in the House of Commons as the declaration of war was read out on September 3rd, 1939. The title of his undergraduate thesis, Why England Slept, did nod to Churchill’s work, and it was a bestseller. He donated the British royalties to the people of Plymouth, and bought a green Buick convertible with the US royalties.

  President Lincoln did indeed have a premonition about his own death just three days before his assassination, and it was exactly as described by Doctor How in this novel.

  In 1947 Kennedy was h
ospitalised at the London Clinic, and seen by Sir Daniel Davis. The scene with Churchill and the Doctor is pure fiction… so far as we know.

  JFK was shot and killed the day before the first episode of Doctor Who went to air in 1963. The timings of the motorcade are correct. The first bullet that hit Kennedy and then hit Connally was metal jacketed. Kennedy was killed by a dum-dum bullet which fragmented into over forty pieces. The hole in his skull was 6mm, and not the 6.5mm of the bullets fired by Oswald. In his 1992 book Mortal Error, author Bonar Menninger outlines a theory by ballistics expert Howard Donahue that JFK was shot accidentally by a bullet from an AR-15 fired by Secret Service agent George W. Hickey Jr. Hickey sued the publishers in 1997 but the case was thrown out because it was decreed that he’d waited too long. He settled out of court with the publishers of the book in 1998. He died in either 2005 or 2011 – bizarrely, it’s difficult to ascertain even that simple fact.

  The Babushka Lady was seen filming the motorcade and was very close to the action. Her identity has proved impossible to establish, her nickname having been given to her because she had a scarf wrapped around her head. In four different films she is seen still standing taking photographs whilst most other witnesses have taken cover – so she was one heck of a cool customer. Her photographs would have been extraordinary, and could well have given definitive answers about the assassination. Despite a nationwide appeal to film processors, neither she nor the film she shot have ever been traced. To this day, the identity of the Babushka Lady remains a mystery. If you know who she is, call 1-800-FOUND-ELVIS. (Just kidding.)

  End of book two

  Thanks for reading – I hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a four or five-star review if you did. Please don’t reveal the exact nature of the shock ending – I’d love to keep it a secret as long as possible. As an indie author the only publicity I have is word of mouth. I really appreciate your help!

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