They both looked at it. It was rumbling ominously.
Donna sighed. ‘Well, better get on with it, then. Do you want to take off your jacket?’
‘No.’
‘All right!’
They heaved up the manhole cover, the wind shooting up, faster and more ominous.
The stench was incredible; not just from the bodies in the hot atmosphere, but the odd belching noise from deep, deep down the bottom of the tunnel – except of course, Donna thought, it was simply blackness. There was no bottom. She thought of an innocent-looking manhole in that beautiful garden in Seoul, beneath an old building she didn’t even know was still standing or not.
‘Will you . . . If you fall, will you just fall right through?’ she asked nervously.
‘Of course not!’ said the Doctor. ‘Oh no, the imploding wall will crush me before I get much further. The pressure liquid is dripping away now, moment by moment. It could all come apart at any time.’
Donna looked at him. ‘Well, be careful.’
He lowered himself in, a spare length of the almost translucent highly powerful filament clenched in his fist, the earpiece in his other hand.
‘Right. Here I go. Pull the cover on.’
‘I don’t want to.’
The Doctor stared her straight in the face.
‘I don’t care.’
Chapter
Sixty-One
The manhole cover found its home with a clang. Inside now it was pitch dark.
The Doctor clambered carefully through the bodies. The pressure gel that Gully had brought with him was oozing away, slowly but steadily, into the walls. There were ominous noises as the material started to bubble away, threatening the integrity of the structure.
He could feel the heat, too, from far below coming up towards him.
The filament had burned through one of Gully’s tentacles, although the latent power in it caused the limb to twitch, sharply. The Doctor flinched, but only slightly.
He found the other end beneath the body and started to tie it all together, ending in the earpiece. He was almost there when suddenly the hole belched and wheezed and bellowed in and out, as if he was down the throat of some living thing. He watched as, far beneath his feet, the blue light started to ping and then to flow, and he started to drop, his feet scrabbling against what was beginning to feel ominously like nothingness. He shot his hands out to the side and braced himself, even as bits of rubble started to get sucked down into the hole.
He looked upwards. The top now seemed immeasurably far away. Well. If he could make it, he could make it. If he couldn’t, he couldn’t. He didn’t dwell on the unpleasant thought of a regeneration happening under the weight of the Earth’s centre, coming alive only to die, over and over. And he didn’t – couldn’t – hurry. That would risk forfeiting the plan completely.
Instead, agonisingly slowly, he inched up through the filthy tunnel like a crab, legs and arms hanging on to the crumbling sides, desperate not to miss, holding the earpiece between his teeth and reflecting that he’d been in more dignified situations. At the top, he jammed himself against the hideous pallid skin of the octopus, looking for a way to keep the filament from following the earth and the fluid from tumbling down below.
‘Oh Gulls,’ he said. And he reached for one twitching tentacle, and squeezed out the last of the sticky, biting fluid that emanated there, and stuck the earpiece and the connected filament firmly to the very top metal hinge of the tunnel itself, the gap between the structure crumbling every second.
As Gully himself was sucked downwards with inevitable momentum, the Doctor banged the underside of the manhole with all his might.
‘OK!’ he shouted. ‘Get me out! Get me out! Quickly!’
He pushed it up and aside, and shot out as fast as he could, as the room bent dangerously and the entire building started to tilt and shift, as if stuck in a tornado.
‘Quick!’
They just made it, heaving the metal cover over in the nick of time, even as the horrible creaking and groaning noises that came from the hole got worse and worse.
As the blue light shone upwards, the Doctor pulled on the end of the filament and moved towards Gully’s control screens.
‘Oh, how I hate an octopod keyboard,’ he groaned. Then he glanced at Donna. ‘OK,’ he said, clipping the end of the filament into the computer, and activating it.
There was a reassuring click and beep.
The Doctor looked up at Donna with a broad grin on his face. ‘You know one thing I really like doing?’
Donna shook her head, smiling back with relief. He was completely covered in muck and slime. She’d tell him later.
‘I really like reversing stuff. Let’s reverse some stuff, shall we? Let’s do some excellent reversing!’
Everything hummed into life. The noise filled the air. Donna immediately started tidying up the files. The Doctor rolled his eyes. Further away, on the other side of the world, in terminals and computers and smartphones a long way from here, the effect would be massively diluted. But it would still be there, spreading out and beyond, to cafés and offices and lonely bedrooms everywhere.
He cleared his throat, slightly awkwardly and leaned towards the microphone next to the earpiece connector.
‘Um . . .’ he said. ‘People of Earth. I hate saying that. It’s really not a phrase I like. It’s usually followed by something like “Prepare to meet your doom” or “The final hour is upon you.”
‘But it isn’t,’ he said, urgently. ‘This time, I promise you, it isn’t.’
Chapter
Sixty-Two
And in small towns and great sprawling eastern cities, in favelas and old communist apartments, in new spanking developments in the rising cities of India and the endless farmlands of the Canadian plains, in small cafés overlooking the pyramids, in groups of young men hawking rugs in the markets of Turkey, in the fury-driven stock exchanges of Tokyo and New York – people put down their phones, as the waves of the Cadmian sounds pulsed over them. It rendered them calmer – less human, yes, more open to suggestion.
And he told them. That they had to do something difficult. Whatever difficult meant for them.
And it happened. People babysat for their neighbours. They sheltered people who needed it. They spent a long time with elderly people who had nobody else. They called friends and family members with whom they had disagreed. They swallowed their pride. They let the other person win. They sat down for long talks with their spouses.
They played with their children.
The keyboard warriors stood up. Stretched. Opened windows. Took their mums out to lunch.
People donated: money; blood and bone marrow; time, experience, attention. They gave each other so much attention.
They apologised.
Hearing it – feeling it – the Doctor really wished Donna was there with him in spirit, rather than tidying up with a beatific expression on her face.
Outside the window of the huge creaking house, the henchmen were fixing each other’s wounds, and swapping manly hugs.
On the computer screens showing the world’s news, people had turned away from the stories of destruction, and were earnestly talking to one another.
‘Oh, Donna!’ he said. ‘Look at me! Look at me! I’m saving the world with good manners!’
He smiled and talked on, watching the screens as social media slowed to a trickle and then a halt. Then, with a few more keystrokes, he rebooted it, sent a knockout pulse down the filament to every connected device on Earth.
‘Go on, have a reboot,’ he said. ‘It’ll take you a while. Let’s just call it healing time.’ He looked again at the screens. ‘That is a pleasing amount of cake-baking going on,’ he noted approvingly.
The entire building now was creaking and moving from side to side on the nearly collapsed fault line of the tunnel. It couldn’t last much longer. He reluctantly opened the manhole for the last time, and neatly sliced the whole thing off. The path wa
s closed.
As the wind dropped, he grabbed Donna, and they slipped back into the TARDIS and took off, before the entire building collapsed in on itself, sealing up the hole through the world, leaving merely a barren space in the jungle.
The clean scar of the wound.
Chapter
Sixty-Three
‘I won’t be long,’ Donna was saying. ‘I’ll see you back at the TARDIS later, yeah?’
She ran up the white steps to Hettie’s grand house. She’d picked up a bottle of prosecco at the corner shop. The Doctor waved her off.
Inside there was the noise of charging footsteps and shouting; some laughter; much chaos. Donna had to ring the bell twice before anyone heard her. Finally, Hettie appeared, her normally immaculate hair tumbling curling and wild around her shoulders.
‘Don!’ She enfolded her in a big hug. ‘Don, I am . . . I am so . . .’
Donna shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
The twins came rushing up to see her and she hugged them.
‘Shouldn’t they be at Mandarin class or something?’ said Donna, handing over the bottle.
‘Oh, sod that,’ said Hettie. ‘Come in. Please. I want to hear all your news. Have you met any nice men?’
Donna followed her through into her sitting room. It had got much messier, much more dishevelled. She couldn’t see a laptop anywhere.
‘All the men I meet,’ she said, ‘are weird like you wouldn’t believe. I mean. Seriously. You actually wouldn’t believe it.’
Hettie giggled. ‘Seriously? Oh, Cam may have been around for a while, but I still like him.’
To Donna’s amazement, Hettie’s sweet tall husband walked through, waving a hand.
‘He’s home! I thought he was never home!’
‘I know,’ said Hettie. ‘We needed some changes around here. He turned down a promotion. Even though it really hurt his career. I mean, practically killed it. It was agony for him. But . . .’
Donna watched as Cameron picked up the twins one after another and tossed them in the air as they screamed and giggled frantically. ‘It seems to be working out OK,’ she said.
‘It does,’ said Hettie. ‘Let’s go into the kitchen . . . As long as you don’t mind me getting distracted by the children every two seconds.’
‘I don’t mind that at all,’ said Donna truthfully.
‘And what about these men?’
‘Space cadets! Every blinking last one of them.’
‘You should try internet dating.’
‘Hah!’
In Australia, the man with skin dry as a lizard’s happily put down the phone, and ordered a list of the sixty most gruesome injuries of the Troll Wars to be posted immediately. The finest clickbait.
And of course the ‘25 Kindest Acts You’ve Seen Today – number 7 will make you Squee!’ Someone would always start a fight on the comments section below that. Guaranteed.
Money in the bank.
Back on the London streets, the Doctor heard warm waves of laughter, cutlery clattering in restaurants; children running about, playing. Dusk was falling. It was a calm, pretty evening, pinkening into night.
London was bustling, quietly; happily; the wine bars were full of people catching up with friends they hadn’t seen for a long time, except on the end of a liked photo or a snatched text, which didn’t count.
People were embracing; pleased to see each other again in real life; relaxing. Of course one or two of them were taking selfies. It would start again. It always did.
But tonight. Tonight it was a beautiful evening. All over London, all over the world. Before the grind of desperate, attention-grabbing life built up again, this was an evening to simply be happy, to enjoy one another’s company and the small joys of life.
Leaves crisped under the Doctor’s feet and he kicked them lightly out of the way, passing dog-walking couples holding hands as they strolled underneath the streetlights.
He found himself by the river, watching the people come and go. A few children were getting the very last minutes of light from the play park, giggling and turning upside down. It was so nice, this world. When they were behaving themselves.
He smiled to himself and turned to head back. Donna would be late, by the sounds of things. That was all right. There was plenty to be done. There were plenty of places to go. Home was a consolation for other people who didn’t have the choice, didn’t have the options he had. He was lucky.
He blinked.
‘Doctor! Hey, Doctor!’
Someone was shouting at him from the other end of the street. It was a man, with a bag tucked under one arm.
‘Hello?’
‘Doctor? Hey! Wait up. It’s me. Wilf. I was just walking to the library. I know I could probably get the bus again, but it shook me up, you know? But that boy . . . His mother marched him round to apologise.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘He was just a kid, you know?’
‘I do.’
‘He was very sorry when I made him weed my entire garden. And clean out the potting shed.’
The Doctor smiled. ‘Well I think it’s probably safe to get back on the bus.’
‘Yes, but I started walking and . . . do you know, I rather like it. Feels good for me, you know.’
‘I do know.’
‘Can I walk with you a little while, or would you rather be alone?’
There was a pause.
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘No, do walk with me. I’d like that.’
They strode on in companionable silence.
‘I never know what you’ve been up to,’ said Wilf. ‘But is my granddaughter all right?’
‘Right as rain,’ said the Doctor. ‘Honestly.’
Wilf gave him a sideways glance. ‘I don’t rightly know what you do,’ he said. ‘Not really. Donna tries to explain but I’m just too . . . I never quite get it.’
The Doctor nodded and didn’t reply.
Wilf paced on. ‘But she seems happy, Doctor.’
The Doctor thought about it. ‘I hope she is. I think she is. Most of the time.’
‘Well, nobody’s happy all the time.’
‘No. That’s true.’
‘So,’ said Wilf. ‘Thank you. For making my granddaughter mostly, sometimes, often happy. And whatever it is, that other stuff you get up to. ‘
And the lights of the embankment popped on, one by one by one, lampposts stretching ahead as far as the eye could see, and the Doctor said, ‘Don’t mention it,’ politely, and the men walked on.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Justin Richards, Albert DePetrillo, Kate Fox, Alex Goddard, Jake Lingwood and all at BBC Books; James Goss in particular (and please never say H/C to me again or we are THROUGH); Matt Fitton; Pete Harness, Scott Handcock; Lee Binding, Paul Cornell, Gareth Roberts; Rob Shearman; Tom Spilsbury, Dr Matthew Sweet; Peter Ware, Mark & Cav; Kenny Smith; Jo Unwin; all at Little, Brown books and Mr B in his eternal patience with that other guy.
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