by Mark Speed
Dr How snatched the keyboard away. “Wait! I see a pattern emerging. All of these happened at night, all three involve diesel fuel, and they’re all in the same area of Essex.”
“But surely those factors are taken into account in the probability calculations? Let me cancel.”
“No. Let me enter the data for the hacking.” The Doctor tapped away furiously at the keyboard, patching the Higher system through to his home laptop, which was in turn patched through to his Spectrel’s system. A split second after the data were uploaded, Dolt’s system flashed a red emergency signal.
The Doctor’s mood lightened. “There! We have a genuine grade one emergency, Mr Dolt.” He tilted the screen towards his colleague and gloated. “That changes everything. I have my assistant. Oh, and protocols now dictate that I may now relinquish my duties on the Tech Transmission desk. All of which means…”
“You are free to go, Dr How. But I do not understand your apparent good humour at the prospect of an emergency. After all, this may involve considerable danger to your person, and the possibility of a sudden and violent death.”
“Well, Mr Dolt. Please don’t be offended if it appears that the prospect of such a dangerous and uncertain future is infinitely preferable to working with your good self.”
Dolt pondered this for a moment. “No. I can’t see how it could be.”
“Which is a pretty good indication in itself. Goodbye for now.” He rushed for the door.
“I shall expect regular reports, Doctor. It is stipulated in directive…”
The Doctor jogged back to his own office. The curious happenings in Essex were interesting, and worthy of investigation. But what really intrigued him was the hack. The incidents with the taxis gave him the time to investigate.
On the Tube home he felt a sense of mounting dread. The bus picked him up from Brixton and dropped him at Telford Avenue. Deep down, he disliked many aspects of the job – the hours, the stress, the danger, and the mess; particularly the mess and the dirt. He’d seen what it had done to the others, and considered himself fortunate still to be normal. He bathed in the UV light of his porch before scrubbing his hands with anti-bacterial soap for a few minutes in the downstairs bathroom whilst the house-bots cleaned his already spotless home. He felt better after those little rituals.
Chapter Six
“Great God Almighty, Kevin. I thought I told you to get some decent clothes?”
Kevin stepped out of the porch, having undergone the ritual of what he thought of as the UV shower. “This is great gear, Doc. It’s the latest season from Hilfiger. D’you, like, not like it?”
“It’s a hoodie, Kevin. And the letters spelling the brand name aren’t even sewn on very well. They’ve not even bothered to trim the threads off the edges.”
“That’s the whole thing, man. It’s what you pay for. It’s the look.”
“Let me correct you: it’s what I paid for. Do you have the receipts, as I asked?”
“I’m not taking them back.” Kevin handed over some crumpled pieces of paper.
The Doctor examined the receipts. “Since when were people stupid enough to pay a premium for such shoddy workmanship? The whole point of the industrial revolution was not just mass-production, but consistently higher quality. I suppose I ought to take my hat off to Mr Hilfiger for charging a premium for lowering the quality.”
“Let me point something out to you, Doc. The way I figure it is that one of the reasons you hired me is because I is street. You can do, like, all this high-end stuff with physics and time travel and all that palaver, but the one thing you ain’t got in your armoury is street knowledge.”
“I could acquire it; like I could acquire any language or knowledge.”
“Look at you, man. You is square. In fact, you has, like, got more right angles than a cube.”
“Very good, Kevin.”
“Thanks. But my point is that you are an,” Kevin furrowed his brow, “an anachronism. You’re lucky you don’t get mugged with your black suit and your white shirt.”
“A time-travelling anachronism. How humorous. Do you know what a tautology is, Kevin?” He brushed the youth’s answer aside, irritated that his companion might have a decent stab at the correct answer. “The gentleman’s suit is one of the most versatile pieces of clothing in the Pleasant universe. Two breast pockets inside, a breast one outside and two capacious ones at the bottom, each with a shelf for change. The trousers have two pockets to the front and two to the rear, both of which button shut. In the event of a marine incident, the trousers may come off; the ends of the legs can be tied and used as a flotation device. I’m sure you must have learnt that in swimming at school using a pair of pyjamas. I will leave aside the extraordinary physical qualities of the material used in this particular suit, but the shirt is made of a lighter version of it. A shirt and suit is one of the most adaptable sartorial choices ever invented. Furthermore, it bestows authority on its wearer.”
“What about a spacesuit?”
“What?”
“Neil Armstrong didn’t wear a two-piece single-breasted suit to the moon. You get me?”
“Don’t act the smart-ass with me, laddie. My point is that a suit will get you in anywhere.”
“Yeah, like a funeral parlour.”
“I think you’ll find that more people are murdered in hoodies, Kevin.”
“Yeah, but more people are seen dead in suits. So what do you want me to do, then?”
The Doctor sighed heavily. “I suppose on the plus side your outfit doesn’t smell of fried food yet. Though I’m sure you’ll work on it soon enough. Look, here’s another couple of hundred to get yourself another outfit for when you need to dress up a bit smarter. And for when you don’t want to be subject to random stop-and-searches by the police.”
“Sorry. It’s just, like, this is my uniform. You understand me? You might think I’m more likely to get stabbed wearing this, but it’s less conspicuous where I live.”
“Sure. I suppose times have changed. A hundred years ago the guy sweeping the street would wear a suit. Not a great one, but nevertheless a suit. Where I go it gets me instant respect.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Doc. You wear a suit like that in my manor and you’re the enemy, innit? Like everyone thought you was with the Feds the other night. And that landed me right in it.”
“Speaking of which, how are your friends?”
Kevin smiled. “Like you said, man. They just steer clear of me at the moment. They is like scalded cats but they don’t know why. Cool.”
“Even so, I want you to keep clear of them. Understood?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Excellent. Now, come with me.”
Kevin followed the Doctor to the cellar, but hesitated at the bottom step because Trinity was sitting in the chair he’d sat in the last time. She gave a loud meowl and sat bolt upright. He walked hesitantly over and reached out to stroke her head. She pressed up into his hand, and he stroked her. “Good girl. Mind if I sit here?”
Trinity stood up and looked at him with her glowing green eyes. He understood what he had to do, and picked her up.
“Jesus, she’s heavy. I’ve got a three-year-old cousin who weighs less than this.” He set her down on his lap. She put her front paws on his left thigh and he felt the prick of her claws through his jeans as she flexed them. He wondered how much blood they’d spilled. This was one cat that could handle herself on the streets. Spider, he reminded himself. Or something. She settled down and began purring.
“Oh, I forgot to mention your DNA tests the other night.”
“You what? You mean the Feds have fitted me up for something?”
The Doctor looked at him for a second. “Oh, I see. You think I’ve checked your DNA against scenes-of-crime evidence held on the police national DNA database. No, no. That’s not what I mean at all. I mean your DNA’s history. And your future. Would you like to know?”
“Like, what’s the downside?”
&
nbsp; “Some people don’t like to know their genetic susceptibility to cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and so forth.”
“Can you give me a hint? Like, would I want to know how I’m going to die?”
“These are only for increased propensities, Kevin. I can only tell you what you have a greater chance of dying from if you make poor lifestyle choices. I can’t tell you whether you’re going to get run over by a bus next week. Though I suppose your intelligence and sensory perception might have a bearing on it.”
“Like, can you just summarise?”
“As you wish. It would be a terrific idea if you were to give the fried food a rest. Your father died from heart disease, didn’t he?” Kevin nodded. “Scottish,” continued the Doctor. “Tie that to a loving wife who believes the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, combine it with a lethal Caledonian-Caribbean diet and… well, you know the result. Sorry. Eat more fresh fruit and veg, eh? Less KFC and more of the piri-piri. Go easy on the fries and the sodas.”
“You mentioned my history?”
“So I did. Ever wondered how a Caledonian-Afro-Caribbean boy has blue eyes?”
“Yeah, I had. It’s actually been remarked on. They used to bully me for being a ‘coconut’ at school.”
“Coconut?”
“Black on the outside, white on the inside. To put it into language you can understand, Doctor, it’s a common derogatory term when you don’t like the behaviour or appearance of someone else of colour.”
“I see. Interesting. There are none so judgemental as one’s own race.” The Doctor paused for thought. “True enough.”
“Why is it?”
“I suppose part of it might be envy, but also a kind of racial pride. It would depend on the situation.”
“No, I mean my blue eyes, man.”
“Seven generations ago, one of your ancestors by the name of Ekua – from Ghana, incidentally – had the great fortune to be spared the worst. She was a comely lady, as they would have said back in those times, and caught the eye of a Mr Cruachan – a supervisor at the plantation. You are a direct descendant of the male born of their union. Your family’s carried the recessive gene for blue eyes since then and your father had blue eyes. When you were conceived, those blue eyes popped out to say hello.”
“Cheers, Doc. It was so worth the years of bullying. How the hell do you know all this?”
“We keep detailed records, and what we don’t know we can derive or impute. Your Scottish ancestry has served you well, Kevin, and in ways you’ll only come to understand in the future.”
“Meaning?”
“In terms of genetics it might protect you against your mother’s family’s propensity for obesity and diabetes, as well as sickle cell anaemia. You retain just enough of that gene to afford you a touch of protection against malaria. And for the rest of it, I have a feeling we’ll be delving into your family history in more detail in another one of our little adventures.”
“I can’t wait. Really. Sorry to be rude, but can I just ask where in the space-time continuum this particular adventure we has embarked upon is going to take us?”
“Essex.”
“You have got to be joking. What about Jupiter or Mars? Or Alpha Centauri or something?”
“Why the hell would we go there?”
“Why the hell would you go to Essex if you have the rest of the bleedin’ universe to choose from? In fact, why go to Essex if you have the rest of Britain to choose from. Or anywhere for that matter.”
“You’ve completely lost me, Kevin.”
“Look, when the Eleventh Doctor takes on Clara Oswald as his new assistant, he asks her where she wants to go. That was in The Rings of Akhaten.”
“Oh, dear God,” said the Doctor. “That is fiction, Kevin. We’re dealing with cold, hard reality here.”
“But –”
“It’s unfortunate that this particular investigation doesn’t meet with your somewhat ambitious travel expectations, Kevin.” The youth’s eyes nearly popped out at the Doctor’s understatement, but he chose to remain silent. “However, expediency suggests that Essex is our first port of call. To put it in your parlance, Dagenham is where the action is, man.”
“It depends what kind of action you is after, Doc. If you want white racist blokes with beer-bellies then it’s right up your street, innit?”
“That’s a racist comment in itself – don’t be such a hypocrite.”
“This sucks, Doc. I thought I was signing up for some kind of intergalactic adventure thing.”
“It was so much easier in the past. Damn the BBC and their idiotic scriptwriters for creating these sorts of expectations. Damn them to hell.” The Doctor took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know what there might be waiting for us in Essex.”
“I can’t wait to find out, Doc. Mind you, this is going to be my first trip in the TAR—” Kevin saw the Doctor stiffen. “In the Spectrel, innit? Man, that is just cool beyond imagining.”
“What on earth makes you think we’re going in the Spectrel?”
“But Time Lords always travel in the T – in their Spectrels, don’t they?”
“Only if absolutely necessary.”
“You what?”
“It’s another myth put about by those scoundrels. Dramatic effect and all that. It’s all his fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s fault.”
“No, I asked you first.”
“No, you clot. It’s Who’s fault – Dr bloody Who. That’s who!”
“Why?”
“No, not Why. I said it’s Who’s fault.”
“Whose fault?”
“Yes. Who.”
“What?”
“No! Listen, damn you. Don’t bring Why or What into it. It’s nothing to do with them. It’s Who’s fault.”
“That’s what I’m trying to establish, Doctor. Whose fault is it?”
“Yes. It’s Who’s fault; now, can we just bloody get on with it and stop arguing the toss and bringing the others into it?”
“Like, you really need talking therapy, Doc. We is uncovering some major anger-management issues here.”
Trinity quaked in Kevin’s lap, her head bobbing up and down.
“Sorry, this is my fault. I see that now. Let me explain a little bit more to you. There are six of us. The others are What, Why, When, Where, and Who.”
“Six Time Lords? I thought there was, like, the whole planet of Gallifrey, and you’ve got the Master and Rana, and –” He caught a look from the Doctor. “Sorry, Gaelfrey.”
“Please, Kevin. Will you just be quiet and listen to me? There are six of us. We are not Time Lords. That is a gross aggrandisement; a title which suited a certain someone. Powerful we may be, but lords we are not. We are Time Keepers. Referees, if you will.”
“Referees?”
The Doctor sighed. “What was the one instruction I gave you?”
“Uh… Stick with you and do as you say?”
“Precisely, now I would like you to just shut up and listen. We are Time Keepers. We alone have free rein to make temporal journeys. Time travel is an undertaking not to be taken lightly. The consequences can be dire – cataclysmic. The sort of foul-ups that can end a universe. I’m sure you must be aware of that, even from your own culture’s popular conception of it. That is not to say that we are the only ones who can travel in time, but we are the only ones allowed free rein to do so. Even then we are bound by an intergalactic treaty, which means we must adhere to a certain code.
“Your appointment as my assistant was a matter of some significance, not to say some controversy. I may say there were some grave reservations about your previous behaviour, but I gave a personal assurance that I understood you to be someone of the rarest good character. In some respects, rather like an ancestor of yours from the sixth century. Don’t let me down. You have questions?”
“Where are the other guys? The other Time Keepers?”
“I know of their
whereabouts, but not of their circumstances. We had a… disagreement. A bit of a falling-out. That was some fifty years ago. I alone chose to stay on the true path. The others have, shall we say, drifted a little. In fact, one of them first drifted about nine hundred years ago. But the serious rift was in 1963. I have a strong feeling I shall be reacquainting myself with them in the coming adventures. You will have the rare, if not privileged, opportunity to witness it.”
“You said these guys are your cousins? Is that, like, for real? It’s, like, not a turn of phrase?”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Well, I refer to my bluds as cuz, sometimes. Is it like that, or is they real blood relatives?”
“Yes, four of them are cousins. One of them is my twin brother. I’m sure you can guess who.”
“Who?”
“Yes.”
“No, who?”
“Exactly.” The Doctor’s gaze was in some far-off place, his voice low and monotone. “He was always the troublesome one. He instigated the rift, cemented the separation. Blabbed to the Beeb. I can never forgive him for that. Never.”
Kevin brightened. “My Mum actually knows someone who’s a psychologist. Rather than wait six months on the NHS, she could see you privately. You know, for talking therapy.”
The Doctor shot up from his seat. “We’re going to Essex. Now.”
“But I want to hear the rest of the stuff about your family. I’m actually a really big Dr Who fan, you know.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you. You – and millions of others – weren’t to know. You’re all innocent victims in all of this. You’ve been duped.”
“But I want to hear –”
“All in good time, as we Gaelfreyans like to say. Some of us don’t give up our secrets so easily. Or cheaply. Come.”
One of the perks Kevin hadn’t counted on was an Oyster card – the pre-paid electronic card used on London’s transport network. However, the potential saving of hundreds of pounds of travel expenses was little compensation for the disappointment of not having his first trip in the Spectrel. The Doctor briefed him on the way, showing him some photographs from a website to which Kevin was a regular visitor. Run by a retired policeman, it allowed serving officers to submit material that was too far-fetched for routine reports.