Everything volatile. About to explode.
‘This way,’ said the Doctor, heading for the Embankment wall. Rose saw a gap, a stone staircase leading down to the river. She and the Doctor ran towards it—a final look back saw the tramp, the ballerina and the knight converge and march towards them—then she followed the Doctor down the wet, worn steps. Plunging into darkness.
At least this would take the chase away from the crowds. The sounds of trouble on the Embankment were already fading away. But below them, Rose could only see mud and black water.
No boat, no jetty, no tunnel, no escape.
She looked back. The knight, the ballerina and the tramp had reached the top of the steps and began to march down.
‘But what do we do?’ said Rose, panicked, as they reached the bottom, the stink of the river rising up. ‘We’re trapped, aren’t we? There’s nowhere to go!’
The Doctor grinned—God, he loved trouble—and held up his sonic screwdriver. ‘What did I say? The absence of a signal. And there is absolutely nothing coming from that!’
He pointed at a manhole, a few metres away, across some slimy flagstones. A hazy red steam billowing from its vents.
Like anyone who’d ever lived in any city of the world, Rose had spent her life walking past grilles in the ground that smoked away, without ever giving them a second thought. But now, she saw them through the Doctor’s eyes. A portal to another world.
Or to her death.
The Doctor ran over the slippery flags, squatting down to aim his sonic screwdriver at the manhole cover.
Rose looked back. The knight, the ballerina and the tramp had stopped, arranged along the steps in a diagonal line. ‘Why’ve they stopped?’
‘Well, yes, problem is,’ said the Doctor, a little shame-faced, ‘I don’t think they’re chasing us. They’re herding us. We’re not escaping, we’re walking into a trap.’
‘You mean they wanted us to find this?’
‘Yeah. Or we’d be dead by now. We’d have been ballerina’d to death. Which, actually, I’d like to see, but there you go.’
‘So we’re doing exactly what the Nestene wants?’
‘Yup!’
The Doctor kept whirring away, and Rose heard something click and release within the manhole. He lifted the cover and a rush of heat and steam billowed up from the depths. An awful stench of sewage and carcasses. And a noise. The distant roar of something vast. Rose looked down. A metal ladder descended into reddish darkness.
The Doctor said, ‘Normally I’d say, wait here. But that’s a bit tricky with the Three Stooges behind us.’
‘Never mind them,’ said Rose. ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘They always used to say that,’ said the Doctor, with a sad smile.
She didn’t know who he was talking about. But whoever they were, she wasn’t them; she’d do her own thing. Rose sat on the lip of the manhole and took hold of the ladder, lowering herself down first. She glanced up at him. ‘You can wait here if you want.’
The Doctor grinned and followed her.
They went down, rung by rung, the heat and steam and stink thickening as they descended into the pit.
Far below them, deep in the earth, something huge was shrieking with delight.
13
The Lair of the Beast
The ladder went down a shaft leading to a floor of metal grilles streaming with thick red smoke. The Doctor and Rose hauled up an iron trapdoor. It opened onto a rusting metal staircase that took them to a wide, open platform, and from there, Rose could only stare in awe. The Doctor, the dummies and the statues were all alien life in human form, but now, she gazed upon the Nestene.
Far below, in a vast underground chamber, it sat in a circular pit. Some 30 metres in diameter, the Consciousness looked like a writhing cauldron of lava. No face, no limbs, no body as such, but a churning, molten mass.
It’s plastic, Rose thought, it’s melted plastic. But it’s alive.
It kept moving, as though driven by an internal rage. It surged like a bottled tide, waves of lava peaking then falling as it heaved to and fro, trapped and trying to find release.
And the noise! It roared as it lurched, and screamed, and wailed. Calling out in pain.
Rose followed the Doctor down the next metal staircase, to look closer. They had no idea if the Nestene even knew they were there. It kept twisting in the vat, as though trying to find its proper shape and failing, every time.
She looked around the chamber. It was half-industrial, once some kind of underground depot, the upper walls lined with mesh, empty doorframes like the black eyes of a skull. A series of suspended walkways and gantries descended towards the depths, all bolted, rickety, creaking, the whole place under stress. And two huge stanchions, each as thick as a house, shafted through the chamber at opposing angles, vast pillars of steel supporting the Eye above.
But the lower half of the chamber seemed to have been chewed out of the earth. Rough, rocky walls bearing the marks of huge teeth. The Nestene had devoured its way beneath London and created its own nest.
Rose had entered an alien world twice, first the TARDIS, and now this. She’d thought the future would be shiny and white. Instead, it was decaying, broken and dangerous.
Then she heard footsteps on metal and turned around to see the living statues descending through the trapdoor. But there they stopped. Knight, ballerina and tramp stood guard on the top staircase, blocking any exit.
Rose muttered to the Doctor, ‘Get on with it, then. Tip in your anti-plastic.’
He looked at her in surprise. ‘I’m not here to kill it. I’ve got to give it a chance.’
He walked to the edge of the platform and called out to the pit below with absolute authority, ‘I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness!’
Now the mass of plastic had a focus. It screeched and boiled, reaching out to form tendrils in the Doctor’s direction. Rose remembered those fronds in the pipes at Henrik’s, now a thousand times bigger.
But the Doctor stared down, magnificently unimpressed. He announced, ‘I come here under peaceful contract according to Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation.’
It was the last thing Rose had expected: diplomacy. But it worked. Whatever this Proclamation was—the United Nations of Outer Space, the EU, MI5, the AA?—it seemed to calm the Nestene. It withdrew, simmering down to a low boil, and the scream became a bubbling grumble.
‘Thank you,’ said the Doctor.
The vat gurgled.
‘Not at all,’ said the Doctor politely, and Rose realised that the noises made sense to him. He could speak Nestene.
‘If I might have permission to approach?’ asked the Doctor.
A bubble on the Nestene’s surface rose and popped, which the Doctor took as a yes. ‘Stay here,’ he said to Rose, and he clattered down a series of stairways leading to the centre of the chamber, his yomping stomp in those big boots making the whole array shudder. Rose took a step forward to see better, stepping into a well of light.
‘Rose?’
The voice came from far across the chamber.
It couldn’t be.
‘Rose, is that you?’
She turned her head to see.
Mickey.
Mickey Smith.
Mickey, alive and well, dirty and bedraggled, crouched on the floor of a metal platform halfway down the vault. Clinging to a railing like a frightened animal.
Alive!
‘Oh my God, Mickey!’
She ran down the stairs to her left, across a gantry, the walkways swinging on their chains, clattering and battering, but she didn’t care, he was alive! One final jump and she was there, with Mickey, she’d found him, she knelt down and hugged him and held him tight.
He was filthy. Streaked with oil and grime, he sobbed and kept saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ she said, amazed, and she leaned forward to find the Doctor. He was climbing down a ladder to reach the level below. She
called out, ‘It’s Mickey, he’s alive!’
‘I can see that,’ said the Doctor. He looked annoyed at being distracted. ‘That was always a possibility.’
‘You mean you knew?’
‘Keeping him alive maintains the copy.’
Rose’s exhilaration hadn’t lasted long. ‘You mean you knew and you didn’t tell me? You let me think he was dead?’
‘Can we keep the domestics outside, thanks?’ He looked away as though dismissing her, and continued down the ladder.
Mickey was terrified, babbling, ‘That thing, down there, it’s alive, it’s been screaming at me.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Rose. ‘It’s okay, it’s all under control, I promise. But how the hell did you get here?’
‘There was a bin, it pulled me inside. Big white light. Opened my eyes. I was here.’
She pulled back to wipe the dirt and snot from his face, and she thought: Culture shock. Like the Doctor had said. Rose had discovered this world step-by-step, but Mickey had been thrown in headfirst.
And also, whispered a secret, selfish thought, maybe I can handle this better than him.
The Doctor had reached the ledge below. He stood forward, silhouetted against the fierce red smoke rising from the pit. His leather jacket had the glint of armour. He called out, ‘Am I addressing the Heart of the Consciousness?’
The plastic below rumbled an assent.
‘Thank you,’ said the Doctor. ‘If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilisation by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest with the greatest of respect, that you shunt off?’
The Nestene roared! Rose stood to get a better view, Mickey clinging to her leg. Below her, she could see the Doctor, and below that, the cauldron of plastic, now writhing with anger.
But the Doctor shouted it down. ‘Oh, don’t give me that! It’s an invasion! Plain and simple. Don’t talk about your constitutional rights!’
The creature bellowed and Rose could see craters forming in its skin, two smaller pits with a gaping maw beneath. A crude face. It bellowed and the whole chamber shook.
But the Doctor shouted over it: ‘I. Am. Talking!’
He silenced the beast. The vat simmered, brooding.
Then the Doctor was quieter. ‘How d’you want history to remember you? As a fine and rare intelligence? Or a genocidal intergalactic criminal? You once built mighty transparent empires in the sky. Now you’re reduced to this, plotting down here in the sewers. Don’t you think it’s time to stop?’
The lava slopped at the sides, a little sulky.
‘I know you’ve been through agony. And it wasn’t your fault. But look at the Earth around you. This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk, but they’re capable of so much more. I’m asking you now, on their behalf. Please. Just go.’
The vat gurgled. Am I imagining it, Rose thought, or did that noise end on an upward lilt? Like a question? And yes, the Doctor was answering.
‘There are a thousand worlds out there with skies of dioxins. Places you could colonise without hurting anyone. The Western Heights of the Jaggit Brocade. Callistenia. Beynhale. Gris. The Threppitch Consolidation …’
He rattled off names with confidence. He’s winning the room, thought Rose. But Mickey pulled at her arm, bringing her down to crouch at his side. ‘It won’t listen,’ he whispered, terrified. ‘I’ve heard it. Screaming at me. It’s furious, it wants us dead.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Rose. ‘You can trust the Doctor.’
‘But it’s going to destroy the whole world.’
‘No, it can’t.’ She leaned closer to him and whispered, ‘He’s got this anti-plastic. He can kill that thing if he has to.’
‘Really?’ he said.
And Mickey smiled a terrible smile.
His voice was cold. ‘Thanks babes, baby, babyface boombastic.’
He wasn’t Mickey.
He was a copy.
It copied him twice.
Mickey stood, now strong and unafraid, facing the pit and calling out to the Nestene in words that were more like roars and howls.
The Doctor turned around, furious, with Rose, not Mickey. ‘What have you done?’
Mickey called out alien commands. Two shop-window Autons, dressed in sharp navy suits, strode out of the darkness at the back of the Doctor’s ledge. He had nowhere to run, with only the drop in front of him. He was helpless as one Auton grabbed hold of him and pinned his arms behind his back, the second Auton digging into his jacket. It found the phial of blue liquid anti-plastic and held it aloft for the Nestene to see.
The beast screeched with rage, betrayed.
‘No,’ said the Doctor, sounding desperate. ‘That was just insurance. I was never going to use it. I’m not attacking you, I’m here to help. I swear!’
But Mickey answered as the Nestene’s puppet. He yelled one simple word of English: ‘Liar!’ Then Rose looked on in horror as Mickey turned to her and grinned. His teeth a perfect, plastic white.
‘See ya,’ said Mickey.
He melted away. His body kept its shape for a second, hollowing from the inside, his plastic interior pouring away through the grille at his feet leaving the clear shell of a grinning Mickey behind, which then collapsed inwards and dissolved into nothing.
‘Mickey,’ said Rose, helpless.
She’d lost him again, and this time for good.
14
The Never-Ending War
Suddenly a grille behind Rose opened, and with a rush and a clatter and a thump, a body tumbled out!
Rose looked down in disbelief.
It was Mickey.
Alive.
Again!
‘Rose,’ he said, terrified, grabbing hold of her. ‘Oh my God, it held me prisoner, there was a bin and this light and then that monster!’
‘Get him out,’ yelled the Doctor, still being held tight by his Auton guard. ‘Rose, both of you, get out of here.’
‘Who’s he?’ said Mickey, and that convinced her he was real, because the last copy hadn’t even asked. That and the stink of sweat and fear rising off him, God, yes, definitely flesh.
But she didn’t have time for him. He’s alive, great, been there, done that, sorry. She sort of patted him on the head as she looked up at the top of the chamber. The living statues were still guarding the exit. ‘We can’t get out!’ she yelled at the Doctor, but then she realised that Mickey’s cage had opened as part of a larger sequence; walkways were being hauled up on their chains, counterweights to a wider platform now descending to arrive above and behind her.
On the platform, the TARDIS.
The Nestene had found it.
Rose looked from the TARDIS to the Doctor, and his horror told her this was very bad news.
‘What’s going on?’ said Mickey.
‘Shut up,’ said Rose, then she yelled, ‘What’s going on?’ to the Doctor.
‘It knows the TARDIS,’ said the Doctor. ‘Worse than that, it knows who I am. And it’s terrified.’ He turned back to the pit, desperate. ‘Yes, that’s my ship, but I swear, I’m not attacking you, I promise.’
But the Nestene’s screech was monstrous. It was pure noise to Rose, yet its ferocity pressed on her mind to form words. She was beginning to understand it. She realised: it’s a consciousness, it’s making me conscious.
It spoke of pain.
It spoke of war.
It spoke of planets boiling in space and a thousand TARDISes spinning in flames. And then Rose saw its molten maw shape a word, which seemed to say:
‘Time.’
It reformed, to roar another word:
‘Lord.’
And now the Doctor was terrified.
More than that. He was sorry.
‘I couldn’t help it,’ he called to the Nestene, his voice raw. Was he crying? ‘I tried to stop the war. I lost everything. But it was too late. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t save your world, I couldn’t save mine, I couldn’t save
any of them.’
But the Nestene’s fury could not be contained. It surged and swamped within its vat, whipping up a friction. The edges of the pit began to crackle with electricity. Rose watched as curls of white lightning skittered over the creature’s skin. Its roar seemed to command the lightning bolts, which arced up the huge stanchions. Bristling up through the roof, towards the London Eye.
She yelled, ‘What’s it doing?’
‘It’s the war,’ shouted the Doctor, despairing. ‘It’s still fighting the war. It never ends.’ He looked up as the lightning grew in strength. He said, ‘It’s starting.’
‘Starting what?’ said Mickey.
‘What’s starting?’ said Rose.
‘The invasion,’ said the Doctor.
All along the South Bank, the crowd stopped and stared as the London Eye lit up. Tendrils of electricity flickered up from the ground, spiralling along the two supporting stanchions towards the central pivot. From there, the lightning danced and jumped along the spokes.
People in the pods looked out, some entranced, some scared. The posh little boy who’d been swatted by the tramp-statue now stood in Pod 27, open-mouthed, his mother and father beside him along with 20 Chinese students, all fearful. But the electricity seemed to carry no charge; it had a greater purpose, arcing across the diameter, building in strength.
Down below, some people clapped, as though seeing fireworks. But others backed away, and some began to run, that nervous jitter spreading along the Embankment once more.
At the base of the Eye, the staff swung into action. The wheel could still turn, and they began to empty the pods as fast as they could, keeping calm, but with a wary eye on the light-storm. At the top of the wheel, the posh little boy and his parents watched their descent. Wishing it would speed up.
Cars on Westminster Bridge screeched and swerved, drivers staring at the Eye. In the Houses of Parliament, government and staff ran to the windows on the riverside to witness the phenomenon.
The electricity grew stronger. The air filled with a sizzling noise. And beneath that, some swore they could hear a huge, distant roar from below the ground.
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