by Doctor Who
‘Working it out,’ he replied.
Chantal studied the Doctor closely. ‘I’m fascinated, Doctor. Why do you want to stop me?’
Rose cut in before the Doctor could answer. ‘One, you’re a total fruitloop. Two, you’ve killed loads of people. Three, you’ve got a really annoying whingeing voice –’
‘I asked him, thanks, Rose,’ interrupted Chantal. ‘What I have done is good,’ she told the Doctor.
‘Four, the ends never justify the means,’ added Rose.
‘Please shut it,’ said Chantal warningly.
The Doctor beamed up at her. ‘Rose is dead right. All those reasons, but especially two and four.’
‘Thanks,’ Rose called.
‘Any time,’ the Doctor called back. He wished he could turn round and see her, check that she was all right. ‘Oh, and five,’ he told Chantal, ‘you want the TARDIS, to spread your upgrade all through space and time. Am I right or what?’
‘Correct,’ said Chantal.
‘That’s not going to happen,’ said the Doctor.
Chantal gave him a strange smile. ‘Is it not?’
The Doctor was taken aback. It was hard to threaten somebody who didn’t possess a full personality. The Doctor had learned over centuries of travel how to scare bad people, to stare them in the eye and make them squirm. But, as with the other Osterbergers, there was nothing to latch on to behind Chantal’s eyes.
Rose’s voice cut across his train of thought. ‘Doctor, when I just said all that, I wanted to count it out on my fingers, yeah? But they feel weird.’
‘She’s got you strapped down, same as me,’ the Doctor called.
‘No, I can feel them,’ said Rose. ‘But it’s like they’re. . . miles away.’
The Doctor struggled in his bonds. He shouted to Chantal, ‘What have you done to her?’
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‘She’s an available resource,’ said Chantal clinically.
Somehow, thought the Doctor, it would have been easier if she’d said it with lip-smacking relish, but it came out in the same dry way.
‘Personal emotional attachments are one of the major flaws of the human, essential for the bonding of small hunting communities but not needed in more advanced and successful urban environments.’
The Doctor wrestled frantically in his bonds.
Chantal looked down. ‘They’re obviously a flaw in your species too.
That’s interesting.’
‘What have you done to her?’ the Doctor repeated.
‘This,’ said Chantal. She went behind the Doctor’s chair and swung it round.
On a table at the other end of the room was Rose’s head. Her face was as animated as ever.
Chantal leaned over the Doctor and whispered in his ear, ‘If you want her put back together –’ she pointed to the TARDIS – ‘then you will give me what I want.’
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‘Rose,’saidtheDoctorcalmly. ‘Don’tlookdown.’ ‘Ican’tlookdown,’
said Rose. ‘I can’t move my head.’
‘Good,’ said the Doctor.
‘What’s good about it?’ Rose demanded. ‘What’s she done to me?’
The Doctor licked his lips. ‘Nothing I can’t fix.’
‘Nothing I can’t fix,’ Chantal corrected. ‘Now. . . ’ She indicated the TARDIS again.
‘I’m gonna have to stand up,’ the Doctor pointed out.
Chantal took the cutter from her trolley of instruments and sliced through the restraining loops. ‘Please do. But remember – only I can put things back the way they were. So any kind of opposition to me would be a very, very bad idea, wouldn’t it?’
The Doctor got up from the chair and walked slowly over to the TARDIS. ‘This is the TARDIS, then. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Can go anywhere in –’
‘Blah-de-blah, heard all that,’ said Chantal. ‘Open it up.’
The Doctor felt in his pocket for the key. It wasn’t there. He put out his hand and Chantal produced it from her suit, dropping it in his hand.
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‘Wouldn’t open for you, then?’ said the Doctor.
‘But I’m sure it’ll open for you,’ said Chantal.
Rose looked on with alarm as the Doctor raised the key to the lock of the TARDIS. She didn’t understand the strange way she felt, as if her body was somehow separated from her, but her worries about that were superseded by the prospect of a nutter like Chantal getting into the TARDIS.
‘Doctor, what are you doing!’ she called out, and tried to take a step forward. As she did, there was a rattling noise from a metal cabinet at the other end of the room.
The Doctor looked at the cabinet, then over at Rose. ‘Did you just try and step forward?’
Rose was confused. ‘Yeah. I thought I did. . . It’s weird. It’s like there’s a door or something in my way, but there can’t be. . . ’
‘Safely tucked away for later,’ Chantal told the Doctor with a significant look to the cabinet. She indicated the door of the TARDIS. ‘Now, open it.’
The Doctor paused for a moment and then held the key up in front of Chantal’s face. ‘Right, well, this key works on a kind of meson projection recognition system. . . ’ He cut himself off. ‘Look, it’s gonna be very hard explaining all this to someone like you. Backward, evil and brainy-thick, that’s quite a tough one.’
‘Evil,’ tutted Chantal. ‘Morality exists only as an evolutionary safe-guard in primitive conscious species. It has no physical existence or meaning outside their minds.’
‘Ever heard the phrase reductio ad absurdum?’ asked the Doctor.
‘No, probably not. It’s all chemicals and genes and design to you.’
Rose realised that the Doctor was trying to distract Chantal. It was a method she’d used on teachers at school to pass the time. Get them talking about something they were obsessed by, unions or cheese or whatever, and take their mind off the class. The Doctor was buying time for her – but she had no idea what she was supposed to do. She flexed her fingers, trying to work out if she’d been drugged numb from the neck down or something. Her fingers moved the way they always did, but it was as if they weren’t connected to her, as if they belonged 144
to somebody else. It was an unpleasant, powerless sensation and she couldn’t see how she could help the Doctor. She put out her hand and touched something. It felt like a doorknob. She gave it a rattle and heard that rattle coming from the other end of the room.
‘Like,’ the Doctor continued in a loud voice, addressing Chantal, ‘if you were designing a door handle – easiest, most practical thing in the universe, all you have to do is reach out, twist and pull – no, you’d have to add some kind of smarty-boots spin, redesign the human hand with three thumbs or something.’ He emphasised the words door, handle and hand.
Rose understood – he wanted her to open the door. She could feel it, and hear it, but if she was over here and the cabinet was over there, how?
An earlier remark of the Doctor’s swam back to her. These people are experts with the body. They can do anything to it. They could probably take you apart and put you together again.
A nauseous feeling turned her distant stomach over. It couldn’t be. . . She nearly fainted, but the Doctor’s insistent voice pulled her back to the instant. He was relying on her. So what if her head was no longer attached to her body?
‘Still got pride, I notice,’ he was saying to Chantal. ‘You’ve booted that right up.’
‘That’s an essential. Pride in the superiority of the Hy-Bractor,’ said Chantal. ‘Anyway, stop trying to delay me. Let’s get back to your door, which you are about to open.’
‘OK,’ said the Doctor. ‘Yeah, unlike other simple, convenient doors like the people here would make and anyone could open, this is a complex refracting multi-tumbler –’
Rose took a deep breath, which she distinctly felt entering her mouth over here and filling her lungs over there – how that worked she couldn’t figure out. Then she grabbed the ha
ndle and stepped out of the cabinet. She saw her headless body, still dressed in the skin wedding outfit, step out on the other side of the room and couldn’t hold herself back from exclaiming, ‘Oh, my God!’
Chantal turned, and in the second she was distracted, the Doctor 145
grabbed the cutter from her and held her, struggling, in an armlock.
‘It’s gonna be OK, Rose!’ he shouted.
Rose said the first thing that came into her head. ‘My arms are quite long, aren’t they?’
‘You forgot something,’ the Doctor told Chantal, manhandling her back over to the chair. ‘Some humans are really smart.’
‘Do you mean me?’ asked Rose, still captivated by her body. She tried walking around a bit, but it was difficult, a bit like pushing a shopping trolley one way only to find it goes the other. Her left and right were mixed up.
The Doctor leaned over Chantal. ‘Rose didn’t just freak. Why? Cos she trusts me. Why? Cos she likes me. Why? Cos, boiling it all back down to your precious drawing board, she’s designed to like people who like her. Thank you, blind chaotic nature, big up to you!’
‘But unfortunately for you, I’m smarter,’ said Chantal.
With a sudden, savage movement she pulled another cutter from her pocket and swung it at the Doctor. He tried to parry the blow, but with ferocious strength she kicked him to the floor. Winded, the Doctor took a moment to get to his feet. When he did, he saw Rose’s body flailing at Chantal, the cutter whizzing about between them.
‘Nutter!’ shouted Rose.
‘I don’t care what you think,’ said Chantal.
‘Makes me feel better saying it,’ said Rose.
The Doctor looked around. On the trolley were an array of instruments and a couple of popper packs. He grabbed both of the packs and dialled a combination of numbers on each, then, as Rose’s body kicked Chantal away from itself, he stepped forward and pushed them onto either side of her chest.
For a second Chantal’s mouth formed an ‘O’ of surprise. Then she dropped the cutter and smiled. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘A dose of combo 199/87,’ said the Doctor, looking rather pleased with himself. He guided Chantal to the chair and sat her down. ‘Now we could do anything to her. Tear her to bits and she wouldn’t care.’
‘I’m all for a bit of poetic justice,’ said Rose. ‘But I’m the one who’s in bits.’ She walked her body over to her head and examined it. ‘I’ve 146
got a pretty good tummy button.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll sort that out later,’ he said confidently. ‘Still got to work the main thing out. The Hy-Bractors roaming around up there.’
Rose’s body kicked him. ‘I can’t spend the rest of my life like this!’
‘I’ll fix you up, don’t worry,’ said the Doctor, not very reassuringly.
He started ransacking the cupboards and cabinets. ‘The Hy-Bractors are superior to humans by design, right? Better design, humans don’t stand a chance against them, they’re just prey. Unless humans had. . . ’
He found a piece of equipment in a corner – a long metal box with a keyboard set into the top – and jumped for joy. ‘That’s it! Fantastic!
Worked it out!’
He set to work frantically, dialling codes into the machine so quickly that his fingers seemed to blur.
Quilley, Jacob and Lene sat still in the pitch blackness of their forest hideout. They could hear a Hy-Bractor, seemingly just a few feet away from them, trampling through the greenery and cooing gently to keep itself company.
‘Looking for humans,’ it mumbled. ‘Kill all the humans. . . ’
Lene whimpered. Quilley couldn’t think of anything to do. He remembered reading about hopeless situations like this in the old books, and how he and Elaina had laughed at the illogical way the characters sometimes responded when all hope was lost. Now he understood why they did what they did.
He took the hands of Jacob and Lene and mouthed the illogical words silently: ‘Our Father, which art in heaven. . . ’
‘Yeah, but what are you doing?’ Rose demanded.
The Doctor had produced a phial of serum from the machine and was now riffling desperately through the rest of the stores. ‘Fighting fire with fire.’
‘Can I help or shall I just stand about?’ asked Rose.
‘Yeah, hold that,’ he said, handing her body the serum. He delved deep into the storage cabinet where her body had been hidden away 147
and picked out something that looked like a cross between a nozzle deodorant spray and a machine gun. ‘Yes! I knew she had to have something like this!’ He took the serum back from Rose and slotted it into a cavity at the rear of the device. ‘I can see why evolution normally takes millions of years. And I’ve got only minutes.’
‘You’ve evolved something?’
‘Not really. Adapted a gene, just like Chantal did when she bred the Hy-Bractors, and force-cultivated it so it’s incredibly potent. Added it to some lactobacilli she had hanging about.’
Rose knew the word from commercials. ‘The stuff you get in yo-ghurt?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Bacteria of the gut. Friendly little parasite. I can use it to spread my mixture.’ He tapped the serum and cocked the device on his shoulder like a gun.
‘And what’s in your mixture?’
‘An advantage,’ said the Doctor. ‘A gift for the humans and the Neanderthals.’ Then he raced towards the door. ‘Back in a bit. If not, get into the TARDIS and let it take you to Bromley again.’
As he dashed out Rose sighed and sat her body down on the floor.
‘Where I’m gonna fit right in,’ she said ruefully.
Tillun had not returned to the cave with the others. He struck out after his wife on foot, heading for the Neanderthal camp, spear at his side. He smarted from the snub and was deeply suspicious of the Doctor. That story about the dangerous new tribe seemed to him just a good excuse to get everyone distracted while he took Rose away. But Rose was his queen now and, for the honour of the tribe, she must be retrieved. To travel alone at night was foolhardy, but it would be better to die than be made a fool of by the big-nosed stranger. Tillun’s heart burned with righteous anger spawned by his humiliation.
Then, suddenly, he heard something moving in the forest up ahead.
He flung himself flat on the ground.
The moonlight picked out a huge shape – like a man, but not a man. It walked with terrifying complacency through this dangerous place, as if nothing could challenge it. That nonchalance was the 148
most frightening thing about it, though Tillun swallowed convulsively in terror at its long, whipping tail and gross, lumpy features.
‘Human!’ it cried.
Somehow, it had seen him.
He broke from cover. He knew he could not fight this huge, powerfully muscular beast, so he turned to run. But in three quick strides the beast caught up with him and lifted him off his feet. It dangled him in the air, swinging him about to face it.
‘No, you’re not him in the jacket, or Chantal,’ it said slowly, ‘or one of my friends, so. . . ’
The Doctor ran through the streets of Osterberg. They were lined with skeletons, arranged in neat pyramidal piles. It was a city of the dead, and unless his plan worked, he had no doubt the entire planet would eventually follow suit as the Hy-Bractors bred and fed. He tested the device, spraying invisible particles into the air.
As he dived through the lift doors and thumbed the button to ascend, he heard a familiar voice call, ‘Stop! You in the jacket!’
He looked back. The first Hy-Bractor, X01, was at the foot of the steps.
The doors closed and the lift started to go up.
The Doctor shuddered. Rose was still down there – and the Hy-Bractor was down there with her. He shouldered the spray device and patted it. This had to work. His calculations had to be correct. Or Rose would die with the rest of them.
Chantal, lying back on the chair and staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, was s
inging lightly to herself. It was starting to irritate Rose. She walked herself over to her head, picked it up and carried it back to Chantal to frown down at her.
‘Put a sock in it,’ she told her.
‘Hello, Rose,’ said Chantal dreamily. ‘How are you?’
‘Don’t know what you’re so happy about,’ said Rose. ‘We’ve beaten you.’
Chantal shrugged. ‘Really? Who cares?’ She started singing again.
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The door of the examination room was thrust open. Rose turned, expecting to see the Doctor. ‘That was quick –’
‘Human!’ said the Hy-Bractor as it lurched in.
‘I think it’s going to kill you, Rose,’ said Chantal.
The Doctor burst out from the lift into the bitingly cold night air. He hefted the spray device, pulled the trigger and turned a full circle.
‘Now! Do your stuff. Work your magic! Go!’
‘Don’t think I’ll stay to watch. It might give me a wrong-feeling,’ said Chantal as the Hy-Bractor advanced on Rose.
Rose was dimly aware of Chantal slipping out of the examination room. She backed away from the Hy-Bractor, tucking her head under her arm.
What a way to go.
The female Hy-Bractor parted the bracken that concealed Quilley, Jacob and Lene.
Quilley closed his eyes and prepared for death. He didn’t feel gal-lant or noble any longer. There was just a dull, aching sensation tugging at his heart. For the first time in many years he wished he had a popper pack.
And then, suddenly, he felt different. He looked at the Hy-Bractor and wanted to laugh. What kind of a threat was that?
He didn’t know why he was feeling this way.
The Hy-Bractor lunged for him.
And as if it was the most natural, ordinary thing in the world, T. P.
Quilley opened his mouth wide and blew its head off with a sheet of flaming acid.
The Hy-Bractor’s body toppled backwards with a shattering crash.
Quilley stood up and swallowed hard. The flame went out.
‘I’m quite sure I’ve never done that before,’ he said.