Dr. Who - BBC New Series 28

by Beautiful Chaos # Gary Russell

  ‘That’s…’

  ‘Weird?’ Donna offered.

  ‘More than weird,’ he agreed. He scrambled to the back of the van, found the toolbox, took out a hefty hammer and brought it down on the M-TEK. The crash of the hammer, the yell of outrage from Joe and Lukas’s very loud curse nearly caused Donna to mount the kerb as they turned into the Blackwall Tunnel.

  ‘Well?’ asked Wilf.

  The Doctor held the M-TEK up. ‘Not a scratch, not a dent, nothing. That’s good tech. Alien tech, but good tech.

  It’s also impossible.’ He smiled at the somewhat shaken boys. ‘Oh, I do like a bit of impossible.’

  ‘Anyone noticed anything odd?’ Donna asked.

  ‘We’re still alive after you driving for an hour?’ Wilf suggested.

  ‘No traffic,’ Lukas suggested.

  The Doctor looked up. ‘That true?’

  Donna nodded. ‘Loads of parked cars. I’ve seen three other cars actually moving since we left Copper Knickers.

  One of them kept flashing me, I thought he was cross

  about something.’

  ‘Probably was,’ said Wilf. ‘You cut him up.’

  ‘But I think he was trying to flag us down,’ Donna ignored her granddad. ‘Cos this is just mad. Where is everyone?’

  ‘It’s Sunday?’ the Doctor suggested.

  ‘It’s South East London,’ countered Donna, ‘and we’re not in the tenth century. There should be hundreds of cars.’

  ‘I quite like it,’ Wilf said. ‘Everything peaceful. Take the next junction, sweetheart, Netty lives just off the main road.’

  They pulled up outside Netty’s house in silence.

  Wilf got out and rang the doorbell, but there was nothing. He called for her through the letterbox and, after a second or two, the door opened and he was yanked in, out of sight.

  Donna, in the front of the van, glanced at the Doctor.

  ‘Didja see that?’

  ‘It was Netty,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘How’d you know?’

  ‘Aliens would never wear hats like that.’

  The door reopened and Wilf emerged, followed by Netty in a green felt hat with a peacock feather in it, all very 1950s.

  ‘You seen the news, Doctor?’ asked Netty, hauling herself in and sitting herself next to Wilf.

  He said he hadn’t.

  ‘Then the best thing we can do is drive through Central London.’

  Intrigued, Donna restarted the van and off they went.

  Through Greenwich, past the rebuilt Cutty Sark and all the markets and shops. Through New Cross, down the Old Kent Road, around the Elephant and Castle and over Blackfriars Bridge.

  ‘Not a single soul,’ Wilf said. ‘No one.’

  ‘The BBC were telling everyone to stay indoors.

  Fairchild has declared a state of emergency.’

  ‘Fairchild?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘Prime Minister,’ Lukas said with a sigh. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

  ‘I know lots of prime ministers,’ the Doctor said. ‘But in this century they come and go annually, I think. This one clearly makes no impression on history.’

  Donna brought the van to a sudden halt and, very quietly, said, ‘Oh.’

  Those in the rear of the van leaned forward. ‘Oh indeed,’ the Doctor said.

  Because they could go no further. They were on the Embankment, just down from Charing Cross station.

  As were possibly a million other people. Standing.

  Still. Arms reaching up to the skies.

  And all chanting quietly. ‘Helix. Helix. Helix.’

  ‘That’s not good,’ Donna said.

  The Doctor passed her Joe’s M-TEK. ‘Call your mum, please.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Let her know we’re safe and we’ll see her tomorrow.’

  ‘Priorities?’ asked Donna.

  ‘Keeping on the good side of your mum is a priority,

  Donna. For both of us. She’ll be worried.’ He turned to the Carnes boys. ‘Then we’ll phone your mother, she must be worried sick.’

  ‘Won’t be,’ said Joe quietly. ‘She’ll be one of this lot.’

  Wilf was about to ask why, but the Doctor shook his head. ‘Now, Joe, just cos she’s your mum, she’s not in any danger. None of these people are, by the look of it.’

  ‘She gave birth to him. Maybe she’s got this Helix gene thing?’ said Lukas. ‘Thank God I’m the older one.’

  Joe stared out of the van. ‘What do we do to rescue her, Doctor?’

  The Doctor smiled. ‘That’s the spirit, boys, remember we can save her. We can save all these people.’

  Donna passed the M-TEK back. ‘She says Chiswick’s empty. I told her to stay indoors, drink tea and keep the TV on. I said to do whatever the BBC says unless it involves leaving the house or stopping drinking tea. She didn’t see the funny side.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Wilf. ‘Well, Doctor, what do we do?’

  The Doctor was looking at the M-TEK. ‘They gave this to you, Joe, yeah? Have they given loads of free ones out?’

  Joe nodded. ‘On the forum, they said they were giving out a million free ones before tomorrow’s launch.’

  ‘I bet the target audience was of very specific genealogy, too. So, this thing goes nationwide tomorrow?’

  ‘Worldwide,’ Netty put in. ‘I’m going to get one. I like things like that. Was going to wait a month or so, see if the home shopping channel did ’em cheap.’

  ‘Oh I like that,’ Donna said. ‘Well, used to. When I had time. That Anis Ahmed did things for me…’

  Netty laughed. ‘So sexy…’

  Wilf coughed. ‘Anyway, getting back to the matter in hand. Doctor, we can’t just park here.’

  The Doctor was still playing with the M-TEK.

  ‘Nothing is that well protected… If I can just rewrite some of the software…’ The sonic flashed a couple of different shades of blue, the M-TEK gave a ping, and the Doctor cheered. Then stopped. ‘I appear to have accessed a horoscope website. Ah, our old friend Madam Delphi.’

  ‘She works for the people who made the M-TEK,’

  Lukas said. ‘She writes her horoscope things for some of their papers.’

  The Doctor stared at the youth. ‘You what?’

  ‘MorganTech, they make everything these days. Run TV stations, newspapers, the works.’ Lukas shrugged.

  ‘Think a cross between Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson and you have Dara Morgan.’

  ‘And who’s he when he’s at home?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘He runs MorganTech. Been around for a few years now. We did some research on him at school, but there’s not that much out there. He’s not keen on unauthorised biogs.’

  The Doctor looked at the group in the van. ‘So let me get this right. We have beams of light hitting the ground, hypnotised people chanting to the stars thanks to a newspaper astrologer telling you she’s changing the world, new gadgets given away free to people who are of Italian descent and no one thinks to tell me they’re all connected?’

  The others looked at each other. Donna spoke eventually. ‘We can’t be expected to make the leaps of logic you do, you know.’

  ‘They’re not leaps, they’re clearly defined paths of evidence and… oh, never mind. Where do I find this MorganTech?’

  ‘Near where we live,’ Lukas said. ‘In Brentford.’

  ‘Oh that’s right,’ Wilf said. ‘They have that big office and hotel complex on the Golden Mile.’

  ‘And the guy in charge is called Dara Morgan?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Course he is,’ the Doctor muttered. ‘He would be.

  Lukas, I want you to try and remember everything you can about him, all right?’ The Doctor chucked the M-TEK

  onto the floor, and Joe went to scoop it up. ‘Leave it alone, Joe – it’s dangerous.’

  He sonicked the back of the van, and the doors sprang open. ‘Come on, we’re not goin
g to get past this lot, we need to walk and find new transport.’

  ‘Doctor,’ Wilf protested. ‘Netty’s…’

  ‘Hey,’ Netty said. ‘I can walk as well as you can, Wilfred Mott.’ She linked her arm through his. ‘We can support each other.’

  He smiled down at her.

  And Donna was going to do the same until she saw the look on the Doctor’s face.

  Like it had been at dinner the night before.

  He was looking at Netty… strangely.

  Donna pulled the boys closer to her. ‘Stick with me,’

  she told them, ‘and we’ll help the Doctor put an end to all this.’

  ‘Donna,’ the Doctor said suddenly, and in a way Donna had got used to. It was his warning voice.

  Between them and the chanting crowd was a group of people. People Donna recognised from the night before, at the Copernicus Array.

  ‘Not good?’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘How did you reprogram the M-TEK?’ asked the little man at the front of the group. Donna remembered him, too. He had led them, and she realised from his accent he was, of course, Italian.

  ‘Talent,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘That is not part of the plan,’ the little man said. ‘We cannot allow a weak link in the chain.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ the Doctor said, indicating with his hand for the rest of his group to move away, slightly behind him, leaving him stood between the Mandragora-powered group and the van. ‘I left it in the back. Do you want me to get it?’

  ‘You will leave it,’ the Italian said, as he pushed past the Doctor and clambered into the van.

  The Doctor smiled at the rest of the group. An elderly duo to one side, four younger people at the back, a heavily built man to the left.

  ‘I wonder how many of you are actual San Martino descendents, and how many are just their… slaves?

  Helpers? Unwitting participants in the murder of innocent professors at observatories? If you can fight Mandragora, maybe we can—’

  The Doctor hit the tarmac hard as the blue van exploded into flames and debris.

  Donna and the boys were already running, Wilf and Netty, staggering after them.

  Good.

  He glanced at the funeral pyre for the little Italian man that had once been a van.

  ‘That’s one way of eliminating the weak M-TEK, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Bit OTT if you ask me though.’

  And he got up, to be surrounded by the group. The burly man seemed to be their new leader and when he spoke, the Doctor recognised a strong Greek accent.

  ‘Madam Delphi wants to see you.’

  ‘Well, all right, but I want to check my friends are OK.’

  ‘They’re coming too.’

  ‘Aw, I’m not sure I agree to that part of the deal.’

  ‘Or we kill you now,’ the Greek added.

  At which point Wilf, Netty, Donna and the boys emerged from hiding and were quickly rounded up.

  The Doctor sighed. ‘I think that was probably a bluff,’

  he said to Wilf. ‘They wanted me alive, remember?’

  ‘We’re in this together,’ Wilf said. ‘When I was in the paras, we never left anyone behind.’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘Oh well, now we’re all here. Got a firm’s coach?’

  ‘We walk,’ said one of the older people, an American woman.

  ‘It’s a long way,’ Donna said.

  One of the younger men shrugged. ‘It’ll keep us all fit,

  then.’

  And they began the walk across London.

  Everywhere they went, little groups of people were together, chanting to the skies.

  Others could be seen, hiding, scared, occasionally looting shops, probably assuming this wasn’t going to be cleared up any time soon, and that food would become scarce.

  ‘It’s like the Blitz,’ Netty said at one point, as they walked through Leicester Square.

  ‘Without the bombs and collapsed buildings,’ the Doctor said. ‘Thank goodness.’

  The Doctor allowed his group to separate slightly, Donna noted. She was bringing up the rear with the boys, and Wilf was getting tired, and was only a few steps ahead. Behind her, the Greek man and older Americans.

  Ahead of the Doctor, the four younger people.

  The Doctor was with Netty, having swapped places with Wilf, his arm now linked with hers.

  Donna couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Donna could tell from the urgency he gave off in waves and the lack of response from the old lady other than the odd nod, that they weren’t really discussing London’s architecture.

  She almost asked her granddad what he thought it was about, but didn’t. Because if it went wrong, if it all turned out bad, she didn’t want him blaming the Doctor for anything.

  Donna realised this was the first time she’d actually found herself questioning the Doctor’s actions for quite some time. And she didn’t like it.

  A couple of hours passed. They had been allowed to stop occasionally, the younger people sorting out food (usually by using their Mandragora powers to blow doors off shops and nick stuff).

  At one point, the Doctor and Netty had sat together in a deserted burger place, while the boys munched on cold chips and muffins. Netty had found some paper on a clipboard and was writing something on it, and the Doctor was nodding.

  Wilf asked Donna whether there was any point in trying the microwave ovens, and when she glanced back Netty was alone, and the Doctor was trying to talk to the Greek man.

  There wasn’t time for microwaving burgers, as they were told to start walking again, despite the Doctor’s protestations.

  The boys were soon tired again. Netty and Wilf were very tired indeed. Donna was utterly exhausted, but the Doctor… he just kept going. He had Lukas and Joe up front with him now, trying to take their minds off it all by giving them a history of Cromwell Road and the various buildings as they marched along it.

  The old American couple by rights ought to have been dead on their feet, but no, they were always there, one or other, sometimes both, with their arms pointing forward, ready to use their Mandragora power as she’d seen at the Copernicus Array the night before.

  It was dark by the time they reached Hammersmith, and Donna reckoned it would take another hour or so to reach Brentford. Possibly longer, as Netty and Wilf were stopping more and more often.

  ‘My granddad is very old,’ she said at one point to the Greek man, eliciting an outraged, if exhausted, ‘Oi, I’m fine’ from Wilf.

  The Greek man just shrugged and said that Madam Delphi would not be kept waiting.

  It wasn’t a cold night, but neither was it the height of summer and, by the time they started walking down the carless, people-free Great West Road, it was nearly midnight.

  Donna was with the Doctor. Wilf and Netty were with the Carnes boys.

  Wilf tried to keep their flagging spirits up with tales of his exploits in the parachute regiment, like he’d done for Donna when she’d been their age, albeit on long car trips rather than painful hikes across scary cities.

  ‘Why don’t you let these people go home?’ the Doctor suggested, stopping suddenly. ‘Madam Delphi only wants me, I’m sure. Look, we’re in Chiswick. Let Donna take Wilf and Netty home. And let the boys head off, too.

  Please?’

  The Greek ignored him and kept going.

  ‘Not that Gramps or I would leave you for a moment,’

  Donna hissed at him as she walked to catch the Doctor up, ‘but why do you think they do want all of us?’

  The Doctor looked her in the eye. ‘Insurance,’ he said simply. ‘Threaten to hurt me, no use. Anyway, they need me alive for whatever reason. Threaten to kill you, it’s leverage. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Wilf said. ‘We chose to get involved with

  all this. I’m proud to stand beside you, Doctor. So are my soldier boys here.’

  The Carnes lads nodded, Lukas a little more enthusiastically than Joe, it had to be sa
id.

  The Doctor looked at Netty. She was starting to walk erratically, drifting towards the central reservation of bushes.

  ‘It’s the exhaustion,’ the Doctor said sadly as Wilf headed over to guide her back to the group. ‘Her mind’s going again like last night.’

  ‘Then why’d you bring her?’ Donna said a little more aggressively than she’d intended.

  ‘I didn’t expect to be walking,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Donna let herself drop back a couple of steps.

  Something in the Doctor’s plan had gone wrong, and he was actually worried.

  That wasn’t a good sign.

  Suddenly a set of headlights flashed ahead of them and, as one, the Doctor’s group shielded their eyes. A small minibus screeched to a halt in front of them.

  ‘Hey,’ Donna yelled. ‘You gotta help us!’

  The Doctor went to stop Donna, but it didn’t matter.

  The minibus door opened and a woman called out.

  ‘Hop in, folks,’ she said in a cheery Irish accent.

  ‘Madam Delphi’s waiting.’

  One by one, they piled in.

  ‘You couldn’t have come about three hours ago?’ Wilf grumbled as he helped a confused Netty up the steps into the vehicle.

  The woman laughed. ‘I’m Caitlin and, on behalf of MorganTech, I apologise for your discomfort. But that’s nothing to what’s coming. And no, Madam Delphi believes exhausted prisoners are far more malleable than fit and able ones. The only reason I’m here is it’s nearly midnight. And time’s getting on. Hold tight!’

  Caitlin did a U-turn and roared off down the A4, towards the Brentford business area known as the Golden Mile.

  ‘Here we are,’ Caitlin said, slowing down.

  Ahead, Donna saw the Oracle Hotel loom out of the darkness, lights on in every window.

  ‘Ha!’ the Doctor laughed. ‘We’re going to see the Delphi at the Oracle. Very witty. Not.’

  ‘It’s midnight,’ Caitlin announced as she pushed the minibus doors open. ‘Today is now Monday. The universe will never be the same again.’

  And she smiled.

  And Donna shivered.

  MONDAY

  The Doctor, Donna, Wilf and their friends were led up to the penthouse suite by Caitlin, who kept her hand resting on the butt of a revolver tucked into the waistband of her trousers.