Dr. Who - BBC New Series 28

by Beautiful Chaos # Gary Russell

Course you’re not. But you’re here and they’re not.

  Wonder what happened to all of them, then?’

  Donna wasn’t going to let this get under her skin –mainly cos that was a question she’d asked the Doctor before and she’d been more than satisfied with his response.

  But it clearly struck a chord with her granddad.

  ‘Sweetheart, that’s a good question.’

  ‘Really, it’s not right now, is it?’ she snapped back.

  ‘Is there a churchyard with tombstones, all lined up

  with their names on them, d’you think, Donna?’ said Madam Delphi. ‘Got a plot of land saved for you, has he?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Donna replied. ‘I don’t much care, to be honest. I live for the here and now. And right here, right now, all I can be bothered to worry about is stopping you and your little army of zombies here.’

  ‘Destroy them,’ Madam Delphi said, so matter-of-factly, so casually, that it took Donna a second for it to sink in.

  But sink in it did when the disciples, as one, raised their arms, ready to fire their bolts of energy.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Destroy them!’ shrieked the computer.

  Still nothing happened.

  ‘Destroy him,’ Madam Delphi demanded, but the disciples did nothing except frown and look around themselves in surprise. It was as if they’d just awoken from a dream.

  ‘Ah,’ said the Doctor, ‘that’ll be me. Well, actually if I’m being honest, it’ll be a lovely lady called Miss Oladini – never got her first name, very rude of me. Anyway, she’s just knocked your alignment off a bit, cancelled out all the power you have over the descendents of San Martino, en masse. Clos, kaput.’

  ‘ Finito,’ Donna said in a cod Italian accent.

  ‘And that’s not all!’

  Donna looked to her left. Dara Morgan was standing to one side, a laptop in his hands, his fingers flying over the keys as he typed one-handed. ‘I’ve sent out a cancellation signal via the net to the M-TEKs everywhere. As soon as

  they are synched with computers, instead of downloading your orders, they’ll install a virus, which will defrag the platform, and erase their memories completely.’ Dara Morgan tapped the return key one last time. ‘And I’ve password protected it.’

  ‘I’m a megalomaniac supercomputer, linked to billions of electronic outlets throughout the world, you silly little man. You really think you’ve stopped me? I’m disappointed in you, Dara Morgan.’

  Dara Morgan shrugged. ‘Stopped you for good? Doubt it, but I’ve certainly slowed you down, so the signal won’t be activated in ten minutes. Probably not for a few days now – plenty of time for the Doctor to stop you.’ Dara Morgan smiled. ‘And my name is Callum Fitzhaugh.’

  A deep electronic sigh came from Madam Delphi.

  ‘Caitlin?’

  And the Irish girl, Callum’s beloved who had rejected him nearly ten years before, drew her revolver from her waistband and raised it.

  ‘Caitlin, don’t,’ Callum yelled. ‘Fight the Mandragora influence. Remember who you really are!’

  Caitlin frowned. ‘Cal?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me!’

  Caitlin shrugged. ‘Never liked you then, don’t much like you now.’

  And she fired one bullet that went through Callum Fitzhaugh’s brain and out the other side.

  He was dead before he hit the carpeted floor.

  The newly awoken disciples screamed and yelled in confusion and started to run out of the room.

  ‘Go with them,’ Donna hissed to the Carnes boys. ‘Get out of here – Lukas, you get Joe home. Don’t stop running till you get there.’ She turned to Wilf. ‘You too.’

  ‘Blow that, Donna my girl. I’m too old to run and I’m here with you to the end. Told your father I’d look after you, and by God I will.’

  It occurred to Donna that the Caitlin woman could have opened fire by now, so she looked to see what she was doing. She had placed the gun on the desktop and now sat facing Madam Delphi’s screens.

  The Doctor walked past Donna, almost incidentally easing Netty into Wilf’s arms, muttering, ‘Hold her tight, Wilf. Like your life depends on it.’ He then crouched down beside Caitlin, snaking his hand out for the gun.

  ‘Take it,’ she said quietly. ‘Callum and I have done enough damage to warrant what I did.’

  ‘You were under the control of Mandragora,’ the Doctor said. ‘I broke him free of it, he broke you free.’

  And Caitlin looked him in the eye, a tear rolling down her cheek. ‘Madam Delphi never controlled me.

  Mandragora never controlled me, it didn’t need to.’

  ‘Then who told you to shoot Dara Morgan or whatever his name was?’ Donna asked.

  ‘His mind has been… slipping for days. He was beginning to remember things… he was a weak link. I had to eliminate him.’

  ‘You had to what? Why? He might have just saved the human race! Is that what this has all been about?’

  And Caitlin suddenly looked the Doctor straight in the eye. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, a tear starting to well up.

  ‘What have I become? What has working for this thing done to me? I just killed someone. Oh my God… I just shot him without thinking.’

  ‘Bit late for tears, chum,’ Donna said. ‘Working with Mandragora, you’ve probably killed loads of people.’

  ‘I know,’ Caitlin said quietly. ‘I was out of control, hungry for… for power. I wanted control over my life.’

  ‘I control everything,’ Madam Delphi pulsed back.

  ‘Including your life!’

  ‘No you don’t, you stupid box of wires. I chose this life because I thought I wanted it. But you know what, I got it wrong.’ Her fingers were flying over the keyboard now.

  ‘I’m shutting down the wireless, putting up your firewalls.’

  ‘That won’t stop me.’

  ‘No, But it’ll isolate you for a bit.’ Caitlin looked sadly at the Doctor. ‘I’ve done my bit Mr Time Lord. It’s up to you now.’ And she pushed her chair back and knocked into the Doctor. Apologising, she moved around him and walked over to Callum’s dead body. ‘We could’ve had the world,’ she said as she knelt beside him.

  The Doctor tried to make sense of Caitlin’s words.

  Wireless. Firewalls. Pointless things, Madam Delphi was a far more powerful computer than that. He tapped the keyboard and a blast of purple Mandragora energy nearly took his fingers off. ‘Now now, don’t get grumpy.’

  ‘I will still destroy you, Doctor. You will be—’ And she fell silent.

  Then he saw what Caitlin had really done. She’d talked nonsense, knowing that Madam Delphi would waste a few

  subroutines tracking down what she’d claimed to have done. Having found the firewalls and wireless untouched, the computer was now looking elsewhere. It would keep her silent and occupied for… well, not long, frankly.

  But there was a calculation going on, he could see it on one of the screens, it was like a mini-virus itself, a self-replicating mathematical equation that was using up bytes with each passing second as, by trying to solve the equation, it actually multiplied it. The Doctor grinned.

  Caitlin was good at what she did, even if it would only take Madam Delphi another few seconds to counter it. He glanced towards Callum’s body, expecting to see Caitlin.

  The body was alone.

  The Doctor felt his pockets. The revolver was still there. But something else wasn’t.

  ‘Donna,’ he hissed. ‘Donna, I want you to get down to the lobby. All those people will be confused, disorientated.

  Half of them might not even speak English for all we know. They need someone cool and rational to sort them out, explain things to them.’

  ‘But as no one fitting that description is available,’

  Donna said, ‘I’ll have to do it.’

  The Doctor grinned at her. ‘Oh Donna, you’re the best there is. Now, off you go – no, not you, Wilf. You and Netty stay here.’


  ‘Why can’t they come with me?’ Donna asked sharply.

  ‘Family matters,’ the Doctor said. ‘Trust me, they’ll both be downstairs safe and sound with me in a few minutes.’

  ‘But…’

  Wilf stepped up to the plate. ‘Go on, Donna, don’t argue with the man. When’s he ever let you down?’

  Donna went.

  ‘Might not have been the best choice of words, Wilfred.’

  ‘You ever let her down, Doctor?’

  ‘Well…’ the Doctor considered. ‘No, actually, but it’s been close once or twice.’

  ‘Cos if I ever thought you’d let my little girl down, you’d have me to answer to.’

  Their eyes met, across the room and, for the tiniest second, a fragment of eternity, the Doctor knew never, ever to let Donna Noble down.

  ‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘In fact, Wilf, I should say “we”

  won’t, cos you’re important right now. To Donna. To me.

  To the whole wide world. And most of all, to Henrietta Goodhart.’ He suddenly stood up. ‘Don’t do it, Caitlin.’

  Wilf realised the Irish girl was over by a wall, next to a junction box, holding a silver pen. With a blue tip that was glowing. ‘What’s she up to, then?’

  ‘You don’t know how to use it, Caitlin,’ the Doctor said slowly. ‘And Madam Delphi’s gonna be up and running again in a second. She’ll stop you.’

  ‘Let her try,’ Caitlin said. ‘And you’re right, I don’t know how to use it, but I reckon if I push this, twist that and shove it all in there…’

  ‘Cait, no!’

  It was too late. As the sonic screwdriver suddenly shrieked with power, too much power, mishandled, used by untrained hands, Caitlin shoved it into the now-exposed junction box, and right into the fibre-optic cables that Johnnie Bates had died linking up only a few days earlier.

  There was a flash of purple fire and Caitlin was gone, reduced to atoms along with a chunk of the wall, the cabling and the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.

  ‘Right idea,’ the Doctor said mournfully, ‘but there had to be a better way.’

  ‘That computer’s gone off,’ Wilf said.

  The Doctor looked at the screens, and dived down to examine the server. ‘Dead as a doornail,’ he confirmed.

  ‘We won?’

  ‘Oh, not at all.’ The Doctor looked at Wilf. ‘I lied to Donna,’ he confessed.

  ‘I know,’ Wilf said. ‘But you made sure she was safe.

  Thank you.’

  ‘Caitlin cut off the Mandragora energy from the computer. To all intents and purposes, Madam Delphi is gone. Erased. Destroyed.’

  ‘But that Mandragora energy stuff, it’s still there, isn’t it?’

  ‘Trapped.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In this room. And right now, it’s looking for a new home. I reckon we’ve got about three minutes.’

  ‘It won’t choose me, that’s why you kept me here. I heard what you said. I have a heart condition. I’m gonna die.’

  ‘What?’ The Doctor frowned, then remembered what he said earlier to Madam Delphi. ‘Wilfred, I have no idea

  about the condition of your heart one way or another.

  You’ve could have a couple more decades in you at least, for all I know. I was just saying that because – well, doesn’t matter right now.’ He glanced at the missing chunk of wall where Caitlin had been standing. ‘Now, I doubt it can bring back the dead, so I’m hoping it goes for the easiest target, the path of least resistance.’

  Wilf followed the Doctor’s point of view to Netty, stood smiling serenely beside him.

  ‘No…’

  ‘It’s the most likely vessel.’

  Wilf was shaking with sadness. ‘But it’s my Netty. We were going to see the world, go on a cruise, do South America, Canada, the Indian Ocean. Doctor, she’s my life.

  I never thought anyone could replace my wife, God rest her soul, but Netty Goodhart came along and showed me that there’s more to living than sitting in a vegetable patch listening to Dusty Springfield. I can’t lose her. I can’t lose another lady from my life. I love her!’

  ‘I know you do, and I’m really sorry to ask this of her, but I have to.’

  ‘You can’t ask her, she’s… she’s shut off right now. It’s the illness, the dementia. She can’t speak for herself.’

  The Doctor reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper.

  Wilf looked at it.

  My Darling Wilfred.

  You told me once you trusted the Doctor with Donna’s life. Now trust him with mine. I don’t know what he’s going to do, nor what state I’ll be in when he does it, but if

  you trust him, that’s good enough for me.

  HG

  ‘It’s your special paper,’ Wilf said. ‘Shows me what I want to see. Donna told me about it, ages ago.’

  The Doctor mouthed a silent ‘oh thank you very much, Donna’, then produced his leather wallet with the real psychic paper in it. ‘No, Wilfred, the letter’s genuine.

  When we were at that burger place I explained to Netty what might be needed. Why she was a potential target and a potential—’

  The Doctor broke off, and Wilf saw a momentary purple flash of fire shoot through his eyes. He then screwed them tight and opened them again. Brown. As always.

  The Doctor blew air out of his cheeks. ‘That wasn’t fun, but it won’t try me again.’

  ‘No need,’ said Henrietta Goodhart, quietly but with a familiar menace to her tone. ‘I have a new home. A new body. One that can move, and talk, and feel.’

  ‘Get out of my lady-friend,’ Wilf snapped.

  Netty just laughed. ‘You poor pathetic deluded man.

  This is my vessel now. Mandragora lives. I shall reign down destruction upon this world, I shall have my revenge. This entire cosmos will fall into ruin and chaos and I shall feed off it for centuries. Beautiful chaos!’

  Wilf took a step towards Netty, but the Doctor pulled him back, gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

  ‘Wait.’ The Doctor looked over at the burnt wall where Caitlin had died. Then at the computer, now useless and dead. At Callum Fitzhaugh’s body, so consumed by rage

  and despair once upon a time, he had given succour to a universal blight that was about to destroy Earth, given a chance. And at Henrietta Goodhart’s body, inhabited now by an alien power so great, it had survived since the Dark Times and was now ready to wreak a wave of annihilation across the known galaxies.

  Unless he had got his calculations right.

  Netty walked around the room, as if nothing were wrong with her, a strong, fit woman in her late sixties, who should have been yomping across the Yorkshire Dales or sunning herself on a Caribbean cruise, Wilfred Mott as her companion, at her side.

  Instead, she coughed. She staggered.

  Wilf went to help, but the Doctor yanked him back.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t begin to imagine how hard this is for you,’ the Doctor told him, ‘but you have to let it play out.’

  Netty, or rather the alien life force currently inhabiting her mind and body, grinned at them. It was a grin neither of them liked much. It twisted Netty’s face in a way that demonstrated absolutely that this was not Netty at all.

  ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ she gloated. ‘You have given me a whole new lease of life. I always knew the computer was a means to an end, that one day the right host would come along. Having studied this ridiculous planet, I’d rather hoped it’d be a young, sexy, male body. Like a TV soap star or a sportsman. But hey, little old ladies will do for now. When this one is burned up, I’ll move on to another.’

  ‘Burned up?’ Wilf looked at the Doctor, but the Time Lord’s gaze was firmly fixed on Netty. Whether this was for a reason other than not being able to deal with Wilf’s

  accusatory stare, Wilf had no idea.

  ‘Oh, didn’t your alien mate here tell you about that side of things? I wonder if he told Henrietta Goodhart wh
en he made the deal with her. You see, Wilf – I may call you Wilf, mayn’t I? Only Netty is terribly fond of you, and I think it makes things easier if we communicate casually.

  Mr Mott is terribly formal.’ The rictus grin got wider.

  ‘Anyway, the human body can only withstand Mandragora energy for a short time before it evaporates and I have to find a new repository. Ultimately, it will be the Doctor.’

  ‘Will it? Oh joy.’

  ‘You know it will.’

  ‘But you need to weaken my defences first, of course.

  Batter me down, break my spirit. How’re you going to do that, then?’

  Netty laughed – it was a sound utterly devoid of warmth or genuine mirth. ‘By destroying everyone you know.’

  She suddenly looked unsteady on her feet, and reached out to Wilf for support. He was about to supply it when the Doctor bounded across the room, knocking Wilf’s arm away.

  ‘Oi!’

  ‘Oh, don’t you start,’ the Doctor muttered. ‘Let her stand on her own two feet.’

  Netty was steady again. ‘Starting with this old man with the bad heart.’

  Wilf was about to speak – and then it dawned on him why the Doctor had made up the stuff about his heart.

  He’d wanted it to take Netty’s body, not Wilf’s.

  Why?

  ‘Once upon a time, Doctor, we saw this world as a threat, it had so much potential. We tried to stop it developing, hold back its early sciences. But look at it now! We were wrong, we should have encouraged it further. It has the ability to communicate. With one tiny computer virus, Mandragora can touch the world. There are almost seven billion people on Earth, Doctor. In a couple of years, two billion homes will have a personal computer within them, accessed on average by three people. Add to that infiltration into the workplace and it will take Mandragora less than an hour to effectively dominate the majority of people in this planet, to use human technology to spread Mandragora across the galaxy far more efficiently than I can do it alone. In twenty years, I could have humanity building farms on Mars. In a hundred years’ time, we could colonise Alpha Centauri. A new Mandragoran Empire, combining Helix energy, human physicality and communications science.

  And then… then…’