‘Zygons. You must have read about them, they’re in the files.’
‘I haven’t memorised all the bloody files, you know,’ he said, rubbing away tears with his sleeve (which I do sometimes). ‘I’m not like you.’
‘Oh, stop it, I did not memorise the files,’ I said. ‘On purpose,’ I added.
And then he looked at me and started laughing, in a really sort of high-voiced way, and I didn’t know what do. But I held his hand, which seemed to be okay. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be McGillop—although he is very popular and has lots of friends, so, maybe a bit.
The car was very fast (the driver missed a short cut, though, so I took his number to give him constructive feedback later) and we were at Tower Base in no time. But when we got down to the Black Archive, we knew that we were already too late. Atkins, who was always very nice, was sitting outside, as usual, but when he didn’t stand up or say anything, Kate reached out and touched his arm. His head just flopped sideways onto his shoulder and it was horrible.
I’d never seen a dead person before so I’m afraid I was sick (in a waste bin). When I looked up again, Kate had covered him with her coat. ‘The sad thing is,’ she said, ‘he thought he died on his first day.’
McGillop and I looked at each other, and he was as white as a sheet, and I think I was too (though he was trembling more). Kate had taken the spare key from Atkins’s belt and was now unlocking the door. As it opened, we could hear a voice from inside. And it was totally weird because the voice was McGillop’s.
‘The equipment here is phenomenal,’ he was saying, and they’d got his accent just right, even though it was regional. ‘The humans don’t realise what half this stuff does. We could conquer their world in a day. If I was from round here, I’d say it was Christmas.’
‘No,’ said Kate, striding ahead of us, into the Archive. ‘I’m very much afraid you wouldn’t.’
McGillop was looking at me. ‘We have to go with her.’
‘Do we?’ I asked, which was wrong of me, but I was very scared.
‘Because she needs you, and where you go, I go.’ He’d taken my elbow, like he was going to guide me into the room. ‘You’re UNIT’s number one tactical asset, remember?’
We didn’t seem to be moving anywhere, and his hand on my elbow was shaking so hard. ‘I think you’ll have to push a little bit,’ I said. ‘Or we really won’t get anywhere.’
‘I know. I’m trying.’
‘Tell you what. You keep hold of my elbow, and I’ll tow.’
‘Okay.’
We made our way into the room. UNIT’s number one tactical asset, I was thinking. Not really. Not on a good day. Only in the absence of the Doctor.
EXCERPT ENDS
FEED CONNECTING
FEED CONNECTED
FEED STABLE
OWING TO THE RESTRICTIONS OF PSYCHIC PAPER WE ARE UNABLE TO PRINT ANY OF THE FOLLOWING WORDS:
… … … … … Oops, hello, sorry! Here you all are, again. Just, reminiscing. I’m an old man, memory is my television. Though, to be honest, so is my television.
Did you enjoy that one? No, hush, rhetorical. You can all go and write your reviews online, I don’t want you wasting space here.
Zygon prose is always fascinating, I find. I can’t get enough of picturing those big sloppy red hands wrapped round pencils. Though, in this case, that’s not how it really worked. I’ll explain later, I promise. Unless I forget, or can’t be bothered, or I happen to notice a shiny thing.
I was just thinking about Alistair again. I do that a lot, because I enjoy smiling. I told him I was thinking of writing this book, of course, and I thought he’d be pleased. Instead he gave a sort of grim nod, and we carried on playing Risk in silence for a bit. (He always got to be the Daleks, which was a bit unfair.)
‘What’s wrong?’ I said eventually.
‘It’s a security breach,’ he said, through his crossest moustache.
‘It’s not my fault,’ I protested. ‘You left Italy undefended.’
‘No, your book. Your book is a clear breach of security. There’s classified material in there.’
‘I’ve thought about that,’ I said. ‘And I have a clever plan.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Really?’
‘I’m going to write “fiction” on the back.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
‘No, seriously. It will be released as fiction, and sold only in the fiction departments of bookshops. That way, everyone will think it’s not true.’
‘But it’s not fiction, is it? It’s fact.’
‘Fact, fiction, same thing,’ I told him.
‘For God’s sake, no it isn’t!’ He thumped the table with his big, silly fist, and all the little Daleks on the board jumped at once, like they’d had a fright. I think I laughed for five minutes.
‘Fact and fiction are not the same thing. Please don’t be so ridiculous.’
‘Oh, Alistair, think about it. The Universe is vast, and it goes on for a very long time. And do you know what that means? It means that everything that can happen will happen somewhere eventually—that’s the rule. That means every story you can make up, will actually happen one day, somewhere in space and time. The only difference between a factual book and a fictional book is that factual books are written after the event, and fictional books are written before the event. Which makes fiction much more useful, don’t you see? When you’re writing facts, you’re just copying down. When you write fiction, you’re seeing into the future.’
We just sat there for a bit, and he did a lot of glaring. I bent down and picked up the Dalek he’d thrown and put it back on the board. He’d got me right on the nose, though I have to admit it’s not a difficult target.
‘Why do the Doctor Papers exist?’ he asked. ‘Why write up that one adventure? Why not any of the others?’
I’d known he was going to ask that question, and I’d slightly dreaded it. ‘To reflect, perhaps,’ I said. ‘Or to remember. The timelines were all tangled, it needed to be set down before it all faded from memory, possibly as a cheat sheet for next time. Though, of course, there’s not a lot of use in a cheat sheet you don’t know you have, because you can’t remember writing it.’
I was standing at the window now, looking out over the grounds. Was I hiding my face, I wondered. I didn’t like him seeing me unsure or troubled.
‘There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’ said Alistair.
The sun was just starting to set, and a mother was leading a small boy along the path, away from the sad old building. I could hear their feet crunching on the gravel. The boy was clutching the string of a red balloon that bobbed along above them both, as if trying to escape. I stared at the little hand, with the string wrapped around it.
‘The Doctor had to keep hold,’ I said.
‘Hold of what,’ asked Alistair.
‘The Doctor.’
‘You’re not making any sense.’
I sighed. How to explain? ‘It wasn’t an adventure,’ I said. ‘It was a day. A day that went on for a very long time, and happened over and over again.’ The boy had twisted round to look back at the building. I thought about all the windows he could see from down there, and wondered if he was thinking about all the people behind them, tucked up in their beds, fading slowly from their lives. I gave him a smile and a wave, to show him it wasn’t so bad, but he just turned to look ahead again, and kept marching away down the path. Quite right, I thought. Get away from here, have a laugh, play a game, make mistakes, and never, ever stop running. Time enough for this place, I thought. Time enough.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Alistair. ‘Not an adventure, a day—what is that supposed to mean?’
I looked at the sunset, and pulled myself together. ‘It was the day the Doctor understood who the Doctor always had to be.’
Alistair didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then a Dalek pinged off the window next to my head.
… ah, I’m sorry.
Lost in memories, I did warn you. So very old now, hard to keep hold of myself. Where were we? Ah, yes, Chapter Five. Written by the Doctor this time. Ah, but which one? Which one?
Chapter 5
The Wedding of the Doctor
‘At first I thought she just fancied me,’ said Clara Oswald, and then broke off. It was beyond strange, she thought. She looked around the three of them: the grumpy old one who seemed to carry the smoke of battle with him; the angry, pacing one, who knew he was cooler than the other two; and her one, who was currently lost in contemplation of his own knuckle joints. As long she’d known him, he’d seemed to view his fingers with a degree of suspicion, and sometimes even jumped when they moved. It was ridiculous, she thought, looking again from one to the other, but somehow you could tell, without even trying, they were all the same man. So different, and yet all so clearly and obviously him. She couldn’t even give them different names in her head. They were just the Doctor, the Doctor, and the Doctor.
‘Clara, you okay?’ asked the Doctor, and she had to check it was her one.
‘Yes, sorry …’
‘You were explaining about Kate Lethbridge-Stewart?’ said the pacing one.
‘Yeah, yeah I know.’ She forced herself to concentrate. ‘Okay, so at first I thought she just fancied me, or something. It was honestly weird. Every time I said anything, or even just made a face, I could feel her just looking at me. It was kind of like when someone thinks you’re hot. You know, when someone’s into you? And every time you laugh or speak, or do anything, you can feel their eyes just glom on to you? You know what I mean??’
‘Not, I’m afraid, a solitary syllable,’ sighed the Doctor.
‘I find people always act like that,’ grinned the Doctor.
‘Yeah, I get that all the time too,’ frowned the Doctor. ‘Especially, when I knock over things.’
The Doctor glanced at the other two, with unconcealed contempt, then turned back to Clara. ‘Am I to understand, from that apparently random collection of words, that you thought this Kate person was … attracted to you?’ His face had creased into a sort of fastidious regret, as if these matters had become slightly distasteful to him at his time of life. The other two rolled their eyes and turned away.
‘Well, yes, I guess.’
He nodded. ‘And then you concluded she had to be an alien duplicate. I see.’
‘No, I concluded maybe we should get a drink sometime. But when I thought about it, something was wrong. Because when we first met, she’d barely looked at me. So what was different now? People don’t suddenly start fancying you out of nowhere, because you happen to hang around for a bit. Except in romcoms. Written by stalkers.’ A succession of baffled winces had passed over the old man’s face. She suppressed a smile. ‘So when she stepped out for a moment, well, I watched what she did.’
‘Good, intelligent work—it’s a delight to meet you, Miss … Oswald, wasn’t it?’ said the Doctor. When he smiled, his eyes almost disappeared in the crinkles.
‘Call me Clara.’
‘Dangerous, but proactive, Clara—I approve. So you witnessed the Zygon transformation. An alarming sight, I know.’
‘Bit weird.’
‘You are to be congratulated on your bravery and your insight. First class! I needed a few more men like you in the field.’
‘Down boy,’ said the other two Doctors simultaneously.
‘So I ran for it,’ continued Clara, ‘but there was nowhere to go. Then her phone beeped—she’d left it in a sort of dock on the wall—and I saw she’d got a text. A photo.’ She pointed to the numerals the Doctor had carved into the stone. ‘Of those numbers, right there. So I figured it was the activation code for this.’ She held up the vortex manipulator, on her wrist. ‘And boom, here I am.’ She prodded the charred leather. ‘Think it’s blown out, though.’
‘Excellent. You have done extremely well. Whichever of these young men is travelling with you, they have made an excellent choice.’ She noticed he was wearing a bandolier round his chest—it suited him, she thought, but one day he was going to wear a bow tie. She glanced over to where that bow tie was now, and saw the face above it was looking at her, smiling.
‘You okay, Clara?’ he said.
‘Just getting my head straight. So both of these guys are you?’ she asked him.
The Doctor glanced at the Doctors. He shrugged and smiled. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Previous editions. Captains Grumpy and Swagger. My exes. Well not my exes. But my exes if you see what I mean. We don’t actually know why—’
‘I came here tracking a migratory Zygon hive,’ the Doctor interrupted. He was still pacing, faster now, as if his feet were getting angrier by the step. ‘But according to what you’ve just told us, there are Zygons active in the twenty-first century too. How does that work? They don’t have time travel.’
‘You boys seem to have forgotten what the Time War was like,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘Gallifreyan technology got stolen all the time. Plenty of people ended up with time travel, who weren’t supposed to.’
‘So!’ said Clara. ‘Three of you in one cell. Three Doctors in one little room—and none of you thought to try the door? Not one of you, not even a little bit?’
There was a complicated succession of glances among the Doctors that seemed to suggest they were all about to start blaming each other, before each of them figured out how pointless that would be.
‘It’s hardly our fault,’ said her Doctor. ‘The door should’ve been locked. Why wasn’t it locked?’
‘Because,’ came a clear, high voice, ‘I was fascinated to see what you would do upon escaping.’ They all turned to the doorway. There was a whirl of gold in the shadows beyond it and a flame-haired woman in a blazing dress was stepping into the room.
Clara stared. There was only one person this could be.
‘Though you seem remarkably disinclined to go anywhere,’ Elizabeth said, raking them all with a glance. ‘What timidity is this? One recalls a better class of prisoner.’ She skewered the Doctor with a look. ‘What say you, my betrothed?’
‘I have standards,’ he said. ‘I only escape through locked doors. And by the way, dear, don’t call me your betrothed. I proposed to Queen Elizabeth, not a Zygon in a big dress.’
She stared at him for a moment, then stepped closer to him, examining his face, as if for the first time. ‘I understand you have a fondness for this world,’ she said at last. ‘It’s time, I think, you saw what is going to happen to it.’ She turned and swept out through the door. ‘This way,’ she called behind her. ‘It is dead of night, and something is stirring below England.’
Elizabeth led them deeper and deeper into the Tower. She walked at speed through the pitch darkness, never missing a step or a turning. When one of the Doctors had attempted to light the way with his screwdriver, she had snapped at him to switch it off. ‘We do not wish to attract attention. If your feet are unsure in the shadows, follow me—I do not suffer the inconvenience of mortal eyes.’
Clara plucked at her Doctor’s arm, and only realised she’d got the wrong one when she heard his voice. ‘Yes, my dear?’
‘I’ve been down here before,’ she whispered.
There was a fruity old chuckle. ‘So you’ve just been telling us—but in fact you haven’t. Technically, you haven’t been down here yet.’
‘But this is the way to the Black Archive.’
‘No. It will be. The Black Archive will not exist for hundreds of years. We are about to see where UNIT chose to build it. Which raises intriguing questions, don’t you think?’
Ahead of them, Clara’s Doctor had been listening. ‘More like the red archive now.’ He was pointing. At the end of the corridor, there was a door; blood-red light spilled round its frame. In front of it, Elizabeth was turning to face them, her hand on the handle.
‘I suggest you compose yourselves. You are about to see the darkest secret in the Kingdom. Beyond this door, a seed is being planted which, in times to come, will flower
into the doom of all England.’
She opened the door.
It was like stepping into a giant mouth. First there was a hot, wet reek, like rotting orchids, then the walls and floor curved round them, pink and wet and alive, like a tongue tumoured with suckers and hanging nodules. The Zygons themselves were barely visible for a moment, slow and silent in the rising steam of their flesh-base, like so many foetuses drifting round a womb.
Foetuses with teeth, thought Clara, as one of the Zygons turned towards them. Even from a distance, its tiny eyes glittered. As it saw them, its lips drew back in seeming rage—but then its gaze fell on Elizabeth, and it appeared to hesitate. After a moment, it made what could be mistaken for a small bow.
‘Attend your given tasks,’ commanded the Queen. ‘There is much to be done if England is to be ours.’ The Zygon turned back to its work.
‘Zygons,’ said the Doctor, straightening his bow tie, as he always did in the sight of the enemy. ‘A whole Zygon hive.’
‘Yeah, Zygons, what have I been telling you,’ replied the Doctor. ‘I followed them here, that was my mission.’
‘We know all about your mission! Venom sacs in the tongue.’
‘Shut up!’
They were interrupted by an ill-tempered grunt from the Doctor. ‘The Zygons lost their home world in the first year of the Time War. Perhaps, if we could all stop wittering on, we might receive an explanation as to what they’re doing here.’
‘A new home is required,’ said Elizabeth.
‘So they want this one?’ asked Clara.
‘Not yet,’ she replied. ‘Far too primitive.’
‘Yes, that makes sense,’ grumped the Doctor. ‘Zygons do insist on a certain amount of comfort.’ His mouth creased on the word ‘comfort’ as if the idea was more disturbing to him than conquest. He looked to Clara. ‘So, my dear—the walls, what do you observe?’
‘They’re like … flesh, or something. Wet flesh, like this place is made of gums.’
‘Quite, yes, very well put. A living support chamber for the Zygons. Once abandoned, however, it will calcify into a shiny black rock-like substance. Ring any bells?’
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