by Oli Smith
Blondie raised an eyebrow, but she was already too confused to risk asking another question. She leant forward into the spell and spoke a single word. Suddenly the image was covered in bright white streaks. They layered themselves over the continents, lighting up the Architect’s office until the entire globe was covered. But there was a section missing – a dull orange area of the map that the white streaks refused to enter. A hole in the world.
‘There it is.’ The Doctor looked grim. ‘Anything that the spell can’t show us a path to has been erased. Now I just need to find the centre of the hole.’ He twisted the screwdriver one final time and the globe expanded once more. It grew to fill the room until the Doctor, Blondie and the Chief Architect were standing in the exact centre of the hole in the map. The Doctor examined it.
‘Oklahoma?’ he frowned. ‘Really?’
CHAPTER 16
A Message
‘Is this a button?’
‘I dunno, press it.’
‘You press it.’ Rory stepped back from Daryl’s screen, worried that he might touch something dangerous.
Amy pushed him aside and put an ear to his chest. The speaker was still ringing loudly in the gloom. ‘There’s got to be something we can do to answer the call.’
‘Maybe it’s not a call, maybe Daryl thinks that’s music.’
Amy sighed. ‘Somehow I don’t think that’s true.’
Rory tugged her shoulder and pulled her back to stand beside him. ‘Here, let me try something,’ he said.
Amy looked at him expectantly.
Rory cleared his throat. ‘Uh, hello?’
Daryl’s screen flashed into life.
‘Wow, I didn’t think that would work.’ Rory grinned. But his smile soon vanished as a series of large red letters began to scroll across the screen.
USER ERROR REPORT INCOMING, it said, ACCEPT OR REJECT?
‘Um, accept, I guess.’ Rory swallowed.
The screen went blank for a moment, then a familiar face faded into view.
‘Doctor!’ Amy shouted. ‘You’re alive!’
‘Well of course I’m alive,’ said the Doctor, his voice crackling through Daryl’s speaker. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘You . . .’ Amy trailed off. ‘You almost died, Doctor!’
‘Where?’
‘In the apartment block! There was an army of demolition robots – they’re tearing up the world!’
On the screen the Doctor checked himself, patting his shirt down quickly. ‘Well, I can’t be dead in the real world or else I’d be dead in here now, wouldn’t I?’
‘Yeah, congratulations on the virtual body by the way,’ Rory interrupted. ‘Much less . . . chinny.’
‘Oi!’ said the Doctor.
‘Okay,’ Amy held up a calming hand. ‘We’ve not got time for this.’
‘No, exactly,’ replied the Doctor, rubbing his chin. ‘So if the apartment block’s been destroyed, where are you now?’
‘We were rescued.’
‘Rescued? By whom?’
‘Daryl, he’s a robot, that’s how you’re speaking to us – through his face. I’m not going to lie Doctor,’ Amy looked at Daryl’s hunched body, still posed in sleep-mode, ‘it’s kinda weird.’ She shivered.
On the screen the Doctor thought for a moment. ‘Interesting,’ he muttered. ‘Did he tell you where he was from?’
‘No, we don’t know much about him apart from that he saved our lives.’
‘And that he doesn’t know what humans look like,’ Rory interrupted. ‘He seems to be on the run from this Legacy thing as well.’
On the screen the Doctor thought for a moment. ‘Also interesting,’ he muttered.
‘So how did you find us?’ Rory continued.
‘I didn’t,’ said the Doctor. ‘I found a way to cheat the system.’ He held up his sonic screwdriver. ‘I sent an error report to the outside world. It’s programmed to appear on any screen still connected to the network – I thought you’d still be looking over my shoulder in Chicago.’
‘Why’s Daryl connected to the network?’ Amy flashed Rory a look. Rory shrugged.
‘Beats me.’
The Doctor shook his head in disbelief. ‘Things are getting stranger by the minute.’ He looked up again. ‘Right, we need to focus.’
‘What do you need us to do?’ Amy was ready immediately.
‘There’s a system wipe erasing Parallife.’
‘Parallife?’
‘This place, the virtual world. It’s modelled on Earth, except that now all the humans have gone, the players’ characters have been doing a bit of . . . redecoration.’
‘Gotcha,’ Amy said.
‘But something’s trying to delete the whole thing, trying to reboot the system. I don’t know why. But you need to get to the central computer and stop it.’
Rory cleared his throat. Amy and the Doctor looked at him. ‘Would this central computer be called Legacy by any chance?’
‘Maybe, I don’t know.’
‘Because the same kind of thing is happening out here, Doctor. Daryl called it a restoration. They’re going to demolish the planet and then rebuild it.’
The Doctor slapped his head. ‘Of course! That’s what it is! The system wipe must be mapped onto the path of the demolition. Legacy is destroying both the virtual world and the real world at the same time. It’s a reset program, ready to make Earth inhabitable for humanity when they return – Internet and everything.’
‘But Daryl doesn’t know whether the humans are ever going to return.’
‘You can’t take the word of one robot,’ the Doctor replied. ‘They could be taking shelter out in space for all we know.’
‘Doctor, outside!’ a second voice crackled over Daryl’s speaker, and Amy raised her eyebrows as a beautiful young woman strode into the camera’s view.
‘I’m coming,’ the Doctor replied.
‘I leave you alone for one minute,’ Amy grinned, ‘and look, you’ve gone and found a replacement.’
The Doctor rolled his eyes and chose to ignore her. ‘Okay, Amy, Rory, this is the plan. I’ve hacked the system to find Legacy’s location. You need to get there and switch it off before it completes the wipe.’
A map replaced the Doctor’s face briefly, tracing a path to Oklahoma across the American desert. Amy looked for Chicago on the map and her face fell.
‘But that’s back the way we came. You want us to get past the demolition army?!’
‘At least when the robots have passed there’s still ground to walk on,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Here there’s nothing. Literally nothing.’
‘We’ll try our best, Doctor,’ said Rory. Amy looked at him with quiet admiration.
‘And you,’ she turned back to the screen, ‘you need to get out of there. Find a save-point and get out of Parallife as quickly as possible.’
The Doctor looked away. ‘No,’ he said.
‘No?!’
‘I’m not leaving these people to die.’
‘But they’re not alive, Doctor,’ Amy shouted, ‘they’re characters in a computer game! You’re the only person in there who’s real!’
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. ‘They think for themselves, they imagine, they have lives like yours. Just because they exist inside an artificial world doesn’t mean they’re not real.’
‘But in a few hours that world won’t exist anymore, and you’ll be trapped inside it with no way of escape,’ said Amy.
‘Not if you get to Legacy in time. Until then I have to do everything I can to save them.’
‘But what’s the use of saving people if there’s nowhere left for them to live?’ Amy didn’t understand.
The Doctor squeezed his forehead in confusion at a half-remembered thought. ‘I’m working on it,’ he said finally.
‘Doctor!’ the woman’s voice shouted again.
‘I said I’m coming!’ the Doctor called over his shoulder. He turned back to the screen. ‘I’m going to leave an error message
on the network – when you get to Legacy use it to find me.’
He raised his hand to the screen and the image vanished.
‘Oh, great.’ Rory stomped over to the double doors of the bunker, staring out into the evening sunlight.
‘We’ve got to find a way through the army,’ Amy replied.
‘Yeah, well that’s fun to say, but how?’
‘I think I might be able to help.’ The pair spun around to find Daryl jerking his body into motion with a grinding hiss of gears.
‘Did you . . . ?’ Rory trailed off.
‘Did you hear what the Doctor was saying?’ Amy finished for him.
Daryl nodded, his screen displaying the now-familiar smiling face.
‘Those things we said about you,’ Rory began, ‘we didn’t mean anything bad by them, you know.’
Daryl shrugged noisily. ‘In a time like this, there is no need for manners.’ He swung his screen slowly between the pair. ‘Although they cost nothing.’
Rory shuffled and looked at his feet.
‘Did you know about the system wipe, Daryl?’ Amy asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘It is a shame.’
‘Why?’
‘Parallife was a wonderful place. I’ll be sad to see it go.’
‘You’ve been there?’
‘I was Parallife.’
‘What?’
‘But I’m not any more.’ Daryl dismissed the question and walked over to the doors. He looked out and his yellow face fell. ‘My jump is powerful, and my speed is second to none, but I’m afraid that the chances of our survival are small if we attempt to break through with you two on my back. The strength of the storm would kill you, let alone the robots themselves.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Rory said.
‘We need to think.’ Amy buried her head in her hands. ‘It’s not just our lives at stake, it’s the Doctor’s and everyone else in that world.’
‘We could stay here and wait for the army to pass over the bunker before we head out. It’d be plain sailing after that,’ Rory said.
‘That could be hours,’ Amy replied. ‘Who knows how many people would die in Parallife before we left? We need to leave now . . .’ Her sentence faded away to silence. Daryl and Rory looked at her expectantly. ‘Wait,’ she raised her head. ‘I’ve got it.’
CHAPTER 17
A Plan
They climbed the metal walkways to the roof of the bunker once again, and Daryl plunged his hand into one of the computer controls that lined the highest walkway. The building shuddered and creaked, ancient winches grinding into motion.
In front of them, the huge metal bulk of a sleeping robot began to tremble and sway. Then the chains that fastened it to the ceiling began to give, winding across the gears until they caught. Slowly, the sleeping monster began to descend.
Daryl withdrew his hand and nodded to Amy and Rory. No one bothered to speak over the noise.
Soon the highest point of the construction robot had lowered past the top-most walkway and the pair began to walk quickly down the steps to keep level with it. Turning across the walkways and down the flights of stairs, they kept their eyes fastened on the metal bulk beside them.
Four floors down, the noise of the machinery had quietened enough for them to talk.
‘So how does this help?’ Rory asked.
Amy folded her arms in frustration. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Well no, or I wouldn’t have asked.’
‘We’re safe inside this bunker because the demolition army are programmed to avoid the construction robots, right? As well as everything a construction robot builds.’
‘Okay.’
‘So if we want to get through the army’s front line, we need something that they won’t just trample straight over.’
Rory’s face lit up. ‘Like a construction robot!’
‘Exactly. With Daryl’s help we can get our over-sized friend here to build a road all the way to Legacy!’
Rory looked behind them, back up the way they had come. ‘Yeah . . . where is Daryl anyway?’
By now the construction robot’s front limbs and tracks had reached the floor and the creature’s tail end was gradually being laid down behind it. There was a heavy thud as the rear caterpillar tracks hit the floor, supporting the last few tonnes of the robot’s incredible weight.
Suddenly, a flash of white metal flew past the walkway where Amy and Rory had paused. It smacked into the rear of the monster and unfurled slowly – Daryl. He got to his feet and began to unfasten the chains from the construction robot’s body.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Rory. ‘He took the short cut.’
When they reached the cool metal of the bunker’s floor, the construction robot had already been freed. Daryl sat astride its tree trunk neck, waiting for them.
He pointed to the rungs of a small maintenance ladder that snaked up the side of the robot’s body, and together they hauled themselves onto its back.
They found themselves on top of a large, flat surface covered in hatches. Each one was the size of a small car, and each had been spray-painted with a now-peeling white number. Rusting track marks traced away from them to meet the main piston arms of the construction robot. The arms arced away into the darkness like the wings of a giant metal dragon, folded over the rows of tracks and legs that were designed to carry the robot’s weight.
‘Hold onto something,’ Daryl called from his perch further along.
Rory didn’t need telling twice. He lodged himself between two steel bolts, each as big as himself, in the shadow of a metal shoulder blade. He was careful not to stand within reach of the mechanical arms. Amy joined him, picking her way awkwardly over the hatches.
‘Ready?’ Daryl shouted.
Rory raised his thumb over the ledge.
The construction robot shuddered into motion with such force that Amy and Rory were nearly thrown from their perch. They scrambled for grip on the rusted metal surface, their hands turning red as the rust flaked away. Behind them, two of the hatches began to roll open – revealing two churning vats of tarmac. As they watched, the boiling liquid began to overflow, running into shallow troughs that ran the length of the robot’s back. The liquid bubbled and gurgled, slowly flowing into a series of large holes and down into the inner workings of the construction robot.
The smell of cooling tar invaded Rory’s nostrils and he screwed up his nose at the stench. Amy pulled on his arm, pointing over the side of the robot and over towards the doors of the bunker. He followed her gaze. A large, ink-black pool was spreading across the floor, sprayed from nozzles in the robot’s chest. As they watched, the great metal arms swung up and over on their creaking joints. They carved the pool of tarmac into a sharp rectangle as wide as the robot itself.
Then, with another violent jolt, the robot jerked into motion. Its tracks began to move and slowly it inched forwards onto the tarmac. A sticky, tearing noise echoed throughout the bunker as the construction robot began to flatten the liquid road in front of it, as it rolled towards the bunker’s doors.
Daryl gripped the rear of the robot’s head with both hands. He plugged his fingers into the circuits of its artificial brain, guiding the monster and overriding the preprogrammed instructions. He set a course for Oklahoma.
With an almighty crash, the construction robot collided with the bunker doors, bending the metal outwards as if it were cardboard. Sparks streamed across the bodywork as it squeezed out into the open air. A hail of golden light showered Amy and Rory as they passed through.
Then they were free.
The pair whooped for joy, hugging each other as the construction robot mounted the first dune. Behind them the black trail of a road stretched through the dark opening of the bunker, and in front of them lay the desert.
‘Are we going to make it?’ Rory said, squeezing Amy’s hand tightly.
She turned her face to the horizon, and the angry boil of the sandstorm in the distance. It was miles away now, but growing clo
ser with every passing second.
‘We have to,’ she replied.
CHAPTER 18
Battleground
The frozen image of Amy and Rory’s anxious faces still hung in the air in the Architect’s office. The Doctor looked at it sadly, then grasped a corner with his thumb. He shrank the picture down until it was the size of a small photograph, then folded it neatly and stuck it in his pocket.
‘What is it?’ he turned to where Blondie and the Chief Architect were standing. Behind them the wall of the office had been removed to reveal the eerily quiet landscape of Parallife.
‘There,’ Blondie pointed.
The Doctor looked.
‘Oh, oh dear.’
‘I know.’
Beyond the city borders, an army was approaching. An orange trail of numbers fell away behind them as they marched towards the Guild. The Doctor winced at the sight of the screaming broken shapes that writhed on the front line and looked away.
‘What are they?’ asked the Architect.
‘The Defrags,’ Blondie replied. ‘The heralds of the darkness.’
‘They’re what remains of your work.’ The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. ‘All of your wonderful creations, all your improvements, broken by the system wipe. They are all that’s left of the Games Master’s gift of intelligence after the original programming has been destroyed.’
‘You mean, they’re people?’ the Architect gasped.
‘Trapped inside the fragments of your new graphics,’ the Doctor nodded.
Blondie turned to him, raising her hand to the sword hilt on her back. ‘We have to,’ she said.
‘I know,’ replied the Doctor.
‘Have to what?’ the Architect looked from one to the other.
‘We have to fight,’ Blondie said. ‘If we don’t they’ll destroy the city before the darkness even reaches us.’
The Architect looked at the Doctor. ‘But if what you say is true, Doctor, then they don’t know what they’re doing! They’re innocent!’
‘I know,’ the Doctor said again. ‘But we’ve run out of options. We have to buy Amy and Rory some time.’
‘But you said you’d save us, Doctor, whatever it takes.’