Doctor Who - Nuclear Time (8 page)

Her round face sported a wide pair of big blue eyes, a freckly nose and ruby lips all framed by a short, sandy bob to complete the

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NUCLEAR TIME

illusion. Isley II.

If Albert had any emotional attachment to the robot he didn't show it, instead wiggling specific wires with the end of his biro and flicking his eyes to the screen in search of a change in the data, repeating the process at least twice for each connection.

Geoff was used to being ignored by the scientist, especially now that the delivery dates, which had seemed so far away only a month ago, were looming perilously close.

'And the admin girls and boys upstairs want you to turn your music down. They can hear it over three floors.'

Albert gave up switching the wires and dropped the device on a nearby table, scratching his ear with the pen. 'Really? Would they prefer to listen to me swearing and drilling? I'd take Cher over that any day.'

'Well,

maybe

just

mix

up

the

cassettes

occasionally.'

The scientist sucked through his teeth as he took a swig from the polythene cup. 'Sheesh, people have no taste any more.' He looked down at his coffee.

'Speaking of which, what roast is this?'

'We're out; I had to use the canteen stuff.'

Albert ran his tongue over his mouth in disgust. 'Warn me next time,' he said.

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DOCTOR WHO

Geoff moved forward into the lab and began to inspect the android carefully. He waved a hand in front of its face, but the eyes didn't follow it. He raised the other hand - nothing again. Suddenly he clapped both hands together, and the rubber eyelids blinked involuntarily. Albert carefully perched his drink on the workbench with his control box and walked over to join him.

'Only her involuntary reflexes are switched on at the moment. I'm still trying to refine the trigger from standard to military mode and I don't want her trying to kill me if I get it wrong,' he said.

Geoff nodded and reached out to touch Isley's face, but the scientist slapped it away.

'No touching!'

Geoff did as he was told. 'To be honest, I didn't expect you to go so quietly when we asked you to implement the military programming,' he said gruffly.

Albert sighed. 'I wasn't exactly surprised, considering who's bankrolling me. I presumed robot-soldiers would be on the agenda from the start.

At least this way I can also work on the civilian AI model simultaneously.
That's
the magical part. With the technology you boys had already, it wouldn't have been hard to create an android that just kills people.

But I can make an android so lifelike that it can appear to be human

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NUCLEAR TIME

for days, even weeks before it's triggered to kill - that's the key. And making a human-like machine is what I've always dreamt of. So I guess I'm happy.' He shrugged.

Geoff looked at him earnestly. 'It's not all bad. Think of the lives we can save when we don't have to put human beings in danger. If we can create an assassin, of any nationality, with full combat training -

a smooth and effective kill, no collateral damage and no US citizen put at risk.'

Albert matched his gaze. 'Yeah and think of all the other people we might decide suddenly need assassinating once it becomes a risk-free venture.'

Geoff turned away. 'Our job is to keep people safe, Albert, not to terrorise the world.'

'Keep telling yourself that.' Albert picked up the control box once more and swapped a couple of wires around before screwing the back plate on tighter.

Taking that as a sign that the conversation was over, Geoff walked towards the exit, but paused with his hand on the door handle. He turned back.

'Hey, uh, have you seen
Star Wars
yet?' he asked. 'I know it's only been out a week...'

Albert raised his eyebrows. 'No, I've not left the building in three days.'

Geoff looked suddenly sheepish. 'It's just, I've
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got a couple of spare tickets, thought you might want to come along.'

'Why'd you get spare tickets?'

'They weren't spare when I got them. I bought one for Marge and one for Sally.'

'Oh... And why aren't they going?'

Geoff's military facade shattered for a moment as he choked up and suddenly Albert no longer saw his boss. In his place was a man who looked a shadow of his former self: drawn and grey and very, very tired.

'She left me this morning,' was all the soldier could manage before he turned and walked quickly out of the laboratory.

80

Colorado, 28 August 1981, 5.15 p.m.

The smell of smoke made the Doctor cough as he gradually regained consciousness. Blearily, he opened his eyes and realised his clothes were smouldering. Pale white trails were rising from beneath his body and, as he raised an arm to shield his face from the sun, he noticed that his sleeves had blackened along the back. 'Oh, swear,' he said half-heartedly, dropping his head back to the ground and waiting for his strength to return.

He gazed into the deep blue of the afternoon sky and wondered how long he'd been unconscious, and whether it was long enough to get a tan.

Then his memory came crashing back.

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DOCTOR WHO

The Doctor sat bolt upright. He reached a hand up to his face and winced as he realised it was sunburnt.

That long? This wasn't good.

Getting to his feet, he looked around quickly. The TARDIS stood, an incongruous monolith, in the exact centre of Appletown. Roads radiated out from the town's central space like the spokes of a giant wheel. He looked to the sky in admiration; the bomber pilot must have been extremely skilled to perform so accurate a delivery.

He walked over to the TARDIS, slipping off his jacket and wrapping it around his fist as he reached out to touch the sturdy wood of the frame.

He was surprised when he found it quite cool to the touch and quickly unwrapped his hand before placing his palm flat against one of the panels. 'That's strange,' he said. 'You must be dissipating the energy.'

He paused for a second and frowned. 'I wonder how.'

He scanned his surroundings once more, but this part of the town was eerily quiet and he quickly realised that he hadn't managed to explore this far before. He took a moment to get his bearings before deciding on which

direction

he

would

find

his

waiting

companions. He needed to get them back to the TARDIS as soon as possible - there was was no telling how long the stasis field would hold.

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NUCLEAR TIME

He spun on his heel and walked in the opposite direction to the one that he had intended.

Within five minutes the Doctor was lost. He looked at his watch, then up at the third identical row of houses he had passed in as many minutes, then back at his watch, then up again. Something wasn't right, but he wasn't sure which it was, the watch or the houses?

He looked at the timepiece on his wrist more closely, peering at the three hands as they rotated slowly across the gold roman numerals, the second hand smoothly counting down; six, five, four, three, two, one, twelve...

It was running backwards.

The Doctor considered the implications. He scanned the rooftops of Appletown, holding his wrist against his ear as he listened for any noise that might indicate a loose cog in the mechanism of his timepiece. Then he recognised a familiar shape through the white haze: the dark outline of the warehouse he had stood under only a few minutes before, the warehouse where he had met himself.

He dawdled in the road for a second, eyeing up the

building

with

uncharacteristic

hesitancy.

Abruptly he held up a finger, as if preparing to make an excuse as to why he really, really
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DOCTOR WHO

shouldn't go and test his troubling theory, but found he had nothing to say. He scratched at his forearm where his rolled-up shirt sleeves had left the rough material of his jacket to itch his skin, and then made up his mind. He shoved the hand with the watch into his pocket and walked on.

A few moments later he was skirting the sunny side of the building, looking this way and that in search of what he hoped he wouldn't find. He passed the large, bolted wooden doors of the warehouse and felt a chill run down his spine that was more than just the sun being blotted from view. Then he saw him, his past self, standing open-mouthed and gazing right at the spot that the Doctor had appeared from.

'OK, OK, bear with me,' he muttered as he slipped his jacket over his shoulder and shrugged it on, but his past self didn't seem to understand and stepped forward. 'Nope, you wait right there. I remember that headache.' He held up a hand and shuffled his pockets for the psychic paper. 'And I remember how this went, so let's just get on with it.'

His fingers felt the soft leather wallet and he pulled it out, trying to picture the maze of buttons and levers that had performed the stasis miracle on the bomb as it imprinted itself onto the slip. He started as his past self warbled something

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NUCLEAR TIME

incomprehensible and anguished, a blur of sound.

'Koow duk tat. Tiiir rowu,' he finished.

'Yeah, whatever you say.' The Doctor flipped open the wallet and held it out for his other self to see, but his face fell when he saw his past self's blank expression.

'Right, backwards communication, how do you do this?' His mind raced to try and map his sentences onto a soundscape that would make sense in reverse.

He swallowed and opened his mouth. 'You can save them, you can save them, stop it,' he whispered, practicing quickly to himself before beginning.

'Meeth Yarvas, te dops nack.' He raised his eyebrows to see if he had managed to convey anything that made any sense, before realising that the reaction to his sentence would have preceded his speech anyway.

'ZZidart heathe?' his past self responded. The Doctor knew what that meant.

'The

zzzidart,

yes,

use

the

TARDIS,

the

instructions I've given you, I mean, am about to give you, they're for the TARDIS!' He spoke slowly and loudly like a tourist in a foreign country with no grasp of the native language. 'You've got to use them now! You can save them from the nuke! I mean... bmobe heathe!' He shouted over the other
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DOCTOR WHO

Doctor's tirade of nonsense, pointing to the sky with urgency.

'Oh my days, I really didn't make an effort back then, did I?' he muttered to himself.

Luckily the next words his past self spoke were more comprehensible. 'Iirore, Yima.'

The Doctor raised his eyes to the sky. 'Thank heavens for companions with nearly palindromic-sounding names!' he said.

'Leave them, meathe veal, Iirore, Yima. Meet on see reathe!' Sadness crept over him then as he remembered hearing the words he was speaking now, and the false hope that they had implanted in his mind. 'You know what, past me?' he said quietly. 'The terrible thing is, despite what I'm saying, I don't know if they live or die. I have no idea what terrible things might happen to them in our future. But there's one thing I do know, and it's that we'll
all
die if you don't
get
a move on!'
He yanked his sleeve down and pointed to his watch. 'Meet! Own! See! Reathe!' he yelled. 'Now go!'

But his past self just stood there, recognition fading from his face. The Doctor looked at him and realised that his words had already conveyed their importance long before he'd even arrived.

'Sorry,' he said. 'There's no point shouting at you now, you've done what I asked already and right now you have my entire life to live
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NUCLEAR TIME

backwards through. But I'm not sticking around to watch that all over again, I'm going. I'm going, and I'll fix this.' He paused. 'I promise, Doctor, I'll fix this.' With a curt wave, he stumbled backwards along the alleyway, away from his past self, into the shadows and out of the other Doctor's sight. He watched mournfully as he saw his past self stumble backwards and begin to circle, shouting his companions' names backwards at the top of his voice. Then he turned and walked away.

'It was a good idea, a very good idea.' The Doctor strode back into the central square, and began to pace up and down in front of the TARDIS. 'Go back on our time line and dissipate the energy gradually rather than letting it all be released instantaneously in the future.

Safer for you, yes, and for me, if it works.' He pointed an accusing finger at the inanimate time machine.

'But how long does it take to diffuse an atomic explosion? Tell me that? It had better be soon enough, because look at this.' He cupped his hand and turned it upside down, flicking his gaze from the ground to the TARDIS as a small cloud of sand lifted itself from the dusty road and ascended towards his palm, spilling into his hand as he turned it, unpouring the dust that he would soon scoop from the desert floor.

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DOCTOR WHO

Then time froze, and stuttered.

For an instant the sand hung in mid air, tiny grains sparkling as they caught the sun and the Doctor crouched to inspect the shimmering trail that linked his palm and the road. 'See?' He whispered, and broke the spell. The sand flashed quickly through various states of suspension, then hissed onto the floor once more. 'The universe does not appreciate a man whose effects precede his cause.' He straightened up.

'And it's not going to put up with it for ever.'

The Doctor patted the side of the TARDIS and turned to leave. 'You just do the best you can,' he said.

He turned his face to the sky, searching for the bomber as it glided backwards, retracing its approach over Appletown. The plane would've passed over the military observation tower en route to the target for a last-minute visual on the situation. He could follow the flight path.