Doctor Who: The Clockwise Man

by Richards, Justin

  'Fish tank,' the Doctor said angrily. Airlocks were at either end, and two walls of glass. Above them, glass, below them, the riverbed seen through glass. Like standing underwater. He thumped his fist on the transparent wall in front of him. He could feel it give beneath his hand, the mirrored image shimmering as the glass moved.

  'I don't think you can smash your way out,' Repple said.

  'Not without creating a weak point somehow. Need something sharp to score it, or heavy to wallop it. Preferably both.'

  'There is no escape,' Repple pronounced. He stood staring at his reflection. 'I shall face my trial and execution with the dignity of a Katurian noble.'

  'Melissa seems to think you're anything but noble,' the Doctor pointed out.

  'Propaganda. The revolutionaries have to justify seizing power somehow. They do that by blaming the previous regime – blaming me – for imaginary misdemeanours.'

  'Misdemeanours? She was talking about genocide. Whole communities wiped out to preserve your empire. Planets ravaged for daring to question your authority. Thousands of people simply disappearing to suit a political purpose.'

  'There are two sides to every event,' Repple replied fiercely. 'Yes, there were rebellions that were put down. Yes, planets tried to secede from the empire. But it was in their best interests to stay part of the alliance and that is what the majority of their populations wanted.'

  'So you wiped them out?' The Doctor shook his head, incredulous.

  'Of course not. She exaggerates. There were no reprisals, no needless executions. Everything was done with honour and justice. The empire would fall apart if it wasn't based on fairness and the struggle to do what is best. It will fall apart now these murderers and mercenaries are in control.'

  'You really believe that?' the Doctor asked quietly.

  Repple was staring right at him in the glass; his reflected gaze held the Doctor's. 'I do. You saw what she did to Aske.'

  'He was trying to kill her.'

  'He was trying to save us all.' Repple looked away. 'I should have died in his place.'

  The Doctor clicked his tongue and paced out the length of the glass-walled cell. 'Discovering the truth's very difficult when so many people are lying,' he said. 'Even harder if they don't know they're lying.'

  'Meaning?'

  'That you really believe Shade Vassily, ruler of Katuria with all those titles and long words after his name, is an honourable man. Noble.'

  'How else could I live with myself?'

  'But Melissa obviously thinks differently. How can you both be right?'

  'She is lying,' Repple said. 'Or wrong. Or both.'

  'Yeah, it comes down to who I believe. She has the passion, behind that mask. The anger and resentment and commitment. Yet you. . .' He paused, turned, paced back. 'You stayed to try to help me. You insisted that Freddie not be put in danger. You grieved for your friend, who was also your jailer and might have been your executioner.'

  'Thank you, Doctor.'

  'For what?'

  'For believing me.'

  The Doctor's smile froze on his face. 'Don't thank me yet. Your actions are at odds with Melissa's description. Doesn't mean she's wrong, though.'

  Repple turned from the glass and pointed at the Doctor. 'So, you think I have changed? Mellowed with my exile? You believe I am a reformed mass murderer?'

  'One possibility. But like the truth about you and Aske, several theories may fit the same facts. Perhaps none of them's right.'

  'She thinks I was an unjust ruler,' Repple said vehemently. 'That is simply not true. I was deposed by extremists, terrorists with their own twisted agenda.' He jabbed his finger into the Doctor's chest. 'I was not a despot.' Another jab. 'I was not a tyrant.' He was advancing, making the Doctor move back to the glass wall behind him.

  At the next jab, the Doctor caught Repple's hand in his own. With his other hand, he jabbed back at Repple's chest. 'You were not a ruler at all,' he said.

  'Are you calling me a liar?' Repple cried. 'You think that perhaps Aske was Vassily?'

  'No.' The Doctor's voice was calm now, almost soothing. 'Course not. He knew you were Shade Vassily. He died for that belief, his belief in you. He was as sure that you're Shade Vassily as you are. After all, he was sent to protect and guard you, sent to keep you in exile. Given all the facts.' The Doctor shook his head sadly. 'Except one.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'You know,' the Doctor said, resuming his pacing, 'how sometimes you only appreciate something when it is taken away from you.'

  'You mean my freedom?'

  'I mean more like the hum of the central heating or the air conditioning. You only notice it was there when it stops. While it's constant, part of the nature of things, it's unremarkable. Just the way things are. Your brain doesn't even bother to tell you about it, unless there's a change that might be important.'

  'Is this important?'

  'Like Melissa's Mechanicals,' the Doctor went on. 'If you're with them long enough, you don't even notice they're clicking at you.'

  'Your point being?' Repple demanded.

  'My point being that it's like the ticking of a clock. You don't hear it, but it's there. Only I have the opposite problem.' He tilted his head to one side. 'Do you hear it?'

  'Hear what?' Repple listened for a moment, then shook his head. There's nothing.'

  'Oh? You see, I can hear – when I bother to listen –I can hear the ticking of a clock. Which is odd. Because. . .' He paused, encouraging Repple to finish the thought.

  'Because there is no clock in here.'

  'Exactly. And I've been in this situation before. Several times recently.' He took a step forwards, standing toe to toe with Repple, looking him in the face. And always I've been with you.'

  Repple said nothing. His face was a blank mask, devoid of expression.

  'You're not Shade Vassily,' the Doctor said. 'You just think you are.' And he reached up and took off Repple's face. 'Sorry.' He stepped aside, allowing Repple to see his own reflection in the glass wall behind. 'Really, I am.'

  Repple just stared. Stared at the mass of cogwheels that clicked round rhythmically.

  'It took me a while,' the Doctor admitted.

  Tiny gears and levers worked furiously.

  'But I realised I've never seen you smile. Or frown. Or laugh.' He folded up the artificial face and pushed it into his pocket. 'Bit like Melissa, really.'

  Flywheels spun and mechanisms clicked.

  'Oh, your voice does it. There's inflection and emotion. Very clever.'

  Where the forehead should have been, a large multi-faceted glass or crystal stood slightly proud of the mechanisms, catching the light reflected from the glass and the rippling water outside.

  'You eat and drink and sleep. But it's all rather mechanical, isn't it?"

  Like the jewelled mechanism of a clock.

  Repple's mechanised face was at odds with the tortured rasp of his voice. 'I still can't hear it.'

  'You live with it all the time. Perhaps they programmed you not to.'

  The face turned slowly towards the Doctor. Every part of it seemed to be alive. Only the crystal did not move, but it seemed to as it reflected the light. 'What am I?' Repple demanded. He clutched at the Doctor's shoulders, dragging him closer. 'Who am I?!'

  With a whirr of gears and an anguished cry, Repple let go of the Doctor and sank to his knees. His whole body was shaking, as if he were sobbing. But there were no tears, no eyes to cry them.

  'Oh, get up,' the Doctor said. 'There's work to be done.'

  'There is nothing to be done. No purpose. No reason.' He continued to shake.

  The Doctor watched him. 'We don't have time for sulking.'

  'What else can I do?'

  'Or feeling sorry for yourself

  The clockwork face turned to look up at the Doctor. 'My whole life is a lie. I am. . . no one.'

  'You may not be Vassily. But you're still Repple.'

  'And who is that? Why should I go on?'
>
  'Because if Melissa's right, then somewhere close by there's a power-mad homicidal maniac with a superiority complex who won't let the small matter of the human race get in the way of his escape from this planet. And now that the only thing keeping him in check has probably been damaged beyond repair, he's likely to be making very unpleasant plans to escape, or to rule, or both.'

  Repple considered, slowly getting to his feet. His face clicked through the options and possibilities. 'We must tell Melissa Heart. She will help us.'

  The Doctor sighed. 'Or she'll decide I'm the villain after all, and you're my jailer. No, we've got to get out of here.'

  Repple turned and examined himself closely in the glass.

  A mass of cogs and gears stared back at him, the diamond like crystal that regulated the mechanisms gleamed incongruously in the midst of the machine. 'And how do we do that?' He sounded weary and unenthusiastic.

  The Doctor looked at him. 'Use your head,' he said.

  He did not wait for a reply. He stepped forward, put both his hands behind Repple's head and rammed it violently forward into the glass.

  The crystal cracked into the surface of the toughened window. The Doctor held Repple's head tight, dragging it down and across.

  'What?' Repple gasped as soon as the Doctor let go.

  But even before he had finished speaking, the Doctor had hold of him again, was smacking his head back into the glass, dragging down and across the other way – through the deep scratch he had already made.

  When the Doctor let go again, Repple wrenched himself backwards. In front of him, in the glass, he could see the Doctor grinning, his glee marred only by the deeply scored X that ran through his reflection.

  'The weakest point,' the Doctor said, 'will be here.' He stepped up to the glass and tapped on the centre of the X where the two lines crossed. He turned and winked at Repple. 'Brace yourself,' he said. 'Now it's my turn.'

  He turned back towards the glass, felt carefully over the window. They could both see that the glass was bulging slightly inwards where it had been weakened. There was a sound like ice cracking. The Doctor nodded happily and took a couple of paces back from the glass. Then he ran at the window. He leaped, legs extended, both feet crashing into the wall at the same time, right in the centre of the X. Crashing into, and through.

  Murky, cold Thames water swept in, punching aside the remains of the window and taking the Doctor with it. He cannoned into Repple, and they both fell into the rapidly rising water.

  'What now?' Repple shouted, his voice all but lost in the thunder of the hammering water.

  'I can hold my breath for ages,' the Doctor gasped. 'And you don't need to breathe.'

  One of the airlocks, the door back into the house, not built to withstand the stresses of deep space, buckled under the water's attack. It was sagging, bending, breaking under the pressure of the water. Suddenly it gave way, exploding inwards to allow the water to crash through and along the short corridor the other side towards the cellars of the house.

  The corridor sloped upwards, the Doctor remembered as he and Repple were carried along by the immense wave. If they could survive the battering, if he could hold his breath for long enough, they would be washed into the house. His shoulder slammed painfully into a wall, the water rising over his face and the light fading. As the blackness closed over his head, he felt the heavy weight of the water bearing him down and began to lose consciousness. He might not need much breath, but he could still drown, he thought. . . As the darkness swept over him.

  FOURTEEN

  Rose's first move, once they were clear of the club, was to make sure that Freddie and the others were safe. Then she would think about how to find Wyse. Crowther had no idea where the man might be except that he played chess every Wednesday evening at a friend's somewhere on or close to the Victoria Embankment. Perhaps Sir George would know.

  This was the argument she used to persuade Freddie to go home. Now that he was over the fright, he was keen to find and help the Doctor. Though she could hardly blame him, as she felt the same, Rose, with the help of Crowther and the old men, Ranskill and Coleridge, managed to persuade the boy that it was best for everyone to head for his home.

  Dickson opened the door almost immediately. He was visibly relieved to see Freddie and at once ushered them all into the drawing room. Sir George was there already, looking pale and tired. He said nothing, but hugged Freddie tight.

  When he eventually let the boy go, he said quietly, 'Your mother is in her room. You should go and see her. She's worried.' Only the tremor in his voice betrayed how worried she must be.

  'Thank you,' Sir George said to Rose as soon as Freddie had gone. 'As he gets older it will get harder, I know. But it is difficult not to be so very worried when he wanders off like that.'

  'He was fine,' Rose said. 'You know what kids are like.' She didn't want to get into the details. There wasn't time.

  Dickson was pouring brandy for the old men, Ranskill and Coleridge. Crowther was dithering, evidently feeling he should help. Sir George was looking at Rose.

  'You all right, my dear?' he asked. 'You look a bit. . .'

  'I am a bit. . .' She sighed. 'Look, they'll tell you all about it. But I've gotta dash. Have to find Wyse. You don't know where this Ben someone he plays chess with lives, do you?'

  Sir George was shaking his head, puzzled. 'Don't know Wyse, I'm afraid to say. Only met the chap a couple of times. Sorry 1 can't help.'

  'Never mind.' Rose all but ran to the door. She turned, aware that they were all watching her.

  'I'll come with you, miss,' Crowther offered.

  She shook her head. 'I'll be OK. You get your breath back.' She smiled. 'And thanks for what Mum would call the Seventh Cavalry impression.' He obviously didn't understand what she meant, but Rose hadn't got time to explain. 'See ya,' she said.

  The moon was struggling to get through the layer of cloud and the gathering fog as Rose reached the river. She felt cold and damp and worried. She would have been more worried if she had seen the figure following her, running quickly between the deepest shadows. Once she turned, feeling for some reason she was being watched. But though she stood for almost a minute, she saw nothing and no one. Getting jumpy, she decided, and continued.

  She could remember running along the same stretch of the Embankment before, with the Doctor, soon after they first met. It was strange how similar and yet how different it all seemed. The skyline was lower, yet most of the landmarks were there – the Houses of Parliament, the bridges. No Millennium Wheel, though, she thought with a smile. But the smile faded as she realised that she was putting off deciding what to do, how to find Wyse, helping the Doctor. Maybe she should knock on the doors of every residential house she could find and ask for Ben.

  Looking round, wondering where exactly to start, Rose caught sight of movement. Perhaps she had been followed. But no, the movement was ahead of her, moving away – towards Parliament Square. A patch of shadow at first, shapeless, small, barely visible. She ran towards it, keeping to the darkest parts of the pavement, trying to make no sound.

  It was a cat. Limping along, back leg dragging. Even from twenty yards away, Rose could hear the unhealthy grinding of the mechanism. It was in a bad way, damaged, she assumed, when the AI system was blown up by Melissa. But it continued to stagger onwards, with a sense of purpose, of direction. It was heading somewhere, and Rose wanted to know where.

  The figure behind Rose watched both her and the cat. It nodded with satisfaction.

  'Dickson told me Freddie was back.' Anna looked old and frail, obviously affected more than Sir George by her son's disappearance.

  Sir George hurried over to her, led her to a chair. 'Sit down, sit down. Yes, the boy's fine. . .' He frowned, suddenly worried. 'I sent him up to you. Must be quarter of an hour ago now. Perhaps he didn't like to wake you.'

  'But I've not been asleep. I couldn't settle. I haven't seen him.'

  Sir George sat down heavily beside his wif
e. 'Oh, my dear,' he said, grasping her hand. 'Oh, Freddie, what have you done?'

  The world swam back into existence. The Doctor blinked and stretched. He felt cold and wet and confused. Just for a second. Then he leaped to his feet and looked round. He was standing in a few inches of muddy water in the vaulted cellar of Melissa Heart's house.

  Repple was sitting at the bottom of the stone steps that led up into the house. 'I thought you were dead,' he said.

  'So did I. How long was I out?'

  'A minute. No more. The water washed us in here, then receded.'

  The Doctor considered this. 'I was sinking, drowning. No way I'd have made it.'

  'I carried and dragged you.'

  'Thanks.'

  Repple said nothing. He was staring down at his feet. The cogs and gears in his face clicked through their motions without comment.

  The Doctor went over and sat down beside him. His clothes were clinging to him and he was tempted to jump up and down to shake the water off. But instead he said quietly, 'Being human isn't only about flesh and blood.' He pulled Repple's face from his jacket pocket. It was made from a pliable yet very strong material. Some sort of porous plastic, the Doctor guessed. Like everything else, it was sopping wet. So he wrung it out like a dishcloth, and handed it, scrunched-up. to Repple.

  The face unfolded in the automaton's hand, uncurling and stretching back into recognisable form. The face looking up at its owner. Thank you, Doctor.' He pressed it over the exposed mechanism, blinking his clockwork eyes, moving his clockwork mouth.

  'Thank you,' the Doctor replied quietly. He got to his feet and made a cursory effort to brush the mud from his shirt with the back of his hand. 'Shall we go?'

  He led the way up the steps. There was a wooden door at the top, closed but not locked. The Doctor eased it open and stepped out. He emerged into the hallway; the door was under the main staircase. The Doctor stepped forward to allow Repple to follow. He stood in the middle of the hall, puddles forming round his feet, tapping his chin with his finger as he worked through the possible next moves. 'Do we go or do we stay?' he whispered to Repple.