Big Bang Generation

by Gary Russell

  ‘But what if they were important? Or their descendants? Butterfly effect and all that.’

  ‘Time will repair the breach as best it can.’

  ‘Let’s hope none of them were due to cure cancer, bring peace to Africa or build a chocolate theme park.’

  The Doctor looked at her. ‘Build a what?’

  ‘Joking,’ she said with a smile. ‘Inappropriately,’ she added.

  He still looked at her.

  She continued. ‘Bournville still exists in the twenty-seventh century you know, although it covers the whole of Birmingham. Which is no bad thing cos no one misses Birmingham.’

  ‘My wife?’ Tomas was looking around sadly.

  ‘She’s dead,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘Her own fault, frankly. And yes, I suppose I should say I’m very sorry, but I’m not. All I care about is that you have that lodestone. Treasure. Whatever you want to think of it as. Your job is to give it to your son, make sure he gives it to his son – and yes, he’ll have loads of kids, they’ll call him the Rabbit of Ryde. You have to impress on Josef and he on his kids, and so on, the importance that this stays here, in New South Wales. They must guard it with their lives.’

  Tomas just nodded dumbly, not really taking anything in other than the forcefulness of the Doctor’s words. ‘My wife is dead?’ was all he could think to say.

  Bernice sighed. ‘Yes. And…and to stop that happening to millions of others, you have to protect that rock, the Glamour, and keep it secret from everyone but your son,’ she lied. It was the only way to make sure he did as he was told. As he needed to do.

  The Doctor was already walking back to where he had left the TARDIS. With a final look at the aghast Tomas Schneidter, Bernice followed.

  The Doctor said nothing as they walked through the rain and mud until they finally saw the TARDIS in a copse. Standing in front of it was a man, dark-skinned, in a white shirt and chinos. The same one he’d seen in Darling Harbour. But in 2015.

  ‘Hullo,’ the Doctor said quietly.

  ‘You have taken the Papinjuwari from the mountain?’

  The Doctor paused, thinking about the word. ‘You’re not from New South Wales, are you?’

  ‘I have travelled a long way to keep the valley safe,’ was all he said. ‘I am Lue.’

  ‘I’m the Doctor. And yes, it’s gone for ever.’

  ‘From the land?’

  ‘No, but from here. It cannot leave the land, not for many decades. But one day Benny and I will be able to take it back where it belongs.’

  Lue nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  He began to move away, then turned back one last time.

  ‘We shall meet again, Doctor.’

  Then he was gone, seemingly melting into the shadows cast by the tall trees.

  ‘That was interesting,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘You know what was more interesting?’

  ‘What’s that?’ the Doctor said ushering Bernice in through the open door of the TARDIS.

  ‘He knew your name.’

  As Bernice walked past him, the Doctor gave a final look at where Lue had walked, but there was no sign.

  ‘He did. He did indeed.’ He gave an involuntary shudder, which Bernice would have said was someone walking over his grave.

  Which wasn’t something the Doctor really wanted to think about.

  9

  Notorious

  It was 22 December 2015, and Mr Thomas Gordon Taylor was not having a great day. Truth was, he wasn’t even having a good one. Nope. It could be argued that he was having the worst day of his life, but that would involve omitting the day his wife told him the Rabbitohs had only come third in their centenary year. Or the day they missed his daughter’s wedding because of the rain closing the airport. Or –

  ‘So, anyway,’ interrupted the cause of his Worst Day Ever, ‘the Duchess and I were wondering if we could get access to the exhibit.’ The Scottish man smiled, very insincerely, Mr Taylor thought. ‘What with her needing to get back to England for the funeral of her late, lamented husband, and then open Parliament, and then attending Wimbledon – she just has to see Valentino get things started off on Centre Court…’

  The Duchess leant in, smiling far more sincerely. ‘I do so love dear Rudolph.’

  ‘Rudolph?’

  ‘Valentino. Great tennis player,’ she added.

  The man shot her a look.

  ‘His parents, huge movie fans. Who knew two famous people would have that name in history?’

  Mr Taylor sighed. He was pretty certain that the Queen opened the English Parliament and it rarely clashed with the tennis, and he’d never heard of an Italian tennis player called Rudolph Valentino. All that aside, what he really wanted to do was go home to his wife, his cat and the DVR-stored episodes of Wonderland. Therefore he opened his drawer and passed over a couple of VIP lanyards to the Scottish man. ‘Valid till 8 p.m.,’ he muttered. ‘Go to Level 6 and one of the guides will let you in.’

  The Scottish man and the Duchess rose graciously from their seats (was the Duchess actually bowing? To him?) and stood aside as Mr Taylor made his way out of his own office, then followed behind him.

  The Scottish Man passed the VIP lanyard to the Duchess. ‘Oh, Mr Smythe,’ she said haughtily, rhyming ‘Smythe’ with ‘tithe’, ‘one cannot possibly wear this over this magnificent dress. You must carry the passes for both of us.’

  Mr Smythe raised his eyes to heaven, draped a lanyard over himself and carried hers.

  As Mr Taylor made his escape, the last thing he saw was Mr Smythe escorting the Duchess to an elevator.

  And he was on his way home.

  —

  In the elevator, the two were bickering again. ‘Duchess? You had to say you were a Duchess. What made you say that?’ the Doctor was grouching as he stabbed the Level 6 button.

  Bernice shrugged. ‘I wanted to be a Duchess.’ She pointed at the elaborate dress, straight out of Pygmalion, that she was wearing, courtesy of a Shimmer.

  ‘It’s 2015,’ he replied. ‘Not Downton Abbey.’

  Bernice clicked her fingers. ‘Yes! Downton Abbey. That’s a TV show, yes?’

  The Doctor grunted that it was. Bernice clenched her fist and punched the air. ‘Yes! Ha, sucks to you Professor “Downton Abbey was the seat of power in the United Kingdom during the nineteenth century before Buckingham Palace” Duffy.’

  The Doctor gave her a quizzical look, then added: ‘No, actually, I don’t want to know.’

  But Bernice ignored him. ‘Professor Duffy, at the Tol Academy, so-called expert on Earth During the Last Days of the Monarchy. Told him I knew more about that era than he did, but oh no, to him Downton Abbey is a documentary. Idiot.’

  ‘The state of history education in the twenty-seventh century scares me,’ the Doctor said as the elevator came to a stop.

  ‘I was an educator in the twenty-seventh century, thank you very much,’ Bernice harrumphed.

  ‘My point. Made in one.’

  Bernice led the way out, reasserting her Duchess persona as she strode past bemused museum staff. ‘My valet has the pass,’ she said, waving a hand airily back towards the Doctor.

  He noted that she at least pronounced ‘valet’ properly, with the hard ‘t’ rather than the commonly assumed idea it had to sound like someone was drunkenly talking about valleys.

  The Doctor was hurriedly showing the passes to anyone who wanted to see them and a few who probably didn’t, all the time making sure they were heading in the right direction.

  As they went through doors, down corridors and up tiny flights of three or four marble steps, he had to acknowledge that Bernice had efficiently studied the blueprints Keri had transmitted from the future.

  ‘This should be a doddle,’ he said. ‘Quick in and out job.’

  —

  This particular escapade had started shortly after they had returned from the 1930s.

  Ruth had booked them a room at a hotel in the cheaper part of town, in the heart of Korean,
Chinese and other heavily westernised Asian cultures. Bernice had immediately fallen in love with the place because of this opportunity to study the integration of Eastern culture into Western.

  The Doctor was less impressed. The navy-coloured bedclothes gave the room a dingy feel and the pictures on the wall were of various badly painted landmarks, a watercolour of a boat on a lake and what was probably once the top of a commemorative box of chocolates for the wedding of Charles and Diana that had been crudely put in a frame.

  After the third minute of discussion about this, Jack had sighed and suggested to Ruth they go and sort out some food.

  Peter had been more concerned with the whereabouts of Cyrrus Globb and the Spyro weaponista – a concern the Doctor had shared.

  ‘We know that the lodestone, Glamour, key whatever you want to call it – and I do wish we could all just settle on one…’ the Doctor started.

  ‘Key,’ said Peter.

  ‘Lodestone,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Glamour,’ said Jack with slightly more camp than he probably intended – although the jazz hands didn’t help his case.

  ‘Either way,’ Bernice had joined in, ‘we know what we’re looking for. We also know that it’s in a museum run by a descendent of Tomas Schneidter. Sydney has a lot of museums and galleries.’

  ‘We actually don’t know for sure it is still here,’ Jack said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ruth added, ‘we just hope it is.’

  ‘We also hope that Globb and the others haven’t found it first.’

  ‘They haven’t,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ asked Bernice.

  ‘The Pyramid Eternia – it hasn’t moved, and the world hasn’t ended.’

  ‘Both good points,’ Jack said. He smiled at the Doctor. ‘I like the way you think.’

  The Doctor got his phone out and called Keri the Pakhar.

  ‘Good thing you’ve got that,’ Ruth said. ‘Handy gadget, solves all our problems.’

  ‘No, that’d be the sonic screwdriver,’ Bernice said. ‘The phone is only as good as the person on the other end.’

  ‘Who is very good,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘Keri! How are we?’

  Bernice looked at the others and gave them a look that said, ‘If that’s what he wants to believe…’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ the Doctor was saying. ‘We popped back to the 1930s, as you do, and witnessed a significant amount of death and destruction, as you predicted, but didn’t change the future, just as I said we wouldn’t.’

  Beat.

  ‘No, no because that would have been wrong and unravelled who knows what else between then, the various wars on this planet, the year k2 bug and now.’

  Beat.

  ‘Yes Keri, but I’m a Time Lord and I do know about those things. So we are now aware, thanks to your marvellous help, that the Glamour is here in 2015 and we now know who has it. One of his descendants.’

  Beat.

  ‘No, no we don’t know which one. That’s what I need you to find out. Which one of them runs a gallery or museum in 2015 and where is it?’

  Ruth clicked her fingers and tapped the bedspread a couple of times, jabbing furiously at the material.

  The Doctor frowned.

  Then Ruth ran to the picture on the wall from the Royal Wedding and pointed at Charles.

  The Doctor nodded. ‘Oh, of course, blueprints! Keri, when you find out where it is, I need the blueprints for the building.’

  Beat.

  ‘I don’t know why. Ruth just asked for them.’

  Beat.

  ‘I don’t know that either, really. She’s a friend of Benny’s.’

  Beat.

  ‘Yes, I’m always amazed to discover she has any too.’

  Beat.

  ‘Yes, she seems to be giving us both a non-verbal message which I suspect is neither polite nor especially mature. Oh and she’s doing it again. Now, call me back when you have the information please.’

  The Doctor hung up.

  ‘We should go,’ Peter said suddenly, a blaster rapidly appearing in each hand.

  Jack, Ruth and Benny were up and alert instantly, which impressed the Doctor. For all the banter, all the laissez faire, they clearly knew how to work as a team when necessary.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked, swept up by their alertness.

  ‘Globb has found us,’ Peter said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Peter tapped his canine-like nose. ‘Kik the Assassin is very distinctive.’ Peter cocked his head to one side. ‘Not in the building yet, but they must have a tracker somewhere…’ Peter began patting his clothes down, and after a second he produced a tiny transmitter from his shoulder. ‘Stupid! She must have put it on me outside the Opera House.’

  ‘We should get away from here,’ Ruth suggested but Benny shook her head. ‘Better to play them at their own game.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Benny grinned. ‘Globb’s a con artist, allegedly one of the best. But so am I.’

  ‘You’re not one of the best, Mum. You’re pretty far from being one of the best.’

  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ the Doctor said. ‘She fooled a lot of people into thinking she was a real professor.’

  Everyone looked at Benny. Including Peter. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘When I first met Benny,’ the Doctor said, perhaps enjoying this too much, ‘she wasn’t really a professor; she just told everyone she was to get to a planet called Heaven. And everyone believed her. She’s very good at lying.’

  ‘That was supposed to help was it?’

  ‘Truth can’t hurt us,’ he smiled.

  Bernice addressed the others. ‘Obviously I am a professor now. I mean, I did it properly afterwards, once I’d stopped hanging out with tall, grey and Scottish over there.’

  ‘You know, I’ve never had proof she’s a real professor,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Nor me,’ Jack agreed. ‘Everyone called her Professor, so I did too.’

  ‘If my mum says she’s a Professor, she’s a professor,’ said Peter.

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ Bernice said smiling.

  ‘Anything to shut you lot up and get going,’ he said back.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Play Globb at his own game, convince him we’re going to give him the Glamour.’

  ‘Key.’

  ‘Lodestone.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because then he’ll give it to us.’

  Why will he do that exactly?’ asked Ruth.

  ‘Because I’ll con him into thinking that’s what he wants to do.’

  ‘Why don’t we just get it ourselves? Leave them out of it?’

  ‘Because this way, we’ll get him legitimately off our backs. And one other really important reason.’

  ‘Getting them away from this time and place and back to the fifty-first century where they belong,’ Ruth suggested.

  Bernice shook her head, and smiled, her eyes glittering like candles in the dark. ‘That’s a reason, Ruthie, and a good one – but not the best one.’

  ‘And the “best one” is?’ asked the Doctor, suspecting he already knew the answer, and indeed found himself mouthing the next words along with Bernice:

  ‘Because it’s fun!’ She winked at the gang. ‘The con is on!’

  —

  The meeting was arranged for an hour later. Peter had been the go-between, handling Kik the Assassin who in turn relayed information back to Cyrrus Globb and Professor Jaanson.

  The two groups met in Darling Harbour, Peter having led them away from the Opera House where, all these hours later, they were still staring at the Pyramid Eternia in its new, hopefully temporary, home. This was because Jaanson wanted to see it in a new environment, and because he was also pretty dazzled still that he’d even found it.

  Globb was far more intrigued by how they had travelled in time
. He’d not travelled in time before, he explained to Peter as they walked. Peter explained it wasn’t an everyday occurrence for him either.

  Only Kik the Assassin said and did nothing except stare at Peter in a pretty annoying way that freaked the lad out somewhat.

  ‘Wasting your time,’ he muttered to her again.

  When they met up with the Doctor and the rest of the team, the area around Darling Harbour was pretty empty – everyone, tourists and locals alike, having flooded down to Circular Quay and other Harbour Bridge areas to get a glimpse at the weird pyramid.

  ‘What do you want?’ was Globb’s opening gambit, his usual charming self.

  ‘You, sir, are a well-known conman,’ Ruth said, pulling herself up to her five foot two height against his six-something-very-tall-indeed. He looked down on her like he might a bug he wanted to stomp on. But Ruth didn’t flinch. ‘Our team want to make you an offer – help us find the Glamour and we’ll split the proceeds back in the fifty-first century between us, equally. Which,’ she said with a look to Bernice that implied she thought this was a mad move for a group of successful con artists to make (and made sure Globb clocked it), ‘means that that’s a two-way split – fifty-fifty, half and half, tit for tat—’

  Globb put a pudgy hand on Ruth’s head to stop her talking. ‘I get it,’ he said. Then he looked at Bernice. ‘I thought you were an archaeologist?’

  Bernice threw her arms wide, but again it was Ruth who spoke. ‘Benny is, like you, an expert at the long con. We’ve all been pretending to be a successful freelance archaeology team, going from planet to planet, finding rarities and then selling them on, usually the same piece to four or five gullible marks, making sure that we don’t sell it to them within twenty-four hours of the previous one.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Ruth threw a look to Bernice but still spoke confidently, assuredly. Boy, she was good at this. She started counting on her fingers.

  ‘Aloysius D. Campling, the Estatelands of Salvadori, Les Sourire du Starship Louvre, Jared Jones – we even sold stuff to the Braxiatel Collection…’

  Globb nodded. ‘I never heard of half of them. And I’ve never heard of you, and I know most of the teams working my quadrant.’

  ‘The clue there,’ interjected Jack, ‘is “most”. We’re not a big gang but we’re growing.’