by Doctor Who
'Well, I—'
'She'll give you a hundred per cent. Remember that - a hundred per cent. You can't have more than a hundred per cent. Anybody who says they're giving you more, check their CV and make sure they've got GCSE Maths. It's pretty easy. I think even I took that at some point, and I'm rubbish at exams... What was I saying? Yes! Kate!
Brilliant!'
Sir Gerry sighed, his florid face creasing into a frown. 'I was actually going to ask,' he said patiently, 'if you knew what had happened to that daft pillock Max Carson.'
The Doctor's face clouded and he stared out at the terrace, looking past Shaneeqi into the sun-blasted desert beyond One Horse Town.
'Max is dead,' he said.
'How?' asked Sir Gerry, shocked.
The Doctor thought back. Max Carson's face screwed up with anger at the thought that he might lose his nest egg and his flat and his car... pumping bullets into Kendrick's Plastinol form... screaming in the corona of red light as his molecules were dispersed by the deadly Auton weaponry.
'Honourably,' said the Doctor softly. Then he nodded out into the street. 'Kate - keep watch for me.'
Shaneeqi, in the middle of the deserted street of One Horse Town, could not quite believe that she was still in Hyperville. The sunshine felt real, as real as the sun of Florida and Majorca and Ibiza had felt. She cocked her head as if she had heard something. Majorca. Had she ever been to Majorca? She must have, but she couldn't remember when. Yes, she
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had stayed in the Hotel del Mar... No, the Hotel Hispania...
Where had she stayed? And who with? And promoting which single?
Something very odd was happening. Shaneeqi suddenly found herself unable to remember any words of Spanish, and yet she knew she had learned the basics at least. She remembered leaning on the bar and chatting to Pedro the barman, and... Or was that something she had imagined?
Something which had happened in a dream?
There was a sound. A door flapping and banging in the breeze.
Shaneeqi instantly crouched like a huntress, not quite knowing why. She had lowered her eyes in the direction of the sound, which seemed to have emanated from the bank.
She slowly walked down the dusty street towards it. One pace, two, three. For some bizarre reason she thought she had forgotten how to walk.
'Hey Baby, You're A Waste of Space.' That was it. That was the record she had been promoting in Majorca.
Number 14 in the Spanish charts, just scraped the Top 40
in the UK. Well, it was the fourth single from the album.
Relief coursed through her as she remembered.
But there was still something wrong with the memory.
Despite the sunlight, her arms and legs felt cold.
She whirled round.
She had been walking in the wrong direction. She was no longer alone in One Horse Town.
Two figures stood there, shadows long in the sunlight, faces almost entirely hidden in the shadow of their broad-brimmed cowboy hats. They wore denim shirts and battered canvas trousers. Both stood in the same pose, right hands hovering
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near their bolstered guns.
Shaneeqi narrowed her eyes behind her shades.
She felt a tingle in her body. Not fear... something...
deeper...
The cowboys both stepped forward, and as the sunlight fell on their faces she saw the lumpy, unfinished shapes of their heads.
Their eyes glowed an intense red, and as she took an involuntary step back, both cowboys went for their guns at the same time.
Paul Kendrick stood on the travelator and let it carry him down silently into the wreckage of Europa Plaza.
Fragments of the vast and smooth window of the Megastore lay scattered across the floor, and the fronts of shops were burning with hot, orange intensity.
Kendrick stood in front of one of the burning shops.
He held his palms up, feeling the heat.
It had been a shoe shop, an exclusive boutique. He remembered going there, talking to the assistant, being measured for a stylish pair of boots. Was that a real memory, or one the Consciousness had given him?
He walked slowly along the mall. The artificial trees towered above him. He touched them, feeling the roughness of the bark. Just like real trees. Maybe oak, or beech. Just like in his garden.
Which garden? Where? Had he ever had a garden?
The trees were plastic, of course.
Plastic.
He reached out and touched the trunk again, and felt strengthened by its presence. He smiled.
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There was one shop window still intact, the glass tinted dark blue so that it worked as an effective mirror.
He put his hands up to the glass and stared at himself.
The same face, blue eyes, spiky hair, wide mouth which he had known for the past thirty years.
I am Paul Kendrick.
He tried to say it. Over and over again.
It just didn't sound right.
We are the Nestene Consciousness.
That sounded better.
How long did flesh last? Seventy, eighty years if you were lucky? And people... they were so badly designed. There was no structure to them. No precision. The most vulnerable organ, the brain - a squashy mass of cells - was placed on top of the body in a fragile container.
Why am I thinking like this?
This is madness!
I am Paul Kendrick! Paul Goldenball Kendrick!
I have heard the crowd chanting my name!
He pressed himself up close to the glass, so that he could see his stubble and the hints of crow's feet around his eyes. Shan liked them, he remembered. She called it mature-looking.
He stroked the thin, sandpaper-rough layer of stubble on his face. When had he started shaving? Thirteen, fourteen? Granddad Kendrick had bought him his first electric razor, for his birthday. It had been wrapped in gold paper. Tied with a silver ribbon.
Where had that come from? It felt like a new memory. As if it had crashed into his mind, fired there like a goal out of nowhere.
Do not dwell on these things.
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We are the Nestene Consciousness.
Think with us, join with us, be us.
Kendrick smiled.
'We are the Nestene Consciousness,' he said softly.
He nodded to himself, and enjoyed seeing the soft pink glow in his eyes, hazed into purple by the tinted blue of the shopfront.
It all made sense again, now.
He became aware that he was not alone.
He spun around.
The wobbling, chuckling form of Beta-4 stood there behind him. The glossy, black-plastic Auton dummy, its face fixed in a rictus grin, little hands clenching and unclenching.
'I know, Beta-4,' he said softly. 'You want to play.'
He turned away from the shopfront and marched forward into the shattered mall.
All organics within the perimeter zone must be eliminated.
'Let's finish it off,' he said coldly.
The Doctor was shaking the ingredients furiously in a cocktail-shaker. The mixture smelt vile, Kate thought - like paint-stripper mixed with a drunk's breath.
'Haha!' The Doctor seemed to be relishing the challenge, as usual. 'A one, a two, a one-two-three-four! Not exactly going to be a Harvey Wallbanger, this.'
'More of an Auton Headbanger,' suggested Kate.
The Doctor grinned. 'I like that!' He poured a little of the liquid into a small tequila glass. It was pink and frothing, and reminded Kate of the stuff you had to rinse and spit with at the dentist's surgery. He held the plastic vampire tooth up above the glass. 'Now, watch this.'
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He let go of the tooth. Kate saw it plop into the foul liquid, and for a second it frothed and fizzed like an aspirin. Then it dissolved,
as if it had never existed. There was a vinegary, plasticky smell, which was gone in a second.
'Anti-plastic, fantastic,' said the Doctor softly. 'Even better than my last formulation, if I do say so myself.'
'And that's our secret weapon?'
'Well, one of them.' The Doctor grinned at Kate. 'You're the other.'
'Me?'
'Well, you and Reece and Chantelle. I'll explain what I need from you."
'And this... Consciousness - it affiliates itself with all plastic?' Kate thought she had grasped the concept, but wanted to be sure of the details.
The Doctor nodded. 'Its molecular structure is tuned into it.' He added another dash of whisky to his shaker. 'It's a natural home for the gestalt entity to spread its tentacles into.'
'But it's contained within Hyperville?'
'For now. I imagine we're a sort of testing ground. When the Nestene cluster reaches an appropriate point in your solar system, it'll energise the Consciousness and link to the warp-shunt output. Give it a burst, a boost, a...' The Doctor flung his arms out wide, making Kate duck. 'A massive influx of power. And then, I imagine, the Central Program will activate something else... What, I'm not sure y—'
He was interrupted as the explosive, terrifying sound of gunshots echoed through the street. The Doctor looked up in alarm. Kate ran for the door, and Sir Gerry was there with her.
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'Be careful!' the Doctor shouted.
Kate ran out onto the terrace, and for a second she could not understand what had happened. Shaneeqi was facing the two gunslingers dead-on, their pistols smoking, and yet she appeared unharmed.
'Shaneeqi!' Kate yelled. 'Get back in here!'
'It's OK, lass,' Sir Gerry began.
The girl looked over at Kate, confused, and then made a run for it, diving as the sharpshooters fired again.
Kate, Shaneeqi and Sir Gerry ducked behind the tables in front of the saloon, bullets zinging into the woodwork all around and exploding in puffs of smoke.
'It's OK,' Shaneeqi said, having got her breath back.
They're not real. The bullets.'
'What?' Kate was confused.
Shaneeqi grabbed Kate's arms and looked at her. 'Kate. I know now. I understand. My life is—'
They're the Sharpshooter Twins!' Sir Gerry's delighted exclamation cut off whatever Shaneeqi had been going to say. 'We put the tourists up against 'em. They love it.' His face fell. 'Usually,' he added.
On the other side of the street, the door of the bank smashed open, shattering to splinters as a phalanx of Auton mannequins broke through.
Shaneeqi, Kate and Sir Gerry gawped in horror. Behind them, the Doctor peered at the dummies through his glasses, checking readings on his liminal energy detector.
'Doctor!' Kate said, with a rising warning tone in her voice.
'I know, I know!'
Looking incongruous in the Wild West setting, the 205
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dummies strode into the street and began to fan out, covering every entrance and exit. With a shiver, Kate noted that their gait was stronger and more powerful now - they had none of the lolloping drunkenness of before.
Behind them came the toy dolls, chattering and waddling like grotesque mini-parodies of children, some with their little heads swivelling full circle on their necks, little hands reaching out for a deadly hug.
'Oh, no,' Kate muttered.
'After today,' Sir Gerry growled, 'no more bloody shop-window dummies. I'm never having them in any shop, ever again!'
Miss Devonshire's scream seemed to grow deeper, slower, to undulate.
And a millisecond later, the pod shattered, infused with greenish light and vapour, breaking into a shower of tiny fragments which broke into tinier fragments, scattering themselves over Miss Devonshire, swirling around her like a tornado of plastiglass, enveloping her.
Miss Devonshire's body, like a green ghost, warped and rippled and fused with the seething tentacles of the Consciousness's physical form.
Are you OK?' Kate asked Shaneeqi.
'Yes,' she said, sounding distant. 'I'm fine.'
'Look!' Chantelle said. 'Look at Bruce Wayne and his mate.'
The Sharpshooter Twins were oscillating wildly, as if unsure about the new arrivals.
But now the Autons, too, stood still in the sunlit street and,
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as one, their hands went to their heads - as if they were in pain, or maybe as if they were preparing to listen intently to new instructions.
'Fascinating,' the Doctor murmured. 'Auton confusion.
Just confirms my theory.'
Kate looked at him. 'It does?'
'It won't last long, though. Come on. I'm going to get us one.'
'You're what?'
'Hold that.' The Doctor gave her the cocktail shaker full of anti-plastic and, ducking, dodged out into the street, heading for the Sharpshooter Twins.
'He's mad,' Chantelle murmured.
Yup,' said Kate. 'By the way- Bruce Wayne is Batman.
You mean John Wayne.'
'Oh, -whatever. Who are you, my mum?'
Kate wasn't listening. 'I've got to help him,' she said.
'Hold this.' Kate shoved the cocktail-shaker at Shaneeqi and followed the Doctor.
The Doctor had ducked round behind one of the Sharpshooter Twins, and was trying to find the right spot to activate his sonic screwdriver on its neck. He did a double take when he saw her. 'Kate, get back!'
Kate grabbed the Auton's gun-arm and tried to push it upwards. She was amazed at the strength in it, the sheer power pushing against her like angry machinery within the rippling plastic. There was something else, too, thought Kate - the ground itself seemed to be vibrating beneath her feet.
'Now, Doctor!' she yelled. 'Do it now!'
A blue glow fizzed around the Auton's head, and it slumped. The Doctor caught it under the arms.
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There,' the Doctor said. 'Just what we need. What shall we call this feller? How about Joe? Joe Auton. That'll do.'
He shoved the sonic screwdriver into the Auton's ear, making delicate adjustments.
The other Autons began, slowly and stiffly, to move their plastic limbs again.
'Doctor!' Kate said urgently.
'I know!' He reached out his hand, still supporting the Sharpshooter under the shoulder with the other. 'Is your phone internet-linked?'
Kate looked puzzled. 'Aren't they all?' she asked.
The Doctor didn't pursue this. He thumbed several buttons at lightning speed, and the phone beeped as he sent a message. 'Nasty migraine! Got it again!'
The Autons froze like statues.
The Doctor threw Kate's phone back to her and nodded.
'Each time it'll take them less time to unscramble it. Won't hold for long. Get the others.'
'Where are we going?'
He looked up at Kate. To the station. Get everyone on to the train!'
The giant glistening eye, blazing with intelligence, bubbled and warped and inflated like a balloon.
Elizabeth Devonshire, arms thrust upwards, screeched as she achieved the zenith of her life.
And then her outstretched fingers, greenish-pink in hue, began to grow, and grow, and grow, thrashing like tentacles, wrapping themselves around the pillars and girders of the underground warehouse.
Hyperville shook.
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Hyperville throbbed.
And Miss Devonshire ascended.
'All aboard!' called the Doctor. 'Right then! Under bridges, over bridges, et cetera, et cetera!'
With the Doctor at the controls, the little train began to chug its way across the fake desert landscape, heading for an illusory horizon. As it clanked and chugged along the metal rails, they passed through convincing rocks and cacti, and Kate was sure she saw a shape crouched behind one of them.
'Get down!' she shoute
d.
The white-hatted cowboy who had popped up like a jack-in-the box from behind the rocks fired his pistol.
Chantelle screamed, clutching Kate and Reece. A second later, they were soaked with water.
'Just a bit of fun,' said Sir Gerry from behind them in the carriage. 'Kiddies love it, y'know.' He shook his head. 'At least, they did.'
Reece looked behind, to where the blank-faced Sharpshooter, seemingly inert but with its pistol levelled, sat propped between Sir Gerry and Shaneeqi.
'Why did we have to bring old Joe with us?' he said nervously. 'He gives me the creeps.'
'Doctor's idea,' said Sir Gerry briskly, as the train swerved round a corner and entered a tunnel in the rocks.
'Chap seems to know what he's doing. Best leave him to it.'
Kate had climbed to the front of the train and was peering over the Doctor's shoulder. 'You said you had something for me to do?'
'Hyperville has a deluge sprinkler-system. I want you to locate the main pipe source, and release the anti-plastic 209
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cocktail into the system at the top of the Administration building. Thirtieth floor.' He grinned. 'I memorised the maintenance plan earlier.'
'OK... Will there be enough?'
'Once the anti-plastic attaches itself to the polar molecules in the water, it'll adhere and replicate. It should spread through the system in a matter of seconds.' The Doctor pulled a face. 'Well, that's the theory. Whooh!' He sounded the hooter on the train. 'You know, I've always wanted to drive one of these.'
'Uh-huh. Doctor. Stick to the point.'
The sprinkler network's activated in Zones by fire-hazard signals. If I can get them all to activate together, the Autons will get a shock.'
'So why do you need to go and talk to them?'
The Doctor's expression hardened. 'Because I want to give Miss Devonshire the choice.'
Kate thought for a moment, and found her hand closing over the HyperCard in her pocket. She held it out to the Doctor. 'You'll need this,' she said.
'What?' He looked confused.
'I don't know why. I just know that you need it.'
'Who told you?'
Kate smiled. 'You did,' she said. 'Four years ago. When I first met you.'
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