by Doctor Who
2
'He's had a lot of time to plan how to do it too,' the Doctor said. 'Though the cat would have stopped him from carrying out his plan. Until now.'
'The cat?' Melissa said.
The Doctor nodded. 'The real jailer and bodyguard, control ed by the AI, watching al the time.'
'But now the Al has been destroyed,' Repple said, 'there is nothing to stop him. He may already have the equipment set up, even though he could not use it until now.'
Melissa took another step forwards, standing between the Doctor and Repple. 'And if he energises the Thames, the ozone fallout...'
'Wil ignite in the oxygen-rich air and create a firestorm,' the Doctor finished. 'It'll burn through London
– every building, every tree, every man, woman and child – in less time than it takes to sneeze.'
FIFTEEN
Through the arched doorway, there was a view of the courtyard beyond. Inside the base of the tower was another door, off to the right, up a step. Rose fol owed the cat as it limped its way to the door. It was a modest wooden door with a glass panel in the upper half and a polished wooden plate that said simply,
'The Clock Tower'.
The cat was standing in front of the door, staring at it. It hissed as Rose approached. She hesitated, waiting for the eyes to flash and the deadly rays to lance out at her. But the cat's green eyes seemed dulled and watery. It looked up at her weakly. It didn't seem to have the strength even to extend its claws. On an impulse, Rose knelt down and scooped up the cat in her arms. It was cold and hard under the thin fur. Nothing at al like a real cat, she thought.
'Ah, there you are.'
The door to the clock tower had opened without her noticing. A figure stood in the doorway, the light behind so that Rose could not make it out. The figure stepped down, reaching out and taking the cat from her. It was Wyse. His face creased with amusement as he cradled the cat in his arms and clicked his tongue at it.
'Daft old thing,' he said. 'Must have fol owed me here.' He held it so he could see into the cat's dul eyes.
'Doesn't look quite the ticket, does he?' He stepped back through the door, nodding for Rose to fol ow.
'Come on then.'
'You play chess in here?' Rose asked. She found herself at the bottom of a surprisingly smal , square stairwel . Stone steps spiralled up above her so high she could not see the top.
'In a manner of speaking.' Wyse looked up with her. They stood close together in the confined space.
'There are 334 steps up to the belfry. Another fifty-nine to the lantern above. I have counted them many times.'
'But – what are you doing?'
He laughed. 'Come and see.' He opened the door again and, in a sudden violent movement, flung the cat outside. Rose heard the metallic thump as it hit the ground. She thought she heard the tinkle of breaking mechanisms. But Wyse pul ed the door firmly closed, squeezed past Rose and started up the stairs.
Rose made to fol ow him up the steps. Then she stopped, hesitating at the bottom. There was something about the way that he had been holding the cat that unsettled her, even before he had thrown it aside so carelessly. The way he rubbed his knuckles into the fur on top of the cat's head, making its brow wrinkle like his own. It seemed so familiar that she assumed she had seen him do it before.
And then she realised that she had. In the boardroom, with the trustees at the meeting. It had been Wyse sitting at the head of the table.
'You're Mr Pooter,' she said quietly.
He turned and looked down at her from several steps above. 'Yes,' he admitted, 'I am.'
'So, you own the imperial Club.'
'Yes, I do. But..' He shrugged. 'I'm modest about it.'
That didn't ring true somehow. 'Why?' Rose asked.
Wyse had already turned away and started up the steps, obviously assuming she would fol ow. His voice echoed down to her. 'Because I don't want to attract undue attention. I like the authority, the power, but I would rather not be seen to be wielding it. In short, I don't want to be found, that's why.'
Slowly and quietly, Rose moved back to the door. Gently and careful y, she turned the handle. But the door refused to open.
'It's locked,' Wyse's amused voice came from the floor above. 'You won't get out. So you might as well come up here. Oh, and no one will hear or see you, so don't worry about that either.'
Rose was staring through the glass panel in the upper part of the door. Wyse was probably right. No one would hear. 'Help!' she mouthed. 'Find the Doctor.'
Freddie didn't need to hear. He was standing close to the other side of the door watching her carefully. He nodded. And as Rose started to ascend the stairs, Freddie turned and ran.
Wyse was waiting for her round the first ful turn of the stairs. There was a smal landing and a door. It was shut. On the opposite wall was a narrow, arched window covered with metal mesh. Rose spared it only a glance – it was obviously too smal for her to climb out of, even if she was wil ing to risk the long drop to the ground outside.
Wyse led her up to the next level, and the next, past another closed door, then on to the next. And the next. By the sixth floor, Rose's knees were aching. She stopped and sat down outside the door.
Wyse had also stopped and was looking down at her in amusement. 'It gets easier with practice,' he assured her. 'Storerooms and offices,' he explained, nodding at the door. 'Most of them empty.
Unimportant. Ten of them on top of each other. This stairwel rises up in the corner of the tower. In the opposite corner is a ventilation shaft to draw the stale air through from the debating chambers. Believe me,' he went on with a benign smile, 'when Parliament is sitting there is a lot of stale air to be ventilated.'
'Where are we going? 'Rose demanded, getting to her feet again.
Wyse was already on his way. 'The prisoner's room. Not far now.'
'Prisoner's room?'
'Oh, it doesn't refer to you. At least, not yet. It's where naughty Members of Parliament are locked up if they misbehave. Or, in one notable case, if they refuse to swear loyalty to the monarch in the sight of God. Amusingly arcane, don't you think?'
'Hysterical.'
Wyse stood aside to al ow Rose to enter the room first. It was a strange shape, more like a corridor than a room. As she walked round the three sides, Rose realised this was because it was built round a square central shaft. But the shape of the room was not as interesting as what was in it. To get round, Rose had to squeeze past the enormous cogwheels, shafts, gears, levers and dark ironwork. They were dripping with thick, greasy, black oil. But the enormous mechanisms were silent and still – not a click, not a movement. Nothing.
'The clock's stopped,' Rose said. Her voice echoed round the room.
Wyse's laughter echoed after it. 'The clock,' he said, 'is a magnificent feat of precision engineering, given the technology of this rather backward planet.' His monocle caught the light as he regarded her closely through it.
'Oh, you admit you're an alien then?'
He ignored her, continuing as if she had not spoken. 'But the clock is only about the size of a modest dinner table. It will provide the motive force to start my rather grander mechanism, but otherwise it is entirely coincidental and unconnected.'
'Your mechanism?'
The monocle dropped from his eye, swinging on its thin chain. Somehow this time Rose didn't find it funny. 'Impressive, don't you think?' He waited and, getting no answer, concluded, 'You don't. Pity.'
Rose worked her way back to where Wyse was standing by the door. 'But what's it for? You're this Shade Thingy person, aren't you?'
'Modesty forbids,' he murmured.
'So what are you up to?'
'Escaping from my exile. The cat, or rather cats, for there were several, as you wil have realised, were efficient, but lamentably literal jailers. They had orders to prevent me from reactivating the ship in which poor Aske and Repple and I arrived, al that time ago. Not that they knew I was on board. If I had tried to start this m
achinery the cats would have kil ed me. However they had no orders to prevent me from having it constructed in the first place.' He gave a snort of laughter. 'That's why they cal it artificial intel igence, I suppose.'
'Al this is to activate a spaceship?'
'As I said, impressive, isn't it? The design is al my own, though of course I subcontracted a lot of it to the palace's Clerk of Works. For a modest fee. He thinks it's a system to ensure the absolute accuracy of the clock, poor devil.' Wyse smiled at the thought. 'At the moment, they use pennies. They put them on the top of the pendulum, or take them off it, to shift the centre of gravity. Ingenious, but somewhat primitive.' He stepped up to the main part of the machinery, an enormous cogwheel that al but fil ed the space between floor and ceiling. 'The mechanism extends upwards to the clock above us, and down through the central shaft to the ground,' he explained proudly. 'Al for the want of a decent hydro-energising plant.'
'So, what now?'
'Oh, now I activate the mechanism. When the central spring has been wound to the correct point, it wil be activated by the clock. The weights wil fal as Big Ben strikes the hour, which in turn wil release the mainspring. Then, once these wheels have run up to speed, the power realised wil energise the water molecules in the River Thames. That in turn will release the energy that the ship will absorb to power up. And I can leave.' He smiled at the simplicity of it. 'You can come with me if you like.'
'No, ta.'
He shrugged. 'Or you can stay here. And be burned beyond recognition along with the rest of London when the ozone ignites.' He waved his hands as if wafting this smal problem away. 'An unfortunate side effect of the process.'
Rose stared at him, scarcely able to believe what he was tel ing her in such a matter-of-fact manner.
'You're mad.'
He nodded. 'Very probably. But I'd rather be mad and alive and free than...' He didn't bother to finish.
'Oh, I must thank you. You and the Doctor.'
'What for? Playing chess?'
'That was a welcome distraction. The Doctor is almost a worthy opponent. But no, for helping, of course. At first I thought you were the revolutionary assassins hunting for me. So I misled you slightly, I'm afraid, about... Wel , about almost everything. It seemed quite jol y at the time. But no, your biggest contribution, aside from drawing the real assassins into the open, was to destroy the Al. I assume that was something to do with you two, probably when the Painted Lady and her Mechanicals attacked the Imperial Club.'
'The cats,' Rose murmured.
'I could never have activated this while any of the cats were fully operational. But now the Al is dead and the cats must have col ectively exhausted their ninth lives, I can do what I like. Thank you,' he said again. 'You have set me free.'
The Embankment was the only clue they had, and, as Repple pointed out, he could have been lying.
'You are sure that this Wyse is Shade Vassily?' Melissa said. The three of them, shadowed by the two Mechanicals, were walking quickly from Melissa's house back towards the Imperial Club, and the Embankment.
'Yeah,' the Doctor said. He drew a heavy breath. 'And I sent Rose to look for him.' He shook his head sadly.
'Then we must find him soon,' Repple said. if I – he – is capable of the things Miss Heart claims...'
'He is,' she told them. 'And more. You cannot even begin to imagine.'
The Doctor nodded gravely. 'Sadly, I can. Come on.'
He led them more quickly into the fog that now swirled around them. 'Oh, this is no good. They could be anywhere.' He stopped and spun round and round in circles. 'Soon we won't be able to see Rose even if she jumps up and down in front of us. Which,' he added, 'is the sort of thing she might do.'
'Doctor,' Repple said level y, 'who is that?' He pointed into the fog. A dark smudge did indeed seem to be jumping up and down, approaching in a rush.
'Rose?'
The figure emerged into the pale gleam from the nearest street lamp. Not Rose.
'Freddie!'
The boy was gasping for breath. He bent over, massaging his weak leg. After a moment he looked up at the Doctor. His eyes widened, and he gave a yelp of surprise and fear. Melissa and the two Mechanicals had stepped into view. Freddie grabbed the Doctor's sleeve and tried to pull him away.
'It's al right, Freddie. We're al mates here.'
'We have an understanding,' Repple assured the boy.
'Where is Rose?' the Doctor asked quietly.
'He's got her, Doctor. Got her prisoner.'
'Wyse?'
Freddie shrugged. 'A man.'
'And where are they?'
'Up inside Big Ben,' Freddie said. He was close to tears. I tried to get in but it's all locked up. Doctor, she's trapped. We'l never be able to save her.'
SIXTEEN
It did not look much like a dead cat, not until the Doctor careful y picked it up and straightened it out. An intricate assembly of brass wheels and levers fel from the split fur. It broke apart as it hit the ground, spil ing tiny screws and wheels across the flagstones.
'Oops.' The Doctor crouched down and tried to gather the bits and pieces together. 'In a bit of a mess.'
'Can you mend it?' Freddie asked. 'I didn't realise it was a toy, not until the man threw it away.'
'A toy?' The Doctor prodded at the pile of components on the ground. 'I s'pose it is, real y.'
'We are wasting time,' Repple announced.
'I agree.' Melissa said. 'We should smash down the door.'
'Yeah,' the Doctor said. 'And have that policeman and scores of his chums round here in a flash. That'd help. We're slammed in pokey and London burns. He'l have made sure that door is very secure. Good plan.'
'You have a better one?' she asked. Her face was almost lost in the darkness, only the silver highlights in the mask were visible as they caught and threw back the light.
'Must be another way into the stairwel .'
'No other doors,' Repple pointed out.
'Doesn't have to be a door.' The Doctor was walking through the arch into the courtyard beyond, examining every inch of the stonework. Eventual y he found what he was looking for. 'Windows – look.'
He pointed up triumphantly above the arched doorway, above the roof of the adjoining palace. Pale, thin light was spil ing from a narrow window above them. 'That one must give on to the stairwel .'
'And how do we get up there?'
'We climb.'
They climbed.
Melissa instructed the Mechanicals to wait with her at ground level, keeping watch. The Doctor hoisted Freddie on to his shoulders and lifted him as high as he could. The boy clung on to the angled stonework while the Doctor and Repple climbed higher, then the Doctor reached back down and swung up Freddie after him.
It seemed to take an age, but eventual y they reached the flat roof of the main building alongside the clock tower. The dark stone stretched up out of sight above them. They could see the pale glow from the faces of the clock almost 300 feet away, but were too close in to see the clock itself. Even at the modest height they had reached, shreds of fog swirled round them in the increased breeze, clammy and cold.
The window the Doctor had seen was at his head height now – higher than Freddie. The boy watched while the Doctor and Repple examined it, and he heard their disappointed sighs.
'What's wrong?'
'There is a metal mesh over the window,' Repple replied. 'I can probably pul that away, Doctor.'
'Even so,' the Doctor said.
'Even so, what?'
'Too smal . Too narrow. We'd never get through there.'
'The cat?' Repple suggested. 'If it can be repaired.'
'That'd take time we don't have.' As he spoke, the Doctor glanced down. Melissa and the Mechanicals were standing below, looking up at them. Blank and expressionless.
Freddie looked back up, and found that the Doctor was staring at him. He lined up his hands with the sides of the window, then lowered them, holding them apart and lining them up with
Freddie. It took Freddie a moment to work out what he was doing. Then he went cold with the realisation.
'Just about,' the Doctor said quietly. 'How about it, Freddie?'
Freddie swal owed, his throat dry. 'I'm... not sure.'
Repple was already reaching through the window and tearing away the mesh. It made a sound like a saw cutting into hard wood as it pul ed free. He hauled out the ragged mesh and dropped it to the leaded roof at their feet.
Even from where he was standing, looking up, Freddie could see the jagged edges of metal where the mesh had been torn out – sharp spikes jutting from the window edges. 'I won't fit,' he protested. 'I could get scratched. Cut.'
'Give it a go,' the Doctor said quietly. 'Freddie, I wouldn't ask if there was another way.' He crouched down, face level with Freddie's. 'You were a hero for us before, remember? Your chance to be a hero again.'
'Not just for us,' Repple said. 'For Rose.'
'For everyone,' the Doctor agreed. 'Al of London. Your parents, everyone.'
'Like Father,' Freddie murmured, remembering the look on his father's face – the mixture of satisfaction and fear and courage. He wondered if his own face looked the same.
'We can't make you, Freddie,' the Doctor was saying. 'We can only ask. It's your choice.'
Freddie sucked in a deep breath, slowly and careful y, afraid it might become a sob. 'I don't want to get hurt,' he said. 'But I'l do it.'
The Doctor grinned and slapped his shoulder. 'Good lad. I'l give you a bunk-up.' He lifted Freddie easily to the window ledge. 'Once inside, see if you can open the door. If not, then go and help Rose. Try to slow down Wyse.'
'What wil you do? If I can't get you in?'
'Don't worry. I have a plan. But it wil take time.'
It was a tight squeeze. Freddie reached his arms in ahead of him, scrunched himself up as tight and smal as he could. He could feel the stone sil hard and cold under him. He could feel the ragged remains of the mesh cover tearing at his clothes, and hoped and prayed he would not get stuck half in and half out.
The Doctor held on to his feet, to save him from fal ing through the window on to the hard stone stairs inside. It was a drop of perhaps four feet. If he wasn't careful, he would rol and tumble down to the bottom of the tower.
