Dr. Who - BBC New Series 47

by Touched by an Angel # Jonathan Morris

  ‘It’s like they’re waiting for something,’ said Amy from somewhere behind Rory. ‘Why haven’t they attacked?’

  ‘They’re running low on fuel,’ said the Doctor. ‘They won’t do anything unless we try to escape or get to Mark’s car. They’ll want to conserve their energy until the paradox takes place.’

  ‘And then?’ said Rory nervously.

  ‘Oh, then we’re all dead,’ said the Doctor nonchalantly.

  ‘It’s either us or Rebecca.’ He turned back to Mark. The two Weeping Angels were now between him and the Doctor. Mark stood staring at them in horror, stumbling backwards. Then he turned and broke into a run, quickly disappearing into the total darkness.

  ‘So what do you suggest we do now?’ said Rory, waving his torch between the Angels. They were getting closer all the time. Soon they’d be within touching distance.

  ‘Rory. You know how you’ve always wanted to be my secretary?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well now’s your chance.’ The Doctor rummaged in his pockets and retrieved a notepad and pencil. He rapidly scribbled a note on the pad, before handing it to Rory along with the wallet containing his psychic paper. ‘Look after this for me. May come in handy.’ He flipped a card out of his sleeve like a magician and gave it to Rory.

  ‘Psychic credit card, don’t go mad.’

  ‘Sorry, why are you giving me your stuff?’ said Rory, putting the pad, wallet and card in his jacket. ‘And what do you mean, “come in handy”?’

  ‘You’re going to run a little errand for me.’ The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Fez Rory as though checking

  something. Fez Rory nodded. The Doctor nodded back, then turned to Rory and gave him a reassuring smile which only served to make him more worried. ‘I need you to pop back to the TARDIS. You think you can do that?’

  Rory aimed his torch at the nearest Weeping Angel, the one cutting off their route back up the hill. It reached out towards him with both arms. If he was quick, he might be able to slip past it. I’ll give it my best shot,’ said Rory. ‘But you still haven’t—’

  ‘Then go,’ urged the Doctor. ‘Now! Go! ‘

  Rory took a deep breath and hurled himself towards the Weeping Angel. All the time concentrating on keeping his torch trained on its face and not blinking.

  Without warning his right foot snagged on what felt like a length of rope and Rory tripped over, landing heavily on his front. The torch rolled out of his fingers.

  For a moment, Rory had the sensation of being extremely cold and damp, his hands and face drenched in slimy mud.

  He strained his eyes to look around him but could only see darkness. He reached out, desperately trying to find the torch. But instead he felt the touch of something made of stone.

  And then Rory wasn’t in 2003 any more.

  Chapter

  17

  ‘Rory!’ screamed Amy. ‘Rory! No!’

  It had happened in an instant. There hadn’t been a flash or a sound. Rory had simply disappeared into the blackness like a light being switched off. Amy aimed her torch towards where she’d heard him fall. The thin light picked out an empty patch of glistening grass and a Weeping Angel, reaching down towards the ground with an outstretched hand.

  Amy’s heart pounded. He’d gone. Her brave husband Rory had gone. He’d been touched by a Weeping Angel.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said future Rory, removing his Fez. ‘He’s just been sent back to 2001. Didn’t hurt a bit. Though you do get this sort of garlic-y taste in your mouth which takes ages to shift.’

  ‘You mean, that was how you ended up back there…’

  Amy turned and thumped the Doctor on the arm. ‘You knew that would happen!’

  The Doctor nodded, then looked up in alarm. There was another flash of blue lightning and a clap of thunder.

  But instead of fading, the lightning lingered, sending

  bright trails of light zigzagging across the grass like bouncing snakes.

  ‘Rory,’ said the Doctor. ‘Did you manage to complete my little errand?’

  ‘Little errand?’ said Rory. ‘Hardly little. Insanely complicated, more like!’

  ‘Sorry, what errand would that be?’ said Amy.

  ‘Just before Rory went back in time I jotted down a note,’ said the Doctor, his eyes darting between the six Angels that surrounded them, as though daring them to move. ‘Containing instructions on what to do when he arrived in 2001. Well?’

  ‘Yeah, I did it,’ Rory sighed. ‘Took me four weeks to convince the farmer I wasn’t having a laugh. If I got it right, the “on” switch should be on the ground somewhere around here.’

  ‘What “on” switch?’ said Amy as the Doctor and Rory swept their torch lights over the turf at their feet.

  ‘Here it is! Yes! You beauty!’ announced Rory. The beam of his torch illuminated a thick cable twisting through the grass. It was so well-concealed, Amy would never have spotted it if she hadn’t been looking for it. With a start she realised that it was this cable that Rory - the other Rory, the one who had vanished – had tripped over only a few seconds ago.

  ‘What’s that doing there?’ said Amy. ‘Will somebody please tell me what’s going on!’

  Rory’s beam ran along the cable to where it joined several other cables at a black box with a big red switch.

  All very heavy-duty, the sort of thing you’d expect to find

  backstage at a rock concert.

  ‘Found it!’ announced Rory joyfully, before he gave a frightened yelp as his torchlight illuminated the two motionless white figures that were standing on either side of the switch, their hands outstretched, leering at him mockingly. ‘Oh. Whoops.’

  The Weeping Angels were between them and the black box. Whatever that red switch did, there was no way they could reach it.

  His heart thumping hard in his chest, Mark paused to catch his breath as he reached the gate, drawing in deep lungfuls of ice-cold air, lifting his head to let the rain cool his face.

  His SUV remained in the road, its lights on full-beam.

  Mark glanced up and down the lane, but found no sign of any traffic. But in a couple of minutes, a heavy goods lorry would be accelerating down that lane towards him.

  Mark wiped his eyes, wet with rain and aching from tears, and glanced back up into the field. Electric torches danced in the darkness. The Doctor, Amy, Rory and the other Rory in a Fez. Except there seemed to be only the three of them now. The Angels had formed a ring around them, as though performing a circle dance.

  There was another rumble of thunder and flicker of electric blue light.

  The Doctor’s words echoed in his ears. ‘It’s either us or Rebecca.’ And what had he done? He’d run away and left them to die. But that wasn’t his fault, Mark told himself.

  He couldn’t save them, not from the Weeping Angels. He

  couldn’t.

  That wasn’t the only thing the Doctor had said that preyed on his mind. If he saved Rebecca, then according to the Doctor he would change not just the future, but the past. He would lose not just all those long, lonely years of grief, but also all the time he’d had with her.

  Because if he’d never travelled in time, everything would have been different. That night at the students’

  union when they’d kissed on the rooftop wouldn’t have happened. He probably wouldn’t have gone to Rome with her, he wouldn’t have been able to afford it if his future self hadn’t given him that winning lottery ticket. And even if he had gone, he wouldn’t have got his wallet back after it was stolen so they wouldn’t have gone to the Capitoline Museum. And they wouldn’t have got together at the museum had it not been for his future self, the Doctor, Amy and Rory locking them in.

  Mark thought back to all the other times he’d had with Rebecca. The most precious pages in his book of memories. All the times he’d met her for coffee to discuss their relationship troubles. The day they moved into their first flat together. Their wedding day. And the time after Rebecca
had been in that accident and they’d spent two weeks in their flat together, watching videos and DVDs.

  The saddest part of all was that there weren’t enough memories. He wanted more. He deserved more. He regretted to the core of his being all the nights he’d worked late when he could have been with Rebecca.

  He would give anything, anything in the world just to have one more hour with her. To have just one more

  memory. It had been that single driving wish, that burning feeling of injustice, that had kept him going for the past seventeen years.

  He had to have Rebecca back. If he didn’t, what was the point? What had it all been for?

  But if what the Doctor said was true, then all those memories would be taken from him. And people would die. Innocent people would die, and it would all be because of him. Rebecca wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want to be the reason why that happened.

  Mark looked back up the hill, to where the Doctor and his friends were surrounded by the Weeping Angels.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ choked Mark, stifling a sob as he walked over to his car. ‘I’m sorry, Rebecca.’

  Rory backed away from the two Weeping Angels in front of him, flashing his torchlight from one to the other. He backed into the Doctor, busy trying to keep his own two Weeping Angels at bay. ‘It’s no good,’ said Rory. ‘I can’t reach the “On” switch. I messed up, and now we’re trapped and are probably going to die.’

  ‘It’s not over yet, I should be able to activate it with this,’ said the Doctor, deftly raising his sonic screwdriver.

  Which failed to light up or make any sound. ‘Oh. That would’ve been a lot more impressive had it actually worked. No, you were right with the first thing you said.’

  There was another boom of thunder and crackle of lightning. It lit up the Angels’ faces. They were snarling hungrily, their jagged teeth bared, their tongues lolling, their foreheads ridged in scowls of hatred, their eyes

  hideous staring blank orbs of stone.

  Rory held them back using his torchlight. The light grew dimmer. Rory shook the torch and banged it with the palm of his hand, but it didn’t get any brighter. ‘Doctor.

  The torches—’

  ‘The Angels are draining the energy,’ said the Doctor. ‘I know. Hence my sonic trouble.’

  Rory flashed the feeble beam back towards the Angels.

  They were now less than a metre away, reaching towards him with their long, claw-like fingers. The torchlight was now so weak he had to strain his eyes just to make out the shape of the Angels in the darkness.

  ‘Rory,’ said Amy. ‘I don’t think I can keep them back much—’ She gave a short scream.

  Rory spun around to see Amy standing perfectly still, her eyes wide with terror, a Weeping Angel’s arm coiling around her neck, almost but not quite making contact with her skin. The Weeping Angel’s mouth hung open lasciviously, like a vampire about to sink its fangs into her jugular.

  ‘Don’t stop looking at it, Rory’, begged Amy. ‘Don’t look away. And please, whatever you do, d-d-don’t blink!’

  Rory kept his eyes glued to the Weeping Angel, but as the light from his torch faded away, it slowly but surely disappeared into the darkness.

  Suddenly the roar of a car engine filled the air and Amy and the Weeping Angel were caught in the lurching beams of an approaching pair of headlights.

  Rory didn’t dare look away from Amy, he didn’t dare blink, even as he heard the car draw nearer and come to a

  halt, even as he heard the sound of the car door slamming and someone running towards them.

  ‘Mark,’ shouted the Doctor. Press the big red switch!

  On the ground by your feet!’

  K-chunk! K-chunk! K-chunk!

  There was a brilliant, dazzling light. Temporarily blinded, Rory blinked.

  When he looked again, when his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he found that the Weeping Angel hadn’t moved. It still had its arm wrapped around Amy, but the fact that the electric lamps had come on meant that the Doctor’s plan had worked.

  The Weeping Angels were still in a circle around them, all frozen in position as they lunged forward, clutching at the air. But outside the circle of Angels, about six metres away, there was a second circle of six powerful halogen lamps mounted at ground level, all shining inwards. And beside each of the lamps was a video camera, on a tripod, pointing inwards, and beside each camera was a television monitor showing six pictures from six different angles of the Weeping Angels. They were standing in the middle of a ring of cameras.

  Mark was crouching beside the big red ‘On’ switch.

  ‘It’s all right,’ the Doctor reassured Amy. ‘They’re not going to move.’ With some difficulty, he helped her squeeze out of the Weeping Angel’s embrace.

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Amy once she was free, shielding her eyes against the glare of the lamps.

  ‘Nothing,’ said the Doctor with a generous smile. ‘You have Rory to thank for this.’

  ‘Rory?’ said Amy incredulously.

  ‘Yeah, well, all in a month’s work,’ said Rory. ‘Though to be fair, it was the Doctor’s idea.’ He pulled the Doctor’s notebook out of his jacket. Flipping open the cover, he showed Amy the contents; a page of almost illegible instructions from the Doctor on what to do in 2001, along with a diagram on how to set up the video cameras.

  ‘ What was?’ said Amy, turning from Angel to Angel, making sure that they’d stopped moving.

  The Doctor pocketed his torch. ‘It’s quite simple. The Weeping Angels are quantum-locked, meaning they can only move if they’re not being observed.’

  ‘I know that, you have mentioned it once or twice.’

  ‘So what we’ve done,’ said the Doctor. ‘Is to arrange things so that each Weeping Angel is not only being observed, but is also observing itself and all the other Weeping Angels.’

  Amy peered at one of the monitors. ‘You mean this is showing the pictures from all the cameras at once?’

  ‘And there’s nowhere you can stand where you’re not looking towards one of the monitors,’ said Rory. ‘Every direction is covered.’ It had taken him the best part of a month to set it all up; travelling down to locate the exact spot, then persuading a video equipment company to not only set up a specific arrangement of lights, cameras and monitors, but to do it on a specific date, two years in the future. And then he’d had to convince the farmer who owned the land to let them do this. Rory had only managed to get everything sorted the evening before he was due to meet the Doctor and Amy. If he’d learned one

  thing during his time in 2001, it was this; it’s amazing what people will agree to if you’re prepared to pay cash in advance.

  When they’d first arrived in the TARDIS, he’d been terrified that the Doctor might lead them to the wrong part of the field. But he needn’t have worried; of course they would all end up in the right spot, because that’s what they’d done last time. And although Rory had caught the occasional glimpse of the cameras, lamps and monitors, because he knew where to look, they were all sufficiently well hidden by the grass not to be seen by the Doctor, Amy, his former self - or, more importantly, by the Angels.

  ‘So you led the Angels into a trap?’ said Amy. ‘Using us as the bait!’

  ‘Bait and switch! They should know better than to put me in a trap!’ The Doctor walked over to Mark. ‘You came back,’ said the Doctor delicately.

  Mark nodded, blinking back tears, his breathing shallow. ‘I could hardly let you die, could I?’

  ‘Had me worried for a moment there, though,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Doctor! The Angels!’ shouted Amy.

  Rory turned to see the five Weeping Angels begin to flicker and fade away, like the picture on a television screen during interference.

  ‘They’re too weak to maintain their corporeal forms,’

  explained the Doctor. ‘And as they’re quantum-locked, there’s only one way left for them to go…’

  In a few moments th
ey were all transparent, their

  stonework fizzling like static, and then, in an instant, they all vanished.

  ‘Go?’ said Amy. ‘Go where?’

  The Doctor nodded to one of the monitors. On the screen Rory could see the Weeping Angel, staring out at him in grainy, flickering black-and-white, its hands pressed against the glass as though it was trying to break through. Rory looked in the next monitor along. The story was the same. Each screen showed an Angel, trapped behind the glass, an indistinct grey mass.

  ‘Caught in a closed circuit! This is our chance. Do what I do!’ The Doctor rushed over to one of the cameras, lifted it by the tripod, then positioned it so that it faced towards the monitor to which it was connected.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Rory.

  The Doctor flicked a switch. ‘I’m sending them into infinity.’

  The Weeping Angel on the screen gained a line of identical ghostly Angels behind it. This then dissolved into a swirling, looping pattern of fog which rapidly faded to blackness.

  The Doctor, Amy and Rory repeated the process on the remaining Angels. It was only when they reached the sixth monitor and discovered that it was blank that Rory realised something was amiss. ‘Doctor. One of our Weeping Angels is missing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There were six. One of them must’ve got away.’

  The Doctor looked briefly alarmed, but then he peered up at the night sky. There hadn’t been a rumble of thunder

  or flash of lightning since Mark had returned. The Doctor turned towards him. ‘You moved your car,’ said the Doctor. ‘There’s not going to be a paradox. History isn’t going to be changed. That’s what weakened the Angels…’

  Mark nodded sadly and then turned back down the hill.

  The headlights of a heavy goods lorry flashed out of the darkness. It accelerated down the steep country lane, past where Mark’s car had been parked, and onwards into the night.

  And then, just for a moment, the lorry’s red taillights illuminated the shape of a figure at the edge of the field.

  ‘Doctor, the Weeping Angel!’ said Rory ‘Where’s it going?’