Dr. Who - BBC New Series 48

by Borrowed Time # Naomi A Alderman

  Andrew and Sameera were fighting hand to hand.

  The Symingtons and Blenkinsops weren’t hard to take down, weren’t particularly tough. They threw chairs and lighting equipment at them, trying constantly to keep them back. Sameera was weaker now than she had been, but still summoned the strength to hurl a piece of camera equipment at an approaching Symington.

  She hit it in the mouth, and immediately half the other Symingtons in the room had bloody lips and a chipped tooth. Sameera stared for a moment before she got it.

  ‘If you hurt one, they all get hurt!’ she shouted.

  Rory kicked viciously at the knee of the Blenkinsop advancing on him. Several of the other Blenkinsops started to limp with varying degrees of severity.

  Sameera stamped on the toes of the one nearest to her, and several others winced.

  But there were too many of them, they were coming too quickly, they were attacking from all directions and

  seemed increasingly able to predict what would happen before it happened.

  ‘They’re remembering!’ shouted the Doctor, as one of the Blenkinsops perfectly dodged a large piece of expensive-looking video equipment Rory had thrown at it, and the Symington behind him caught it and threw it back.

  ‘Look! Look at those ones at the edges!’

  There were two Symingtons and Blenkinsops standing around the sides of the library. They looked less battle-weary than the others - their clothes were immaculate, there were no scratches on their faces. All the others were becoming increasingly bruised and battered from the fight, but the ones at the edges were fine.

  ‘They’re the earliest ones!’ shouted the Doctor.

  ‘Whatever they see, all the others remember!’

  He feinted jumping to the left, behind a bookcase, but instead jumped up onto the desk.

  ‘Target those ones with your camera, Rory! That’ll slow them down!’

  Rory turned the camera towards the Symingtons and Blenkinsops at the edge. But as he looked, the screen started to flash. ‘WARNING,’ it said, ‘ONLY

  ONE LUCKY ROMANCE MOMENT REMAINING.

  CHOOSE CAREFULLY YOUR SWEETHEART TIMES!’

  He hesitated, looking around for where he could get the most Symingtons and Blenkinsops in one camera bubble. And was this even the best moment to use it, he asked himself. Mightn’t they have more urgent need for it later? So hard to know…

  They knew he’d hesitate, of course, they’d seen him do

  it already. And when he paused for a moment, staring at the back of his camera, three Blenkinsops leapt forward, pushed Rory to the ground, and grabbed Amy.

  Amy struggled, screaming and kicking under the grip of the Blenkinsop who was holding her. Its mouth peeled back. Far too wide, far wider than any head should be able to open. The enormous mouth began to lower over Amy’s shoulder.

  ‘No!’ shouted Rory.

  A Symington put a hand on Rory’s shoulder. How had they all got so close, so quickly?

  ‘The terms of her contract are very clear,’ said Mr Symington. ‘She agreed to the contract. The terms must be fulfilled.’ He pulled Amy’s wrist out and tapped at her watch. The illuminated display flashed in the air: ‘BORROWED TIME TOTAL: 21 YEARS, 1 MONTH, 16

  DAYS.’

  ‘But, but… contracts can be renegotiated.’ Rory’s speech was choked. He took a deep breath. ‘Take me instead.’

  The Blenkinsop looked at Rory, a sullen unblinking expression on its shark-face.

  ‘Rory, no,’ said Amy.

  ‘We’re married,’ said Rory, softly, as though she were the only other person in the room. ‘Your debts are my debts.’ He stared at the Blenkinsop. ‘Her debts are my debts. Take me.’

  ‘No, Rory,’ said Amy. ‘You can’t… you can’t… It’s twenty years of your life, Rory, you can’t…’

  He shrugged and managed a lopsided smile. ‘You’ve always liked an older man -‘ he indicated the Doctor with a tip of his head - ‘you might even like me better

  twenty years older.’

  Blenkinsop looked between Rory and Amy. Its teeth retracted, its head became more human. ‘This transaction is legal according to the stipulations in the terms and conditions,’ it said.

  Rory held out his arm. The Blenkinsop let Amy go.

  It walked towards Rory, hands reaching out. Rory took a deep breath. Twenty years paid off all in one go was going to hurt. He closed his eyes. He didn’t see the Doctor step deftly in front of him.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the Doctor to the Blenkinsop.

  ‘Doctor,’ said Rory. ‘There’s nothing you can do, we’ll work something out, they can’t take it from Amy, she’s…’

  ‘I think you’ll find,’ said the Doctor to the Blenkinsop, ‘that your boss won’t be interested in these small fry any more, when you tell her…’ He took a deep breath.

  ‘When you mention to her that I’m familiar with the Time Market.’

  And all the noise of fighting fell away, and all the Symingtons and Blenkinsops were still and silent. And the lift doors binged.

  Vanessa Laing-Randall stalked out of the elevator.

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’ she shouted. ‘Who are all these people? And, might I add, who are you, Doctor? I just had a phone call from the Doctor Schmidt we were expecting from Zurich - he’s been unavoidably detained. So who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my bank?’

  ‘We know what you’ve been doing!’ Rory shouted at Vanessa. ‘We know everything about the watches,

  lending time, your loan sharks! We know everything, and we’re going to stop you!’

  Vanessa looked at Rory with a mixture of anger and bewilderment. ‘I have literally no idea what you’re babbling about,’ she said.

  ‘We know why the office’s work productivity has increased 300 per cent since you got here,’ shouted Andrew.

  Vanessa looked, if anything, even more confused.

  ‘I’m a highly efficient manager,’ she said. ‘Operational savings, cost analysis, motivation. The raft of measures I’ve introduced mean that—’

  ‘There’s no use lying any more!’ said Sameera, ‘Everyone can see what you’ve done to me.’

  Vanessa blinked. ‘Done to you? I don’t even know you. I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.’

  The Doctor looked at Vanessa. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I know you don’t.’

  He took a step towards the lift that Vanessa had walked out of. Its doors were still open. There was someone in there, someone small and quiet just waiting, half hidden in the lift.

  ‘But you do, don’t you, Jane?’ he shouted.

  Jane Blythe, the personal assistant, stepped out of the shadows.

  ‘I did wonder,’ she said, ‘how long it would take you to work that one out.’

  Chapter

  18

  Vanessa stared at Jane, her loyal assistant, the woman who’d worked tirelessly to help her rise to the top. She thought of all the times she’d been stumped for the perfect idea for a pitch only to find that Jane had happened to collate all the relevant documents for her in good time. Of how Jane seemed able to do five days’ work in an afternoon.

  Of how tireless she was, how dedicated.

  ‘Jane,’ she said, ‘what is going on? Do you know these people? Is this some kind of management training exercise I don’t understand?’

  ‘Oh, do shut up,’ spat Jane.

  Vanessa, who had never been spoken to like that in her life, shut up.

  ‘You can let them all go now,’ said the Doctor, gently.

  ‘You and I could just talk about what you’re doing here -

  necessary business practices I’m sure - and your sharks,’

  he motioned with his head toward the creature holding Amy, ‘could stand down.’

  ‘Oh, Doctor,’ said Jane. ‘You really haven’t the

  faintest idea what’s going on here, have you? You’re as foolish as Vanessa.’

  ‘How dare you—’ began
Vanessa.

  ‘Did you really think it was all you?’ said Jane. ‘Your leadership, your motivation, your clever little time-saving tips? Emails about updating your to-do list while brushing your teeth? Tricks for managing effective meetings?’

  ‘I’ve been highly praised by head office for my motivational techniques. I—’

  ‘You know nothing. Less than nothing. Did you really think that your motivational techniques could make people do ten days’ work in an afternoon? Did you really imagine that you were the magic factor that turned this office into a productivity machine in six months?’

  Vanessa really had thought so. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I…’

  And then she couldn’t think of anything to follow it up with, so she shut up again.

  ‘You are without doubt,’ Jane said, ‘one of the most self-satisfied, wilfully blind, arrogant, greedy people it has ever been my great delight to parasitise. You have been the perfect cover for me, and now I don’t need you any more.’

  ‘Now just wait a second!’ said Vanessa.

  ‘You don’t have to do this!’ shouted the Doctor.

  ‘Oh, Doctor,’ said Jane. ‘I don’t have to. But I want to.’

  One of the Symingtons put its hand very politely on Vanessa shoulder. Its jaws were slightly open, its triangular teeth visible.

  ‘You can’t… you can’t do anything to me,’ said

  Vanessa. ‘I never wore one of these watches.’

  ‘But you saw people wearing them, didn’t you?’ said Jane. ‘You saw and you said nothing, and you didn’t want to know. No one ever wants to know how the money is made, only that they’re making more.’

  ‘But I… you can’t do anything to me without a contract.’

  Jane smiled, thinly, and withdrew a slim document from her jacket pocket. ‘Did you ever think to read all the correspondence I asked you to sign? Did you ever stop to look at the little “sign here” flags and wonder what you were agreeing to?’

  She unfolded the paper. It was headed ‘Contract for the transfer of time,’ and Vanessa Laing-Randall’s signature was clear at the bottom.

  Vanessa started to squirm in the Symington’s grasp.

  ‘You can’t!’ she said. ‘Not after everything I’ve done for you, not after we rose to the top together. You can’t forget all that and—’

  ‘Jane, don’t do it this way,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Don’t-‘

  ‘Unless you want it to be Amy instead, Doctor, you’ll keep your mouth shut,’ said Jane. ‘You never had the slightest idea what was going on,’ she said to Vanessa, as the Symington’s shark teeth closed on Vanessa’s shoulder and her skin began to wrinkle. ‘After all, a good PA always knows more than her boss.’

  Vanessa’s screams rose higher and thinner, turned into a little wailing squeak and then, as her desiccated body twitched under the Symington’s bite, into a tiny sigh. The husk fell to the floor, light and dry as sand.

  There was a long silence in the atrium.

  At last, Sameera said: ‘You tricked us. We tried to help you, and you tricked us.’

  ‘Oh, you do catch on fast,’ said Jane.

  ‘You can’t win!’ shouted Sameera. ‘Everyone in the world has seen this broadcast! Everyone knows what you’re doing now - no one will borrow any more time from you.’

  Jane looked at Sameera’s wrinkled face. ‘Time hasn’t been kind to you, my dear.’

  Andrew put his arm around Sameera’s shoulders.

  ‘You can’t fool anyone now,’ he said. ‘This broadcast has gone worldwide.’

  Jane shook her head. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid not.

  You see, one or two of us heard what you were about to do. We blocked the transmission. The only people who saw your noble gesture were the people in this building.

  You can’t stop me that way, I’m afraid. We will always be one step ahead of you. Time travel - makes plots so very difficult to foil.’

  Andrew stood with his arms around Sameera as she stared ahead, blinking hard to keep the tears back.

  ‘Now, Doctor.’ Jane smiled thinly. ‘What was that you were saying to my esteemed colleagues here about the Time Market?’

  ‘Do you really mean “colleagues”? It’s just that I was beginning to suspect that…’

  ‘You’re very perspicacious.’

  ‘You’re all the same organism, aren’t you? Head and tails, or rather in your case tail and heads. Are you the earliest?’

  Jane smiled. The Symingtons and Blenkinsops smiled too, unnerving grins breaking out on a hundred scarred and bruised faces.

  Too, too clever. I shall be delighted to discover exactly where you found all this out… and then go back in time to make sure you never find it out in the first place. Yes, I’m the first. These are all my… what can I call us?’

  Tendrils?’ volunteered a Symington.

  ‘Fronds?’ suggested a Blenkinsop.

  ‘Appendages?’ offered another.

  ‘Excrescences?’ said yet another.

  ‘Something like that,’ said Jane, patting a Symington gently on the arm. ‘I am a tree trunk and these are the branches. Aren’t they lovely? Back and forth, back and forth in time, constantly growing and expanding, each new one remembering everything the previous ones have experienced. Does it get boring, dears?’

  ‘Not at all,’ smiled the Symington, ‘we all work together for the good of the team, wasn’t that Vanessa Laing-Randall’s motto?’

  ‘Quite right. We’re all,’ said Jane, ‘exceptionally good team players. Now, back to that delicious thing you mentioned earlier, Doctor.’

  Treacle tart? Did I say treacle tart? I can’t remember if I did, though treacle tarts are delicious. Nice sculpture you’ve got there,’ said the Doctor, staring at the glass shape in the atrium. ‘I’ve kept on wondering what it was about it that appealed to me so much, and now I think I begin to understand. Because you haven’t actually called in much of the time you’re owed, have you? You haven’t—’

  A Blenkinsop grabbed Amy’s left arm and twisted it behind her back until she screamed out.

  Time Market,’ said Jane again. ‘Do go on, I have all the time in the world.’

  The Doctor stared at Jane. He turned to look at Rory, still brandishing his camera, and Amy struggling in the Blenkinsop’s grip.

  ‘Rory, Amy,’ he said. ‘You know I trust you implicitly.’

  ‘Doctor?’ said Rory, in a worried tone.

  ‘If I tell you what I know, Jane,’ said the Doctor, ‘will you forgive Amy’s debt? Will you let her go free?’

  ‘Well that depends, Doctor, on what you’ve got to tell. After all, she has racked up quite substantial borrowings.’ Jane tapped on her smartphone and drew in breath sharply over her teeth. ‘Twenty-five years, goodness me. Do you think you could pay that off for her, Doctor?’

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘If I promise to pay it off and tell you what I know, will you let her go?’

  Jane shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. Now tell me.’

  ‘First let her go.’

  The Blenkinsop holding Amy dragged her over to the Doctor and held out her watch arm to him.

  ‘To indicate that you are paying off this being’s time debts and agree to assume those debts yourself, press here.’

  A button on the watch illuminated.

  ‘Careful, Doctor,’ said Jane. ‘Twenty-five years all in one go can smart, you know.’

  The Doctor looked Jane directly in the eye and pressed the button.

  Amy’s watch strap undid itself.

  The watch fell to the floor, the glass face shattered on the marble tiles.

  The Doctor didn’t flinch.

  ‘But you…’ Jane blinked, unsure of herself for the first time since she’d revealed herself. She took a pace towards him. ‘You didn’t age.’

  The Doctor looked uncomfortable. He said nothing.

  Amy wondered if he’d revealed too much.

  All the Symingtons and Blenki
nsops were staring at the Doctor now. Rory noticed that all of them were breathing in unison. In and out, in and out. Chests rising and falling, breathing fast with excitement.

  Jane walked up to the Doctor, touched the cuff of his sleeve, the back of his hand with a light, reverent gesture.

  ‘It can’t be. They told me all of you were gone,’ she said. ‘They swore there were none left and never would be or would have been, ever again.’

  ‘Hey,’ said the Doctor, snatching his hand away, ‘don’t paw. And don’t believe everything you hear.’

  ‘You’re a…’

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘Yeah, I know. Unicom.’

  Jane’s voice was a dazed whisper. ‘Time Lord. I did not think to live so long.’

  The Symingtons and Blenkinsops rearranged themselves on the floor of the building. It wasn’t that they moved. It was more that they had suddenly always been in these new positions. Across the exits, flanking Jane, all of them facing the Doctor, as if they couldn’t bear to look at anything else.

  Doctor, what’s going on?’ asked Amy.

  The Doctor smiled at her. ‘I think our friend the

  Time Harvester here has just worked out how to make a killing on the market.’

  ‘A mere formality, Doctor,’ said Jane. ‘You and I both understand that no physical prison can hold you. It would be as if a two-dimensional creature drew a circle around your feet and imagined that it had trapped you.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ said the Doctor. ‘All depends an what kind of locks they put on.’

  ‘But you…’

  The Doctor sighed ‘Come on, then. Enough of the standing around gawping. I’m not a circus freak. Let’s see… I don’t know, will you let Andrew here go if I wear one of your watches?’

  ‘You would wear… I don’t understand.’

  ‘Can’t see how to make it any simpler. Andrew owes you a notional 55,000 years, probably gone up a bit in the past few hours actually, how long has it been since we checked Andrew? Five hours? Maybe you owe them 100,000 years, these things mount up quickly. So let’s say, you put a watch on me, tap directly into my time stream, and in exchange you forgive Andrew his debt?