Doctor Who: Apollo 23

by Richards, Justin

  The Doctor froze. ‘You did what?’

  ‘Least of our problems,’ Carlisle hissed.

  ‘But she drank it. I can’t just stick my finger down her throat…’ The Doctor hesitated, inspecting his fingers as he considered. ‘No, no I can’t.’

  ‘Can’t what, Doctor?’ Jackson demanded as he reached the bottom of the stairs and stood close behind Amy. ‘Do enlighten us.’

  As she was standing in front of him, Jackson couldn’t see Amy’s expressionless face relax into a smile. Then she winked.

  ‘Whatever you do,’ she said to the Doctor and Carlisle, ‘don’t try to… Run!’

  On ‘Run’ she turned and fired the gun at the nearest light. The fluorescent tube exploded, sparks showering down.

  Reeve gave a cry of surprise and anger. Jackson dashed forwards.

  Amy was backing away up the stairs after the Doctor and Carlisle, aiming the gun back at the soldiers. ‘You running yet?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t hear you running.’ She turned to race after them.

  The Doctor and Carlisle ran, with Amy close behind. But not close enough. A hand grabbed her ankle, pulling her leg away from under her. She crashed painfully down on the metal stairs.

  The Doctor turned – started back to where Reeve was dragging Amy down the steps.

  But Carlisle grabbed his arm. ‘We can’t help her if we’re all caught. With us free she has a chance – come on!’

  They took the rest of the stairs two at a time, hearing the booted feet of the soldiers echoing after them. The door at the top had been smashed open. The Doctor pulled it shut again behind them, heaving and jamming it in place.

  ‘They got Amy,’ he said. But he was grinning like a maniac. ‘She’s OK – she got her mind back.’

  ‘Seems so. Because she drank the water?’

  ‘Must be,’ the Doctor said. He scratched his head, exciting his hair into spikes. ‘They must be using a holographic storage model. The complete dataset is repeated in every tiny drop of water. Like if you break a hologram, each broken piece doesn’t just show a broken part of the whole like a jigsaw puzzle. They each hold a smaller version of the complete picture. How diluted must that data have been by the time it hit her bloodstream? But her brain managed to get the information out and rebuild her mind. Filled in the blanks.’ He shook his head in awe. ‘You humans are wonderful.’

  The door trembled and shook as someone tried to wrench it open from the other side.

  ‘Doctor,’ Carlisle said with exaggerated patience, ‘I’m very happy for Amy, and I’m glad you know all about holograms. But she’s a prisoner – they’ll just blank her again and this time they might not keep a copy. Plus we’re trapped on a base on the dark side of the moon that’s been taken over by invading aliens. Maybe we should get away from here before they open that door?’

  There was a wrenching, scraping sound from the door. It opened a centimetre, then jammed again.

  ‘I suppose,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘But we’re not going far. As soon as they’re out, I need to go back down there.’

  ‘But we just escaped from back down there.’

  The Doctor strode off down the corridor. ‘Yes, but that was before I had a plan.’

  Carlisle hurried after him. ‘And now you do?’

  The Doctor spun round and grabbed Carlisle’s shoulders, looking her right in the face. ‘Oh boy, do I have a plan,’ he said.

  They waited in a storeroom off the main corridor. Carlisle assured the Doctor that Jackson and the others would have to pass this way en route from the cavern housing the computer facility to the Process Chamber.

  The Doctor held the door open just a fraction. He sat cross-legged on the floor, looking out. Carlisle stood beside him, also watching.

  They didn’t have to wait very long before Jackson strode angrily past, followed by Reeve. Several soldiers escorted Amy after them. She looked glum but defiant.

  ‘See you soon, Pond,’ the Doctor murmured.

  ‘I was afraid you were about to mount a daring but foolhardy rescue attempt,’ Carlisle said after they’d gone.

  The Doctor eased the door open. ‘I am. But not in the way they expect.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  The Doctor checked both ways along the corridor before stepping out of the room. ‘I assume you know where the controls are for the fire-fighting systems.’

  Carlisle nodded. ‘Main control room. Why?’

  ‘Because that’s where I need you to be.’

  ‘You want me to make sure the fire control systems don’t work?’

  ‘No no no. That’s the last thing I want.’ The Doctor took a deep breath, sucking air through his teeth. ‘I want you to make sure no one can override the system and turn it off.’

  ‘And where will you be? Starting a fire?’

  ‘Only a metaphorical one.’

  Carlisle frowned. ‘Do you ever explain anything properly?’

  ‘All right, you want an explanation? I’ll keep it simple. If you take a glass of water, right? And you throw it into the ocean, OK?’

  ‘The glass?’

  ‘Just the water in the glass. Well, doesn’t matter for the explanation, but throwing stuff other than water into the sea isn’t generally good. Now you mix up the ocean, let’s just pretend you can do that, so that the glass of water you just threw in is mixed in with all the other water – millions of billions of litres of water.’

  ‘With the water from my glass in there somewhere all mixed up. So what?’

  ‘So now comes the clever part. You take the glass you didn’t throw in as well, and you scoop out another glassful of water from the same ocean. Doesn’t matter where from. What have you got?’

  Carlisle blinked, then shrugged. ‘A glass of salty water, I guess.’

  ‘Exactly. But in that water, mixed in somewhere, is just a tiny part – a few molecules – of the same glass of water you started with. Guaranteed.’

  Major Carlisle thought about that. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’

  ‘Have you, like, done it?’

  The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘OK, so no, I haven’t actually done it as such. But there are so many molecules of water in that one glass that you’d get some of them back again no matter where you scooped out your second glass.’

  ‘And this somehow relates to your plan?’

  ‘It does.’

  Carlisle nodded. ‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing, because I still don’t have a clue.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing,’ the Doctor told her confidently. ‘I’m just not sure if it will work.’

  There was no point in fighting. Amy had tried that last time and it did no good. She needed to slow them down to give the Doctor as much time as possible to rescue her. She knew he would, somehow. She walked as slowly as she dared. She took her time getting into the chair on the Process Chamber. She clenched her muscles, hoping that would leave some slack after they tied the straps.

  Nurse Phillips watched her. Judging by her smile, she was obviously enjoying Amy’s predicament.

  ‘There will be some pain,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll remember.’

  ‘I’ll remember all right,’ Amy told her. ‘And you’ve been through it too, you know.’

  ‘Not me. This body, but not me.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Jackson snapped. ‘Start setting things up. Full transmission will start soon, and I want her blanked before that and ready to receive the next available Talerian.’

  Jackson took over from the nurse, strapping Amy’s ankles first. Amy just smiled.

  ‘He’ll stop you,’ she said quietly, surprised at how confident she sounded. ‘He always does.’

  Jackson didn’t answer. But he hesitated just long enough for Amy to know he was worried. He flinched as the phone on the wall buzzed.

  ‘Probably him now,’ Amy said. ‘Don’t keep him waiting.’

  ‘Quiet!
’ Jackson snarled. He crossed the room and picked up the phone. ‘Yes?’

  Amy watched Jackson frown.

  ‘He’s what? But that makes no sense at all, what’s he doing down there?’ Jackson listened for a while before answering. ‘I have no idea, but you’d better get down there and stop him. We don’t need his body, we’ll soon have plenty of those. It’s a pity, because the Doctor’s body would make a good receptacle. But he has become more trouble than his body is worth. So kill him.’ Jackson slammed the phone back on to its cradle.

  Amy was at once full of excitement and trepidation. Did the Doctor know they’d discovered whatever he was up to? Knowing him, that could be part of his plan. But then again, knowing the Doctor, it might not have occurred to him at all…

  ‘It’s started,’ she said calmly. ‘I told you, you’ve got no chance.’

  Jackson yanked the straps tight around her wrists.

  There were too many of them in the Control Room. Carlisle knew from the computer index that almost all of the soldiers had been taken over. To make matters worse, Captain Reeve was there. She’d hoped he’d gone to the Process Chamber with Jackson, but here he was using the security cameras to try to find the Doctor.

  It wasn’t long before one of the soldiers spotted the Doctor heading back towards the Computer Facility. Reeve called Jackson, and then hurried out, taking all but one of the soldiers with him.

  Carlisle didn’t have time to worry about the Doctor. She had a job to do, and for the first time since she’d woken up strapped into the chair in the Process Chamber, she felt in control.

  The soldier turned as she entered the Control Room. Major Carlisle smiled at him, and he nodded and turned back to his work.

  A moment later, he seemed to realise who had just come in. ‘Hang on –’

  The soldier started to turn in his seat, reaching for his sidearm. But Major Carlisle’s own gun thumped into the side of his head, sending him sprawling across the control console.

  ‘Getting to be a habit,’ she murmured as she shifted the soldier’s unconscious body out of the way and set about accessing the fire suppression systems.

  ‘Step away from the controls, Doctor.’ Reeve’s shout echoed round the cavern. ‘Now! Or I’ll shoot you dead where you stand.’

  The Doctor punched a final key, nodded with satisfaction, and stepped aside. Reeve and several soldiers came running up.

  ‘What have you done?’ Reeve demanded.

  ‘Not much. Just changed some routings.’

  One of the soldiers was typing rapidly, watching the display screen as he displayed a log of recent actions.

  ‘Well?’ Reeve demanded.

  ‘He’s changed the flow, opened some valves, accessed computer storage.’ The soldier shook his head. ‘Doesn’t make any sense. It looks from this like he’s vented the inert gas from the fire systems and filled the tank with…’ The soldier checked the readings in a smaller window on the screen. ‘With water from the reservoir, and also from data storage.’

  ‘What data did he use?’ Reeve held his gun close to the Doctor’s face. ‘I hope you think it was worth it.’

  ‘I think it was worth it,’ the Doctor said.

  The soldier looked up at Reeve. ‘He used the back-ups. The water storing all the human mind imprints.’

  ‘The Doctor was looking distinctly pleased with himself. ‘That’s right. You’re all in there, I’m pleased to say. All mixed up together in the fire suppression tank. Molecules swirling round. The tiniest part of your data in every drip and drop of water in there.’

  Reeve laughed. ‘I don’t know what you thought you were doing, but you’ve destroyed them. You’ve killed all those people you were so desperate to save.’

  ‘You think so?’ the Doctor murmured.

  Reeve glanced away, just for a second, sharing the joke with the other soldiers. Just a second, but it was all the Doctor needed. He whipped out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the nearest fire alarm – on the opposite wall.

  The small glass panel on the alarm point shattered. A siren cut in immediately. The display screen the soldier was using flashed up a message:

  Fire Alert – Inert Gas Sprinklers Activated.

  ‘It’ll take a little while for the water to get along the pipes to the sprinklers,’ the Doctor said. He almost had to shout to be heard above the alarm. ‘Major Carlisle should have locked open all the internal doors and bulkheads, and rigged it so all the sprinklers will go off, not just the ones in this area. I also opened a constant flow from the main reservoir so there’ll be plenty of water.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ Reeve said. ‘If Jackson had wiped your mind, he’d have done you a favour. As it is, he won’t need to.’

  Reeve took a step back. He gripped his gun in both hands, aiming straight at the Doctor. On the far side of the cavern, water burst from a roof-mounted sprinkler. Then from another, and another. All across the vast space, water fell like rain.

  ‘I might have known you didn’t really have a plan at all,’ Reeve said. His finger tightened on the trigger.

  ‘I have a brilliant plan. The only downside…’ the Doctor told Reeve as a sprinkler directly above showered water down around them ‘… is that we all get wet.’

  ‘The only downside,’ Reeve retorted, ‘is that you die.’ He pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot echoed off the rock walls.

  Chapter

  22

  The water was cold on her face, running down her cheeks like tears. Major Carlisle stared at the monitor showing the images from several security cameras in astonishment.

  ‘How in hell has he done that?’ she said out loud. She laughed. ‘That’s brilliant. Bizarre, but brilliant.’ She had to get back to the computer facility and ask him to explain what was going on. No, she decided, first she had to get to the Process Chamber and check that Amy was all right.

  Carlisle ran from the control room. The images from the cameras showed soldiers and scientists all round the base – just standing absolutely still. Their heads were nodded forwards, as if they had simply fallen asleep.

  ‘I am so glad to see you,’ Amy said as Major Carlisle undid the straps holding her into the chair. ‘How did the Doctor do it? No, forget that – first tell me what he’s done.’

  The last strap came free, and Carlisle stepped back to let Amy out of the process chair. Nearby, a soldier stood lazily as if he was asleep. His head was nodded forward on his chest and his eyes were closed. Water from the sprinklers ran down his face and dripped from his hair.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Carlisle said. ‘Everyone’s like this. Nurse Phillips is the same in the observation room, just like the guards outside.’

  ‘Everyone except Jackson,’ Amy told her. ‘He legged it when the guard there got the slumps. It’s like…’ She rubbed furiously at her wrists to try to get some circulation back. ‘It’s like that soldier was when he blanked out after sabotaging the systems.’

  ‘Is that what the Doctor’s done? Blanked them all again somehow?’

  ‘Let’s ask him. And he needs to know it didn’t work on Jackson, so come on.’

  ‘Let’s hope we can turn these sprinklers off soon.’

  They passed several soldiers on the way. All of them were slumped forward, as if sleeping. By the time they reached the cavern, Amy and Carlisle were both completely drenched.

  ‘I’ll never be dry again,’ Amy complained.

  ‘I suppose it is just water,’ Carlisle said as they started down the steps. Water ran and dripped through the metal mesh of the treads under their feet.

  ‘Oh thanks for that,’ Amy said. ‘Goodness knows how much of it I’ve swallowed.’

  ‘But it hasn’t affected us.’

  ‘Apart from making us wet. Still…’ Amy said as they reached the bottom of the step and saw the Doctor. Despite the situation, she couldn’t stop herself from laughing at the sight. ‘Could be worse.’

  He was holding up Captain Reeve’s slumped body from b
ehind, standing directly under a sprinkler head. The water splashed and cascaded off the two of them. The Doctor’s hair was plastered down the side of his face, covering one eye. He glared at Amy.

  ‘It’s not that funny,’ he said.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Amy shouted above the sound of the water.

  ‘If I let him go, he’ll fall.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have moved him,’ Carlisle said. ‘The others are balanced all right.’

  Several soldiers were standing close by, heads bowed and shoulders slumped. Another was sprawled forwards over a keyboard and display screen.

  ‘I was just doing a little experiment,’ the Doctor said. ‘Here help me put him down. Yes, here, under the sprinkler. I want him to get a really good dose. Let’s see if it speeds things up.’

  Carlisle carefully removed the pistol from Reeve’s hand.

  ‘Bit late for that,’ the Doctor told her. ‘He’s already taken his shot.’

  ‘What? Where?’ Amy exclaimed. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No, he missed. It was just as the effect of the water got to him. Lucky for me. He slumped forward and the shot bounced off the floor somewhere.’

  ‘So don’t keep us in suspense,’ Amy said. ‘What is it with this water? Why are they all blanked out?’

  ‘Their minds are trying desperately to adapt.’

  On the floor between them, Reeve groaned and moved, curling into a protective ball.

  ‘Looks like it’s working,’ the Doctor went on.

  ‘What did you do?’ Carlisle asked. ‘What’s in the water?’

  ‘They are. Their minds, at least. Remember what I said about a glass of water in the ocean? I mixed all the water containing the backed-up minds into the tank that’s feeding the sprinklers. Just like Amy’s own brain managed to latch on to her mind imprint when she drank her back-up, Captain Reeve is absorbing the tiniest part of his own mind through his skin.’

  ‘In the water from the sprinklers,’ Carlisle realised. ‘Holograms.’

  ‘You what?’ Amy said. ‘Look, am I the only person here who speaks human?’

  ‘The whole of the mind-print encoded in every molecule,’ the Doctor explained. ‘Every drop of water that touches us contains the diluted mind-prints of everyone Jackson wiped. The first effect is to purge the brain of the alien influence, it’s rejected as the human brain struggles to reabsorb its own pattern from the water.’