He sent the front part of his mind forward, and, an inch at a time, further still, to meet the forces on the screen. Forward, forward, until that part of his mind was in the screen, amongst the buildings and the ruins and the burnt out shells. He could sense the broken glass under foot and smell the burning rubber, hot plastic, hot metal of the firefight. The monsters came from all directions now, as if called by his presence, called to attack the intruder. His weaponry was burning white-hot, red and yellow lines of tracer arcing towards each threat as it appeared, sometimes before it appeared.
He ducked into a doorway, turning as he went to spray a window high on his left, blowing a sniper to pieces. Half-rolling his body, he hurtled out again as another shape drew a bead on him from inside the building. Firing from the hip, he blazed off down the street, screams of agony and hoarse yells of frustration following him, echoing down the deadly canyons of the city streets.
Unseen by him, the score counter spun dizzily, beyond 100,000 beyond 110,000, beyond 115,000...
There was a stunning blow to his side, and another and another. He turned and fired blindly, and again, and the shells stopped exploding around him long enough for him to be able to take the next corner where, before he had time to recover, another of the monsters was firing at him. He moved back and felt the approach of more of them there, around the corner, then he roared out again, guns blazing, but another hit and another threw his aim off and ammunition was running low...
The Toymaker looked on, though with a faint smile creasing his mouth now, as he saw the two extra Lives vanish, snuffed out like tiny candles. And his eyes glinted.
Peri watched, fascinated, as the Mechanic delicately twisted and moulded together the antennae and the scrap from SB, fashioning what could only be a helmet of some sort. Even Kevin's attention was engaged, and poor old SB could only look and wonder. The Mechanic reached out and gently took Peri's arm, in just the same way as it had once taken the android's...
'Oh no,' protested Peri, 'you're not having my arm!' But the fingers of the electronic arm tightened insistently...
The counter moved again, not spinning frantically now, but turning through treacle, past 125,000 and towards the Toymaker's High Score. Stefan looked on aghast. Not a muscle moved on the Toymaker's face.
The streets were littered now with broken monsters, cracks starting to appear in the asphalt where the firefight had proved too much for the substance to stay stable. The cracks widened as the very ground rumbled. The frantic pitch of battle had slowed also, the steady crunchcrunchcrunch now returning to dominate the scene. The Doctor, exhausted, looked around for the source of the noise. There was something... something his other brain was telling him, something washed in or washed out by the fighting, by the insight he had into the mind that devised the game. The score hardly mattered. He knew he had only one life left and he had to find the answer before that was gone. Had to stay alive and find the answer... had to fight on... had to fight on...
The street filled with screaming crushing monsters one after the other as he blazed away, using the weaponry he had left as a hosepipe more than a precision piece. One life left and he was called back, called by the blare of electronic trumpets as the High Score was swept away. One more, two more, three bursts and again the street was clear before him... One life left. Still one life... One that was the answer... one... one alone...
He turned from the machine, sweat pouring from him, scars that would never show criss-crossing his mind.
'You're alone,' he croaked hoarsely at the Toymaker. 'One. One alone. There's just you, no one like you. Ever. This game — an empty city, a ghost city. And one, just one fighter, one enemy, one on his own... You're not from this Universe, are you?' He turned and walked towards the Toymaker, past the speechless Stefan, who had just witnessed, for the first time in eight hundred years another being's victory over his Lord and at one of his Lord's own games!
'The Game,' stammered the Mandarin, 'you're not thinking about the Game!'
There was a blare from the machine as the Doctor's last life was lost. The counter had come to a stop. 131,000, and the Toymaker's score was languishing under 'Last Player'. The Doctor appeared not to notice.
'You're not from this Universe,' he repeated, 'that's why there's no trace. That's why the Laws of this Universe don't concern you. You're from another Time and Space!'
The Mechanic, far from wanting to dissect Peri, had pulled her gently down to kneel on the floor, where he could help her better. The claw-arm now held the newly fashioned helmet, and he motioned for her to put it on.
'Sooner you than me,' muttered Kevin, as the headgear, resembling a cycling helmet with loose wires and pads dangling, was lowered gently onto her head. The Mechanic began delicately to adjust the fit, and to lead what appeared to be pressure-contact points to very specific and seemingly critical parts of her head. As he wove the wires carefully, a network started to take shape, almost hiding her features from view.
The Doctor was in full flow as the ramifications of his theory crashed in on him. Behind him, the game machine's ominous crunchcrunchcrunch had started distantly in the background. No one took any notice of it. Not yet...
'Whatever catastrophe it was,' the Doctor continued, as much to himself as to anyone else, 'it hurled you from your own universe into this one. You carry your own matter with you — you'd have to — not anti-matter, of course, otherwise you'd have started the next Big Bang — but different from ours.' He paused, thunderstruck by his own conclusions. 'Relativity,' he breathed, 'follow it through...' He swung round on the Toymaker again, 'Your own universe is receding from this one so fast, it's pushing your time back as it goes!' He stared at the Toymaker, awestuck. 'You'll live for millions of years!'
The Toymaker had a look of crushing despair on his face as he croaked out, 'I have done...'
The crunchcrunchcrunch was getting louder. A figure had appeared at the centre of the screen, and was growing larger, growing closer...
'The isolation of aeons,' whispered the Doctor, overcome with compassion for the being he'd detested all his adult life. 'The crushing loneliness of thousands of millenia... you poor, poor creature...'
Peri held the cap on her head with both hands, which had been carefully placed there by the Mechanic, who waited patiently as Kevin plugged the lead into the power point. A power hum started, which grew rapidly until it was difficult to hear anything else over it. The Mechanic moved not at all, waiting patiently for the next phase, for these weird and horrid creatures to play their part. Peri looked wildly from Kevin to the monster and to SB and back to the monster.
'Well, come on,' she called, 'what do I do now?' The power hum continued growing until it reached a pain threshold. Kevin held his hands over his ears and rolled on the floor, unable to bear it any longer. SB mouthed silently, unable to move or help, even if he knew how.
'I don't know what to do!' screamed Peri, though it was impossible to make herself heard over the noise, and impossible to tell if the Mechanic understood a word she was saying, 'Tell me what to do!'
The Toymaker's eye was cast on a far, far distant horizon, lost in a world vanished aeons ago.
'... and then I grew tired of even creating... ships, cities, continents, whole planets even. I transported life. I colonised, I helped it survive and thrive for millenia, hundreds of millenia, thousands...' His voice trailed off as he remembered, as the bitterness and the loneliness overcame him. He rounded on the Doctor, his eyes turning away from the softness of remembrance to the fury of the present. 'Until I came to destroy, wantonly, wilfully, the same ships, the same planets I'd helped to create, and that too became too easy and too empty... meaningless destruction is as appetising as meaningless creation and just as unfulfilling... Until I found distraction in the world of games, until I could throw off the pretence of purpose and meaning, until I too could be a prey to chance and hazard...'
The glint was back in his eye now, more dangerous than ever before as it merged with the
gleam of triumph. The Doctor, seeing the difference, whirled round to see the formation of the monster on the screen, to see it grow larger and larger until the screen could not contain it. The crunchcrunchcrunch had reached its inevitable crescendo, and the electronic monster stood outside the machine, brighter, if anything, and more terrible than before. The Toymaker's triumph screeched out at last.
'A hazard, Doctor, which you have lost!'
The monster turned and lumbered slowly towards the transfixed Time Lord.
Peri had draggged a reluctant Kevin to her and yelled in his ear, 'Is there a button? A switch? Anything?'
'Nothing I can see,' he yelled back.
The Mechanic seemed to go into a frantic wardance of its own, rattling, gesticulating clattering and tapping with whatever came to hand — or claw. In an anguished voice, Peri could only repeat helplessly, 'What am I supposed to do?'
The Doctor, staring at the monster, backed away slowly. His face bore the full horror of what he was seeing — not the monster, for he had seen much much more repellent examples than that, and the worst examples were always manmade, but the purpose behind the monster...
'Kill him!' screamed the Toymaker. 'KILL HIM!'
Peri's eyes were wide open, wide as they could go. Kevin lay dazed on the floor where a casual by-blow from the Mechanic's claw had thrown him, the same claw that was now fastening itself relentlessy around Peri's throat...
'Doctor!' she cried. 'Doctor!' She tried in vain to force the closing pincers apart. The monster's bulbous veined eyes were scant inches from hers, an unfeeling, deadly purpose behind them. At the very top of her voice she screamed with all her might, 'DOCTOR!'
The Toymaker staggered, his hands to his head, his face screwed up in pain and confusion. Stefan had come out of his trance and was back to doing what he was best at — protecting his Lord. Gun in hand, he was circling slowly to keep away from the electronic giant and reach a point where he had a clear shot at the Doctor. He turned his head in agitation at the obvious discomfort of his master. Even the Monster seemed confused, distracted, as though it had lost its bearings on its target. It lumbered round half a step to advance on Stefan, but with the agile step sideways of a practised swordsman, Stefan skirted it neatly and was about to swing on the Doctor when the Doctor took matters into his own hands — literally. Grabbing Stefan's gun-hand in both of his own, he pivoted sharply and swung the henchman bodily round in a full circle. Already off-balance, Stefan's momentum carried him forward, and it was all he could do to keep his feet. At the end of the circle, the Doctor, gauging the trajectory as well as he could, released the hand, and Stefan went tumbling, smack up against the Monster...
There was a short scream of pain — and another, this time of fear — and the monster's hands did the rest. Stefan slumped, smouldering, to the ground.
Peri's scream was echoing and reverberating around the room, as if hitting a giant acoustic mirror, distorting, building, building, wavering wildly and crashing back like a wave on the Toymaker, who staggered still, his hands over his ears, unable to block out even a tiny part of the noise. His contorted face seemed about to burst as he tried to stop the dreadful falling tower of sound as, with a whump he crashed into the Monster. Turning around, eyes staring wider if that were possible, he watched helplessly as the Monster raised its hands and placed them on either side of the Toymaker's head. Peri's screaming was wiped out by the intensity of the power-hum which followed, and, as the Toymaker slumped to the floor, the Monster started to fade and disappear from sight...
The Doctor took only a split second to glance at the fallen Mandarin and, without any further hesitation, raced from the room, down towards the prison cell and Peri.
The door barrier was down, and the Mechanic was already switching off his machine, by the simple expedient of snipping through the power cable with his claw. He looked vaguely gratified at the sparks as the circuit shorted, and by then the Doctor was in, striding over to Peri and helping her remove the helmet from her head.
'Well done!' he called over to the Mechanic, who, either by coincidence or through a deeper understanding than he'd let on before, waved a claw in friendly acknowledgement.
'What about me?' protested Peri, feebly.
'Yeah, an' me,' groaned Kevin, fairly sure this was the sort of thing the Lord Mayor gave banquets for.
'Don't worry,' replied the Doctor, deliberately misunderstanding, 'you'll be fine. Now come on...' and with that he was off again, tearing out of the door and up the stairs again. Not out through the tunnels to freedom, but back into the Wolf's Lair...
'Search everywhere you can think of,' called the Doctor as he burst into the Toymaker's study, and started looking himself in the drawers of the giant carved desk.
'For what?' asked Peri, ever a stickler for detail.
'His tele-mechanical relay,' replied the Doctor, exasperated that he should have to fill in every little detail.
'His tele-what?' queried Kevin, who rather fancied himself well up on the high-tech scene.
'Tele-mechanical relay,' repeated the Doctor, as if trying to win an argument against a particularly stub-born opponent. He abandoned his search of the desk and crossed swiftly to the video-screen, feeling round the edges for an opening. 'The relay he uses to operate the holo-field downstairs — and for everything else he wants to control without really trying.'
Instinctively, Peri looked around, trying to spot it. 'What does it look like?' she remembered to ask.
'Haven't the faintest idea,' replied the Doctor. 'just look for something you've ever seen before and can't imagine a use for and we'll start with that.' With uncharacteristic vandalism, he took hold of the bottom edge of one of the wall-coverings, and ripped it from its fixings.
'Over on that other wall!' he cried. 'Rip it down! It must be here somewhere, and we've got to find it before he regains consciousness...'
The Toymaker's fingers, stretched out on the floor, flexed and stirred. His arm slowly pulled in as he levered himself up groggily to look at the barren data room. The only inhabitant apart from himself was Stefan, and the Mandarin painfully pulled himself over to where he lay. With an effort he turned his faithful henchman over and, with a final heave, Stefan flopped over on his back, obviously not merely unconscious. But then, the Toymaker had never intended the electronic monster to merely stun anyone. As he registered the fact, the Toymaker's face darkened again.
'Doctor...' he whispered.
The Doctor spun his head as he heard the dreaded voice once again. His efforts took on a frantic haste as he turned back to the wall beneath the tapestry the Toymaker had expressed such interest in during his previous visit to the room. With a cry of triumph, he tore it from the wall, reaching behind a control panel to force it away from its fixings. Behind was a metal cylinder, about a foot long and two inches in diameter, with wires springing from terminals at both ends.
'Doctor...' the voice began, booming now instead of whispering, dwarfing the effect Peri's screams had had, crashing around the room and shattering without discrimination the video-screen and a priceless Ming vase next to it. Screwing up his face and tucking his head into his shoulders as if against a hurricane force wind, the Doctor yanked the wires from one end of the cylinder.
'DOC —'
The voice had the force of an exploding shell, and the silence was the more shocking as the Doctor yanked the wires from the other end of the tube. He, then Peri and finally even Kevin breathed a sigh of relief as the thunder died away.
'Come on,' said the Doctor grimly, 'no more games.' And with that he led the way swiftly out of the room.
The Toymaker had abandoned his keening over the fallen Stefan and, as the trio came into the room, he was rising to his feet. The Doctor motioned the other two to stay just where they were as he moved towards the Toymaker.
'I have had millions of years to devise a punishment for you,' hissed the Toymaker, 'I have millions more to inflict it.' He raised himself threateningly to his full height
.
'Time you have, yes, Toymaker, time enough to drive any being mad. But you're no more a threat to anyone...' With that, he raised the cylinder in one hand and gave a sharp twist to one end. There was an audible click as something locked, and the Toymaker started forward. He stopped, abruptly, slamming into an obstruction. An invisible obstruction. The Doctor held up the cylinder.
'Your own telepathic relay switch for the holo-field which now surrounds you. Tuned to your own thought frequency. Locked into a loop by the power of your own brain. It will function as long as your brain functions, even when you are asleep. Until you're dead.' With what seemed like overwhelming fatigue, the Time Lord turned, and started for the door, Peri and Kevin preceding him.
The Toymaker's face grew longer, his eyes staring as the enormity of his fate dawned upon him. His mouth opened and moved in what must have been a tearing scream... a timeless scream... a scream for all eternity... The Doctor turned back for one last look, a bleak and immovable sadness in his eyes.
'I detest caging even the wildest beast, Toymaker,' he announced, flatly, unsure even if the Mandarin could hear him, 'but for you there is no other answer... Goodbye...' He turned and left the room without another backward glance.
In the confines of his cell, the Toymaker began to desperately explore the tiny limits of his invisible, eternal prison.
In the corridor outside, Peri voiced the anxious question, 'Is he unconscious again?'
'Unfortunately for him, no,' replied the Doctor.
'We'd better get out quick, then,' muttered Kevin.
'He can't hurt you now,' the Doctor said gloomily. 'He's locked in the same sort of holo-field as he kept us in downstairs, powered by his own thoughts, locked in an eternal, endless loop.' He hefted the cylinder in his hand.
DOCTOR WHO - THE NIGHTMARE FAIR Page 12
