Doctor Who - Nuclear Time Page 15
'What is?' Amy asked.
'The
thingy
that
delayed
your
mower's
disintegration so that you could get here. I call it a thingy because I'm always forgetting the names of stuff, you see - I'm always going, "Where's that thingy?"
and "What have I done with my thingy?" and "Ooh, what's my thingy doing there?" Now I'll always be looking for something specific, even if it isn't actually what I'm after.' He paused for a second and considered. 'Well, actually that could get quite annoying, especially if people kept passing it to me when I didn't need it.'
'I'd rather you'd not used a "thingy" at all, Doctor,' Rory began. 'I'd rather you'd just landed in front of us or something, you know, before the whole nuke thing.'
The Doctor shrugged and held up his palms.
'Sorry, couldn't move from the square, you see? It was the bomb's impact site and I couldn't deviate from those specific coordinates whilst carrying out my clever plan.'
'Which was?'
The Doctor hopped down the steps until he was standing in front of the pair. 'Saving my two best friends from dying in a nuclear explosion that had no place occuring in 1981, that's what.' He opened 233
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his arms and hugged them both tightly to his chest.
'Oh, and I got a new bike as well,' he said, pointing at the rusting contraption by the door.
Amy hesitated and pulled away from the hug. 'But it did go off, Doctor.'
'Sort of,' the Doctor replied, wondering how to explain what had just happened. 'It's like throwing something out of a moving car, a bit of rubbish or whatever. The TARDIS is like the car, the bomb is like the bit of rubbish, and the road outside is time, more importantly the time spanning one particular point so that driving forwards goes into the future of that point and reversing travels into the past, see?'
They didn't.
'If the car wasn't moving and you threw something out of the window, it would just hit the verge next to you. But if the car's moving really fast then the bit of rubbish will travel with the momentum of the car after it's thrown, hopping and skipping along the road behind it. I materialised the TARDIS around the nuke and took a run-up, ejecting it at the moment of impact. Because it was still moving rapidly
forwards
through
time,
the
bomb's
instantaneous explosion was spread over an hour and a half as it hopped and skipped across the future before coming to rest in normal time. The result was that the time
234
NUCLEAR TIME
line knew that a nuclear bomb was supposed to explode but was unsure when, so it took a while to catch up. In the end, to cover its tracks, it produced all the after-effects and destruction of a nuclear bomb, but combined it with a patchy and inconsistent moment of detonation. There's no mushroom cloud because there's no specific point for a mushroom cloud to occur, and you two have enough time to find me before the future catches on; especially as a pair of time anomalies like you are the last thing an uncertain past is going to try and impose consequences on.'
'Uh, right,' Rory mumbled. 'Well, thanks anyway.'
'You're welcome!' the Doctor replied cheerily, sauntering back up the steps to pack his flip chart away.
'Righty-ho, always moving on, moving on.'
Amy caught up with him before he could disappear down a corridor. 'That's it?' she said. 'That's all that happened to you — the run-up and the throwing-a-bomb-out-the-window thing — that was everything, was it?'
The Doctor shrugged. 'What do you mean?'
'I mean Albert. He didn't die. We remember him dying, we watched it happen. But he didn't die, Doctor, it never happened.' She frowned.
The Doctor looked away. 'Well isn't that nice for everyone?' he said.
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'Isley said she saw you talking to him, at the military base.'
'You spoke to Isley?' The Doctor raised an eyebrow. 'If I'd known you were going to make friends with the killer androids, I'd have taken my time a bit more.'
'Be serious, Doctor.' Amy touched his shoulder, but he brushed it away.
'Today was a very long day, Amy,' he said eventually. 'I'm too tired for this.'
He turned and began to make his way down the corridor, boots clumping on the floor. Amy stood in silence for a second before resolving herself. She turned to see Rory waiting for her by the edge of the stairs and blew him a kiss. He caught it and stuck it on his bum with a wink.
Suddenly she turned back.
'Doctor!' she called after the retreating figure. He stopped. 'Did you do it, though? Did you manage to save them?'
The Doctor looked around and flashed his companion a sad smile. 'Yes,' he said quietly.
'Saved all of them. Every, single, one.'
And Amy was happy.
236
Chapter
19
Colorado, 28 August 1981, 5.20 p.m.
Albert pulled on a pair of goggles. 'I'm going outside,' he said simply.
A gantry had been erected along the exterior of the structure, running parallel to the observation room, and the wind tugged at his lab coat as he stepped onto the steel deck. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. The horizon sparkled in the distance, flashes of bright, blinding light flaring and dying amongst a flat sea of crimson flame. The display had lasted over ten minutes now and reminded the scientist of a lighthouse off the coast of a beach he'd used to holiday on as a child.
Inside the compound there was an awed silence, 237
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rows of soldiers ranked up across the gates to the courtyard, taking it in turns to borrow the limited supply of goggles whilst the others turned their backs to avoid being blinded.
Albert's life was in that town, and it was burning.
'The Russian plane passed overhead three minutes ago.' Geoff was suddenly at his side. 'God knows what they'll make of this. God knows what anyone will make of this, it's like no nuke I've ever seen before.'
'Maybe that's a good thing,' Albert responded. 'More room
to
manoeuvre
politically
with
an
indescribable event.' For the first time in nearly ten years, he felt a glimmer of hope. 'It's up to Washington to make the right decision now.'
'Well we were all pretty freaked out when it came to crunch time. Even the boys in suits must have a heart somewhere.'
'No one wants to die,' Albert responded.
There was silence for a moment. Then Geoff coughed awkwardly.
'Albert, I think you should take a look at this.' Albert was surprised to find Geoff's blue folder thrust into his hands. He looked up enquiringly. 'Just go through the summaries. It'll give you the gist.' Geoff nodded to him.
Carefully, Albert opened the folder, holding it 238
NUCLEAR TIME
with his thumb to keep the papers from blowing away.
The turning of sheets marked each passing minute until finally he handed the bundle back.
'It's not a huge surprise,' he said eventually. 'We've always been pretty dangerous — the things we know.'
There was a pause. `Do they know that you know?'
'No. A friend at the Pentagon passed it to me. These are the briefings they gave the platoon yesterday.'
Albert stepped back from the railing, out of sight of the soldiers below. 'So they've been ordered to shoot us?'
'Disappear is the preferred term. Who knows, they might actually let us live, in some form or other.'
'I think that depends on what you count as living,' Albert remarked.
Geoff coughed once more. 'But it's OK for you,' he said, 'because I got you this.' From behind his back he produced a parcel, brown Christmas wrapping paper tattered and torn at the edges. 'It took me a year.
But I kept my promise.'
/>
Albert gave him a look as he took the parcel, carefully tearing the edge off one side and shaking it a little before sliding his hand in to feel around.
He pulled out the items one by one.
The first was a little navy book.
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'A passport - valid for anywhere,' said Geoff. A wad of notes.
'One million dollars in traveller's cheques. That's my pension right there.' He smiled half-heartedly.
A small money bag, filled with dollars of varying denominations.
'Petty cash.'
And a key.
'There's a motorbike under a tarpaulin in the corner of the courtyard. It's yours.'
Albert had no words.
Geoff tried to laugh through his tears. 'There you go - a life, right there. The one we took away from you, the one I took away from you on that beach in California. All this -' he gestured at the horizon - 'is ended. Go and do what you always should have done.'
'But what about you?'
'I've had my life, before you. I had a wife and a kid, I had a house and a mortgage and a war. I don't think I could handle doing it all over again.'
Albert proffered his hand, and Geoff took it firmly.
'Thank you, old friend,' Albert said quietly.
'Oh, c'mere,' Geoff growled and embraced the scientist in a hug that almost lifted him off his feet. 'Now go, while they're still watching the show. If 240
NUCLEAR TIME
you can cross the state border before midnight it'll cause a hell of a fuss when they try coming after you tomorrow and you're long gone.'
Albert nodded. He shrugged off his grubby white lab coat and folded it neatly over the railing, then turned to walk down the steps.
Geoff waited for a moment before striding over to the top of the stairs. 'Just be happy,' he called after him.
Once Albert had disappeared around the bend, Colonel Geoffrey Redvers turned back to the horizon. He lifted his hands to his goggles and pulled them down to his neck, eyes squeezed tightly shut. He could feel the warm breeze from the horizon running across his face and hands, through his thinning grey hair. It felt pleasant and comforting like the arms of his wife, tight around his chest when he'd come home from the war.
'If I'm going to die tomorrow,' he said to himself, 'then I'll damn well enjoy today!'
A silent count of three, and he opened his eyes.
The highway was long and straight and empty as it ran through the desert towards the shadow of the mountain range in the far distance, and Albert pushed forward on the bike as he raced towards the sunset, the stones and rocks by the sides of the 241
DOCTOR WHO
road blurring into a smooth golden brown. Geoff hadn't given him a helmet, and his tousled hair had flattened itself along his head, tugging at his face.
Even with his glasses on, he needed to squint against the wind to see where he was going, so he almost missed the figure walking slowly along the side of the road.
She was merely a dark shape at first, but her figure filled out as he approached and Albert could swear that he had seen that T-shirt somewhere before.
He braked gently as he drew alongside, the engine spluttering in frustration as he ground to a halt.
'Isley?'
The woman turned, and it was her. Her headphones had been wrapped together roughly in sticky tape - a bundle which also seemed to include a large chunk of her hair - and she had a scarf wrapped around half of her face.
'Albert, there you are,' she stated flatly. 'I was looking for you.'
'I'll bet you were,' Albert said, opening his arms and encouraging her to come closer. 'Come here. Let's take a look at you.'
She moved closer, and he reached out a hand to her scarf, tugging the material until it fell away.
242
NUCLEAR TIME
Albert gasped.
Behind the scarf, the plastic skin of her face had melted away — a smooth line that ran from her right temple down to her lower jaw exposing the metal skull beneath. She held up her hand instinctively to cover the deformity, and Albert could see that it too had been stripped almost bare.
'I ran away from the village,' she said, 'but I wasn't quick enough.'
'No, I can see that,' Albert murmured. He ran the back of his finger softly across her smooth metal cheek and up to the speakers that covered her ears.
He pulled them away softly and nodded as he recognised the track on the album. 'But why did you run?'
'To find you,' she said quietly. 'I need you.'
Albert leant over and kissed her tenderly. 'I need you, too,' he whispered. He composed himself and slapped a palm against the back seat of the motorcycle.
'Hop on then,' he said. 'We've got at least half an hour before you need to change the tape, and I want to be in New Mexico before nightfall.'
243
Acknowledgements
This book (and my career) would not exist if it weren't for Clayton Hickman and Gary Russell. It wouldn't look this good if it weren't for Lee Binding, and it wouldn't read this good if it weren't for the patience of Justin Richards and Steve Tribe.
Thanks also to Paul Lang, Claire Lister and Leanne Gill for giving me enough work to pay the rent whilst I wrote it, and Emma Price for paying it when they didn't.
Special mention must also go to all the wonderful people I've met since becoming part of the 'Whoniverse': Joe Lidster, Stuart Manning, Scott Handcock, Tom Spilsbury, Gareth Roberts, Darren Scott, Kieron Grant, Neil Corry, David Jorgensen and David Llwellyn, amongst many others.
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I would also like to thank my family for stoically attempting to read all of my work, Thomas Coates Welsh for being a fellow Who fan and best mate throughout my childhood, and Tim Keable, who does the same today.
And finally, of course, Steven Moffat, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill for crafting such a magical fairy tale.
246
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