Part 42 (1/2)

'Jeez, Doc. What did you put in here? Rocket fuel?'

The Doctor's smile widened.

'Something like that.'

McBride hauled himself up in the chair. The Doctor was dressed once again in his usual clothes; checked trousers, dark jacket and that absurd tank top covered in question marks that he seemed to think was fas.h.i.+onable. McBride rubbed at his eyes and took another sip of his coffee. There was something different about the Doctor now, a spring in his step that hadn't been there before. It was as if returning to the TARDIS had given him a boost, revitalised him in some way. There was an energy about him, a determination in those grey eyes of his, the sense of something... alien. McBride felt goose b.u.mps run down his spine.

They were about to start playing the endgame.

McBride could feel his system being jolted back to life by whatever the Doctor had slipped in his coffee. Feeling better than he had in days, McBride looked across to where the little Time Lord was hovering by the control console. He hauled himself out of his chair, drained the remainder of his coffee and crossed to the Doctor's side.

'What's up, Doc?'

'He's going to Kennington. To the cottage. He's going to cross over.

Oh, the arrogance of the man. Right, Cody, time to get going. McBride shuffled awkwardly.

'I ain't goin' with you, Doc.'

The Doctor turned and peered at him. 'Well, if you'd rather stay here... Dimension jumping can be... disorientating.'

'Hey I'm no coward!' McBride felt himself reddening under the gaze of those brilliant grey eyes.

'I didn't say you were,' said the Doctor gently 'It's just...' McBride took a deep breath. 'It's just that you've lost your friend and I don't want to lose mine. Mullen's alone, Doctor. He's alone and trapped up there and until now I've not come up with any way of saving him, but now...'

'Now that you know that the TARDIS is here you think that you can.'

206.

McBride nodded. 'I've been figurin' out ways of getting him out of this hospital and keep coming up with zip. But I don't have to get him out of the hospital. I just have to get him down here.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow 'Is that all?'

'Oh h.e.l.l, Doc, I know I've got these extra-dimensional guys and cybernetic monkeys to get by, not to mention avoiding getting fried to a crisp by Crawhammer and his missiles, but it's a chance and I've got to take it... if you'll let me.'

'I'll send the TARDIS back on an automatic relay. You won't even realise it's gone.'

The Doctor solemnly lifted the TARDIS key from around his neck and held it out.

'Don't let the general get his hands on this, whatever you do.'

McBride took it. 'Thanks, Doctor. I owe you one...'

The Doctor nodded, slowly. 'You're a brave man, Cody McBride.

Ace would have been proud of you.'

He pulled at the large red control handle and, with a low drone, the double doors of the time machine swung open.

McBride scratched at his chin. 'Just don't wind up in any giant ants'

nests...'

The Doctor pulled a bottle of ant powder from his jacket pocket.

'Always prepared.'

With a sort of half-wave, McBride stepped back out into the boiler room. The doors swung shut behind him. There was a G.o.dawful trumpeting sound and the blue box seemed to flicker for a second, then the silence and stillness returned. McBride stared at the elegant filigree key in the palm of his hand.

'You'd better d.a.m.n well appreciate this, Mullen.'

Snow had settled on the charred remains of the chocolate-box cottage.

The Doctor was crouched by the side of the road examining the body of a young policeman. He could barely have been more than twenty-one years old, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle, blood staining the perfect white of the snow.

The Doctor reached out and closed the policeman's eyes, angry and frustrated. In all his lives he had never met anyone with such a casual disregard for life as George Limb. The frail old man seemed to kill without remorse, without compunction, reducing lives to statistics, p.a.w.ns in some sick chess game, weighing up their usefulness to his plans, then using them or casting them aside.

He looked back towards London. From here the dimensional tear was like a huge jagged crescent in the night sky, making the lights of 207 the city look pale and muted. The quiet of the night was punctuated by harsh whiplash cracks of energy.

The Doctor straightened. This game had gone on long enough. It was time to take control, to put things right. He crunched up the snow-covered pathway to the cottage and pushed open the front door.

The cottage was gutted, a tangled mess of burnt furniture and timbers, crumbling brickwork and charred linen. In the centre of the room were the twisted remains of the police motorcycle, and everywhere were the curled and blackened bodies of the ants. The roof was gone and snow was dusting the burnt surfaces, turning the inside of the cottage into a nightmarish monochrome landscape.

The Doctor picked his way gingerly through the ruins, grimacing at the acrid smell that hung in the air. There was a clear trail through the snow and ash. Three sets of footprints, two small, one large. Limb, Jimmy and their primate bodyguard.

The tracks led through the ruined house to what had once been a back parlour. The Doctor peered cautiously through the remains of the doorway. Somehow this room had been partially saved from the fire.

Blackened shreds of what had once been floral curtains waved in the cold night air, a tall parlour palm miraculously untouched by the flames, its leaves frosted with ice stood by a shattered window.

In the middle of the room the tracks stopped. A large circle had been melted through the snow, revealing blackened floorboards. The Doctor knelt down and pressed his hand to the floor. It was warm and the boards were loose.

He lifted first one board, then another. Below him an array of lights blinked rhythmically. He ran his fingertips across a row of b.u.t.tons/ smiled and keyed in a simple sequence.

There was a sudden discordant wailing, and the air s.h.i.+mmered for a moment. Suddenly the Doctor felt flooded with warmth. The snow vanished, the smell of acrid smoke cleared and the cottage sat around him, bright and clean, pristine, with no sign that there had ever been a fire.

'Now, let's see...' the Doctor muttered, and hit another b.u.t.ton.

Everything s.h.i.+mmered and changed again. He was in a harshly lit underground bunker. He hit another b.u.t.ton...

Now he was in the middle of a large, elegant conference room.

Huge, sombre portraits lined the wood-panelled walls, an elaborate crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. At the end of the room were tall shuttered windows. Footfalls echoing on the polished wooden floor, the Doctor crossed the room and eased one of the shutters open.

Below him London stretched out along Whitehall, but not the 208 London that he knew so well. All the landmarks were there, the skyline was so nearly familiar, but there was something not quite right about it, as if someone had taken a photograph of the city and photocopied it over and over again, losing definition with every generation.

Below him people flickered through the rain-slick streets like hummingbirds, cars were little more than blurs of light on the roads.

Overhead the night sky was dominated by the huge energy tear airs.h.i.+ps and gyrocopters hovering around it like bees.

The Doctor gave a deep sigh. He remembered another Christmas, many years ago, when he had stared out across another carbon copy of London, looked at another unfamiliar sky and watched helplessly as people struggled to survive by abandoning all their humanity. Earth's fate had always been irrevocably linked with that of its twin. There had always been the possibility that Earth would follow the evolutionary path of Mondas, that humanity would surrender flesh and blood to cold, gleaming technology. George Limb had forced that evolutionary path. His endless tinkering had thrown up time line after time line, endless alternatives running side by side through history, each of them playing out to a different conclusion, each of them fundamentally, irrevocably wrong.