Tag Archives: Doctor Who

Under the Covers with The Comic Guru

First of all, a little bit of Space: 1889 & Beyond news. Once again, the series dominates the Top Ten Best-Sellers List on Untreed Reads Store; that makes five months in a row now. And, as a result, all four titles can now be bought direct from Untreed Reads with a 25% discount throughout February. The perfect time to introduce your friends to this smash hit steampunk series!

Now for something really cool! I was recently interviewed by the Comic Guru himself, Kristian Barry, for his ongoing YouTube vlog. For those of you who do not know me beyond my writing, this will be a  nice little insight in to the person I am – the pure cheek of me! Check the interview out below, and please feel free to share it around.

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Comic Guru TV Enters Another Galaxy… Four.

William Hartnell (centre) as the Doctor in 'Galaxy Four'

Mid December something quite significant happened in the world of Doctor Who. No, they didn’t hire me to write an epic steampunk reinvention of the Cybermen! Yeah, sorry to be a downer. But they did discover two previously ‘lost’ episodes of the classic series. Part three of Galaxy Four, starring the original Doctor, William Hartnell, and part two of The Underwater Menace, starring the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. They were lost during the massive clear up of the BBC Archives in the ’70s. Still 106 episodes are missing from Doctor Who during 1964 and 1969, and for a long while hope of ever finding them had also disappeared among the higher echelons of Doctor Who fandom. Now that hope has returned… as witnessed by episode four of Comic Guru TV!

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Mark Michalowski is BACK… with ghosts!

Thank you all for bearing with us, but now, at long last, we can announce that The Ghosts of Mercury is live!

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Born in 1963 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Mark Michalowski studied sciences at school with the bizarre idea of becoming a parapsychologist. He studied psychology at Sheffield University for two years and then hung about for a couple of years, having decided that his future lay in graphic design, and moved to Leeds.

He worked as a graphic designer for three and a half years before deciding that his future lay in teaching, so he got a BEd at Leeds Metropolitan University before doing a year’s teaching – which convinced him that his future certainly didn’t lay in teaching.

So, together with his then-partner, Mike, he started up Shout!, a gay paper for Yorkshire, which has been going steadily since 1995.

His first paid-for piece of writing was a short story, Digging Up The Past in the anthology, The Dead Men Diaries in 2000. Since then he’s written several more novels, short stories, magazine article – and even a comic strip! These works includes the likes of four Doctor Who novels, and a novel based on the hit-BBC TV series, Being Human.

You can discover more about Mark’s varied career at his official website, www.markmichalowski.co.uk

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I recently asked him a few questions about his work on Space: 1889 & Beyond…

AF-A: What interested you in Space: 1889 & Beyond in the first place?

MM: There was something fascinating about the mash-up between the Victorian era, with all its rampaging colonialism, repression and desire for exploration (and assimilation) – and space travel and futuristic technology that appealed to me. And once I started thinking about it, it seemed to fit perfectly with the philosophy of ‘The Big Bad’ in The Ghosts of Mercury. And what philosophy was that, you ask? Spoilers!!!

AF-A: What difficulties did you face in converting a Role-playing Game scenario into a fully-fledged prose novel?

MM: To be honest, I’d never played the game, but I’d heard – and loved – the Space: 1889 audio adventures – they had a real sense of wonder and derring-do about them. And, for me, there’s always something more interesting about confronting a cast of characters with things utterly beyond their previous experiences, and having their worldviews challenged in a way that there isn’t with experienced space-travellers.

AF-A: Who are your favourite characters?

MM: All of them have their fascinating sides, but – and I’ll just take my modesty hat off for a moment and sit it on the desk beside me – I adore Arnaud Fontaine, a character that you asked me to create specifically for the series. In fact, I may be a tiny bit in love with him: he’s irreverent, cheeky and seems to be the perfect foil for Nathanial.

AF-A: Your three favourite moments in The Ghosts of Mercury are…?

MM: Three favourite moments, hmmm…? There are so many to choose from (he says, eyeing up his modesty hat) – not necessarily great big whopping moments, but lots of little conversations and moments. I love writing dialogue more than action scenes, and my favourites are quiet scenes where the characters show us a little bit more about themselves.

It’s really hard to choose, but I’ll go with…

The first scene between Annabelle and Nathanial, as they’re unpacking, seems to sum up the relationship between the two of them: a little bit sparky but with humour and real compassion for each other. They bicker like a married couple – almost like newlyweds on their honeymoon.

Annabelle’s first proper encounter with a ghost – because it seems to sum up Annabelle’s pluckiness with her genuine surprise and fear.

Our heroes’ encounter with Hermes – where I get to have lots and lots of philosophising and talking! Science fiction, for me, is a genre of ideas, rather than action, so to have a whole chapter which is little more than dialogue is lovely.

And, of course, any scene between Nathanial and Arnaud! Ask me again in a few weeks and I’ll probably find different scenes to pick.

AF-A: So, what can your fans expect next from you?

MM: Next? Well I’m already working on a story for the next season of Space: 1889 & Beyond in which I get to pick up one or two threads from The Ghosts of Mercury and take them a little bit further. I’ve been sprucing up my website, too, and have been asked to pitch for a short story collection edited by Paul Magrs, which, as always, should be great fun.

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And so, now, allow me to share with you an excerpt from The Ghosts of Mercury…

There was a sudden, sharp knock at the door. Nathanial looked from one colonel to the other. There was a moment of awkwardness before the ghost colonel suddenly caught on.

“Oh, you think I should go?”

“Probably wise,” said the Shawbridge with a curt nod. “Whoever it is, seeing two of us in here might be a bit much—for now at least.”

The ghost nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll, um, see you chaps later then?”

“I do hope so, Colonel,” said Nathanial.

And then, without a sound, the ghost simply winked out of existence. There was another, firmer, knock.

“Come in,” said Nathanial, and the door was opened by Iris McConnon, looking very pale and shaken.

“Colonel,” she said. “Professor Stone. Sorry for the interruption, but something very strange is happening and I thought you ought to know.”

“What is it, Iris?”

“These ghosts, sir…”

“What about them?”

“You need to come and see. They’re everywhere.” Her eyes were wide and her face pale. “It’s like we’re being invaded.”

*

Shawbridge and Nathanial followed Iris out into the gloom; in the distance, they could hear much muttering and a few astonished cries.

“They’re everywhere,” Iris said as they reached the main square of Princess Christiana Station. Little huddles of people were standing around, pointing and crying. Some of them were shouting, their fists raised.

And around each little group, there were ghosts.

Some of them were as solid and concrete as Shawbridge’s own ghost had been earlier, but most of them were hazy phantoms, displaying the same flickering and shifting that had been reported in earlier sightings.

“Right!” bellowed Shawbridge at the top of his voice. “There’s no need to panic.”

A woman in a nurse’s uniform with a coat wrapped around her shoulders came running over. “Sir,” she said, her voice heavily accented. Nathanial caught sight of her name badge: Nurse Juanita Lopez. “I have seen one—and it was me!”

Shawbridge threw a glance at Nathanial. “Is that so, Nurse? Well trust me, there’s no need to worry—”

“But it was me!” she repeated, patting her chest. “I am going to die, aren’t ? I’m going to die!”

Mercury: a planet of two faces – one side cloaked in eternal darkness, the other blistered by eternal sunshine. And balanced between the two is the World River, encircling the globe.

Professor Nathanial Stone and his ward, Annabelle Somerset visit Mercury for what they imagine will be a pleasant trip to visit Annabelle’s uncle.

But tragic death precedes them – a death that provokes a chain of mysterious and terrifying events that challenge Nathanial and Annabelle’s long-held beliefs. Before long, they – with the assistance of French geologist, Arnaud Fontaine – discover something ancient and powerful that has designs on humanity.

“Michalowski inserts some soul into this latest steampunk adventure.” – Sci-Fi Bulletin

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The Ghosts of Mercury is now available from the following e-stores;

The Untreed Reads Store (http://bit.ly/sGWqDu)

Amazon.com (Amazon Canada, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon UK)

Scribd

DriveThruFiction.com

OmniLit.com

Barnes and Noble

Apple iBookstore (32 countries)

Lightning Source (a distributor, primarily North America)

… and will soon be available in every other e-book stockists out there.

The Ghosts of Mercury © 2011 Mark Michalowski and Untreed Reads Publishing.

Space: 1889 & Beyond © & ™ 1988/2011 Frank Chadwick.

All Rights Reserved.

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Elisabeth Sladen, 1948-2011

I very nearly got to work with Elisabeth Sladen, back in 2006. After a chance meeting with producer John Ainsworth at a Big Finish party we agreed to discuss story ideas for the second series of Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures. We got quite far with that, too, taking the series potentially into some serious literary territory. Lis Sladen was very much up for it, but alas it all fell through and the second series was postponed for some time (it did lead me to write for the Space 1889 audio series, however). It’s a great sadness to me that I never got around to creating real words for Sarah Jane, since I’ve been a big fan of the character from childhood.

And now she’s gone. Not Sarah Jane Smith, the character will continue forever, ensuring that we will never forget the great woman who created her. But yesterday, April 19th 2011, Elisabeth Sladen died after a battle with cancer, at only sixty-three years of age. She is survived by her actor husband, Brain Miller (who appeared opposite Sladen in the 2009 series of The Sarah Jane Adventures) and her daughter, Sadie (who starred alongside her mother in the first series of Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures). Last night rumour of her death swept across Facebook, and I had to text a friend, Gary Russell (script editor on The Sarah Jane Adventures) to discover the truth of the rumours. Considering I never knew the woman, although I had seen her at a few conventions over the years, news of her death hit me quite hard – no doubt a result of resurging memories of my own father’s failed battle with cancer a few months ago. My journey home felt like a long one, as a deep sense of sadness and loss overcame me.

With the exception of Donna Noble, played by the ever-amazing Catherine Tate, Sarah Jane has always been my favourite companion of the Doctor. I’ve seen and heard every story she’s appeared in, and have always been amazed by how little she has changed over the years. The character grew, especially in recent years, but Elisabeth Sladen herself just never seemed to age. She looked as stunning last year in series four of The Sarah Jane Adventures as she did in 1973 when she first encountered the Doctor. There is no doubt that the world of Doctor Who, both in fiction and in reality, is so much poorer for the loss of both an outstanding character and an amazing actress.

I never knew her, but through Sarah Jane it feels like I did. And I know I will miss her. Greatly.

Rest in peace, Elisabeth Sladen, 1st Feb 1948 – 19th April 2011. As the Doctor said; ‘Goodbye, my Sarah Jane.’

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Legacy #7; ’70s Cutaway

Previously on LEGACY - Three Night Engagement.

Not for the first time that afternoon, Doctor Langton found himself wondering about drugs. He’d already seen two of his regular methadone patients and had handed out the usual scripts.  The man sitting in front of him now wasn’t obviously asking for methadone or anything like it, yet his behaviour certainly mirrored that of someone experiencing a chemical come down.

‘You don’t understand,’ said the man for the umpteenth time.

Yes, thought Doctor Langton, he’s finally going to come right out and say it.

He leaned forward expectantly, fascinated to see that his patient did literally appear to be wringing his hands. A drop of sweat fell heavily onto the blotter pad on top of the desk.

‘I can’t go to sleep you see,’ continued the man.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t going to bare all, at least this was getting somewhere.

The man fixed him with an unnervingly intense stare, now speaking slowly and deliberately. ‘You don’t have to look at me like that, I know what I’m doing, you know? Doctors…’ He laughed, a short, harsh sound. ‘This decade is so lame, I’m glad I missed it first time round…’ He stopped dead, aware of what he’d just said.

Scratch the drugs, thought Doctor Langton, definite mental health case. Or maybe both. And I’m in here alone with him. Fantastic.

The man sighed heavily, looking distractedly at one of the watercolours on the office wall. Doctor Langton took the opportunity to ease his chair back a few inches from the desk.

‘Look, forget that,’ said the man, noticing the movement.

‘It’s okay,’ began Doctor Langton, in what he hoped was a calm and reassuring tone.  ‘Can you tell me how long you’ve been having trouble getting to sleep?’

‘What?’ snapped the man fractiously.

‘You said you’d been having trouble sleeping.’

‘No, no, I don’t want to go to sleep.  Sleeping is the problem.’ He fixed Doctor Langton with an impassioned look. ‘I can’t sleep.  Not now. If I do, I’m as good as dead. You’ve got to help me!’

Doctor Langton cleared his throat, trying to think of an appropriate response.  None came immediately to mind, beyond notifying social services.

The man stood up abruptly, coming round the desk to lean over the doctor. Without meaning to, Doctor Langton also stood up, backing his chair noisily into the wall.

‘Oh, come on!’ His patient was looking at him petulantly, and his eyebrows rose archly. ‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’

Before Doctor Langton could respond, the young man appeared to slip rapidly back into quite floridly psychotic speech.

‘They’ve probably got the Doctor already. I’ve got to do something and I can’t afford to go to sleep. Do that and they’ve got me.’ He looked up abruptly. ‘You must have some kind of one-shot system stimulant?’

Doctor Langton could only shake his head by way of reply.  He wondered what age the man was. Early to mid twenties? It was a sad case. ‘I can see you’re under considerable stress,’ Doctor Langton heard himself say eventually.

‘Oh go on, say it,’ muttered the man in a dejected tone.

‘Say what?’ wondered the doctor.

‘I’m mad,’ said the man, running a hand through his black hair. ‘I am, you know.’ And he smiled, a little unnervingly. ‘If I understand it right, I go to sleep now and the whole of reality buys the farm. Me too, come to think of it,’ he finished a little disconsolately. ‘Oh well.’ He held out his hand, which Doctor Langton took a little uncertainly. ‘It’s been fun. Have a nice life.’ With that, he turned on his heel and was gone.

‘Yes, well…’ Doctor Langton continued to lean against the wall for a moment, regaining his composure.  Eventually he sat down and pressed the intercom on his desk. ‘Jean, could you come in here a minute?’

A few seconds later his secretary, Jean Brooker, entered the room, smiling enquiringly.

‘Is everything all right, Ian? We could hear raised voices in reception.’ She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘He left in ever such a hurry you know.’

‘That’ll be reality running out,’ said Ian Langton, nodding sagely to himself.

‘Oh.’ Jean looked flummoxed.

‘I’m sorry, Jean.’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly, aware he still had another six patients to see. ‘Chap was definitely a few cards short of a full deck.  I need to put a call through to social services before I see anyone else. What was his name again?’

‘DeMars,’ said Jean with a frown. ‘American I think. He didn’t give a first name.’

‘Okay, thanks, Jean.’

‘No problem.’

As he began to dial, Ian Langton smiled wryly to himself. He’d only agreed to see the chap as a favour; he wasn’t even on the books.  Ah well, no peace for the wicked.  He stared out into the reception area.

*

Unseen by Doctor Langton, Jean Brooker or the bored patients in reception, a needle limbed creature hung upside down from the reception’s wall mounted clock by its feet.  Button eyes stared as it mouthed a soundless ‘Tick’ then ‘Tock’ in an absurd call and response.  Swinging serenely to and fro, a malignant pendulum, it grinned a rictus grin.

*

Mooching dejectedly down the road Brad reflected that his doctor’s appointment could, on the whole, have gone better.  Trouble was he’d never particularly liked or trusted doctors, with the one honorary exception. So why he’d actually come up with such a stupid plan in the first place was a moot point. Desperation perhaps? Yep, he thought that pretty much covered it.  Those last minutes in the TARDIS had been pretty surreal. Well, more surreal than usual.

He’d been headed for the control room, intent on talking to the Doctor about Jacen. In fact, he’d got to the control room, he was sure of it. The Doctor had grinned a greeting, no, scratch that, they’d even started talking.

Then it had happened.

There was an ear-splitting shriek and buzzing globules of what looked like TV static had started spilling from the scanner. Operating controls frantically the Doctor had engaged ‘Emergency Materialisation’, stuffed a bag of unfamiliar notes and coins into Brad’s hands and literally bundled him out of the doors.

‘Construct bounty hunters,’ he’d said in a stage whisper, then raised a theatrical finger to his lips.

‘Construct what? Doc, what the hell’s happening here?’

‘Construct bounty hunters, they’re trying a time jump.’ He’d paused, looking up and down the unfamiliar street.  ‘I’ll try and put them off the scent.’ Then he had given Brad the ‘deadly serious look‘. It was so absurdly pretentious it couldn’t be anything but deadly serious.  ‘Whatever you do, don’t go to sleep.  Reality’s liable to break down without you and I’ve not got the leads for a jump-start.’

‘What?’

The Doctor just grinned his enormous half-moon grin.  ‘You’ll be magnificent, Bradley, I know you will!’ With that he was gone, the TARDIS vanishing with its familiar asthmatic trumpeting.  A final sentence seemed to hang on the air.  ‘I’ll be back!’

And that had been it.  Now, having spent nearly forty-eight hours in London, 1975, Brad had had enough.

Who were these bounty hunters? Would they be coming for him too?

Finding himself standing outside a newsagent, he rummaged in his pockets, stuffed with various denominations of legal currency. Plus, he noted forlornly, a TARDIS homing device. Much good it would do him.

Locating a crumpled one pound note he pushed open the shop door.

*

Inside it was dark, cool and blissfully quiet compared to the street outside.  Garish racks of confectionery jostled for space alongside newspapers, magazines and sundry household items.  Wondering vaguely how a packet of dusters might help him save reality, Brad’s gaze settled on the rows of chocolate bars with their various unlikely names.

‘You got ten pence mister?’ Looking down Brad saw an Afro-Caribbean kid in denim, all of six years old, staring hopefully up at him.

‘Hey you!’ growled a white haired old shopkeeper from the back of the store.  ‘I’ve warned you before. Hop it!’

‘Hey, it’s cool.’ Brad raised his hands in a placating gesture, found a coin and gave it to the boy.

‘You shouldn’t encourage ’em,’ the shopkeeper rumbled.

‘Hey, seeing as he’s going to spend it in your shop, I don’t see why you’re complaining,’ Brad said tartly.

‘Smartarse.’

‘Yeah, right, whatever,’ Brad muttered as the shopkeeper proceeded to serve the boy.

He grabbed himself a random handful of chocolate. Definitely needed the sugar. Coffee would be good, too. ‘Hey, do you sell…’ He tailed off.

The shopkeeper had the boy’s coin and was inserting it into some sort of indentation on top of the cash register. Weird looking cash register come to think of it.  A look passed between the boy and the man.

‘Definite match?’ the boy asked.

‘Definite.’ The shopkeeper nodded. ‘DNA strand’s unmistakeable.’

They both turned to face him, eyes glowing a luminescent green.

Brad dropped the chocolate.

How come it was he who got to walk into the only trapped alien newsagents in the whole damn world?

‘Hope you’re not thinking of going anywhere,’ said the shopkeeper, turning a weirdly glowing ball of energy in his hand.

‘Big price on your head, man,’ added the boy nonchalantly.

‘You’re Construct bounty hunters, right?’ Brad saw a grin pass between them.

‘Well,’ said the old guy, tossing the ball from hand to hand.  ‘We are. But the contract’s changed.’

Brad didn’t need to hear the rest. As the ball of light hurtled towards him he wrenched at the central rack of shelving. Stumbling backwards out of the door he saw the middle of the store was now a mess of items encased in a web of viscous light strands.  He ran.

*

Soon he was aware of shouting from behind him.  The old man and the boy were in pursuit. In the middle of the air, balanced like surfers on futuristic skateboards, zipping in and out of the traffic.  They were gaining fast.  Brad went to catch at the arm of a traffic warden, but his hand went straight through the warden.

‘Don’t know you’re there, man,’ mocked the boy.  ‘Playing by different rules now.’

Brad stared wildly from side to side. The boy swooped overhead, turning for an attack, another ball of energy to hand.  Brad ducked sharp left, into the stairwell of a multi-storey car park. The familiar smell of urine and rubbish hit him. Lifts or stairs, lifts or stairs? One of the lifts was opening.  Brad stared.

It was the Doctor.

‘Well, come on!’ his friend boomed.

Brad needed no further encouragement.

*

Inside the lift he turned to the Doctor and stared again.  He was in the console room. The Doctor grinned triumphantly.

‘Yes, the chameleon circuit’s operational!’ He nodded to himself. ‘I would have done it sooner but necessity often proves the mother of invention.’ He grabbed Brad by both hands. ‘It’s good to see you, Bradley!’

‘You too, Doc, you too.  Now can you please tell me what’s going on?’

The Doctor beamed, plucking the homing device from his jacket pocket. ‘A small matter of splitting our resources. I had to throw the Construct off the scent, so I dropped you off and –’

‘You did what?’

‘I dropped you off and –’

‘You were using me as a decoy!’

The Doctor nodded, eyes gleaming. ‘If you like, yes. And a very good one too! Well done, Bradley!’

Brad sighed. ‘Great.’ He noticed the central column was moving. They were in flight again. ‘So what are the Construct again?’

The Doctor waved a hand. ‘Oh, creatures of pure causality.  With the causal nexus unravelling, and me being at the centre of it, those that watch such things have doubtless declared open season on us. The two you just met are Bartholomew and Anotyne.  Very dubious company.’

‘It just gets better,’ said Brad.

‘Yes, yes.’ The Doctor grinned in delight.  ‘It’s wonderful to feel wanted, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Brad pointedly.

The Doctor gaped. ‘I’m sure you can’t mean that. Oh, that’s interesting.’

‘What is?’

‘We’ve arrived somewhere else already.’ The Doctor operated the scanner. They were on top of a multi storey car park. In 1975 judging by the two figures hovering a good ten feet above the roof.

‘Tranquillisers,’ said Brad.  ‘I should have asked that guy for tranquillisers.’

‘Bradley, be a star and distract them would you?’ the Doctor asked. He was staring thoughtfully at the central column. ‘If they’re operating a linear inductor the only option’s to bypass it with a randomiser.’ He met Brad’s gaze. ‘It’ll take a minute. It won’t take them too long to get in here and I hate interruptions when I’m working.’

‘Right,’ said Brad.  ‘I’ll go and do the distracting thing.’

*

He found himself getting out of the passenger seat of a chrome blue Land Rover. This chameleon thing seemed to be working.  Turning he saw the bounty hunters hovering over the far wall of the car park. Brad backed around the Land Rover and looked over the rim of the wall. At least a hundred and fifty feet down. The boy was approaching at alarming speed, a shimmering ball of energy crackling in his hand.

‘Hey, so who are you?’ called Brad weakly.  ‘Bartholomew or Anotyne?’

A grin was all he got by way of reply. The skateboard sped closer. Heart pounding Brad took a step forward. The boy brought his arm up, bowling underarm.  Brad grabbed for him.

Confusion.

Brad fell heavily, very heavily, at first he thought the kid was on top of him but it was the skateboard thing.  It was incredibly heavy for something so small, an absolute deadweight.  Struggling up Brad saw the boy prone against the wall.  The light ball had exploded around him. A tracery of luminescent lines seemed to be eating in to him.

With an electrical fizz, boy and light disappeared.

‘You got Anotyne! You’ll pay for that!’ The old guy was incredulous.

So was Brad to be honest, but his shoulder and side were aching too much to think clearly.  Now white hair was coming for him.  The driver’s side door was opening.  The Doctor leaned out.

‘Bradley, strap yourself in!’

Brad stumbled to the passenger door.  Buckling himself in, his stomach lurched as the Doctor performed what felt like a three hundred and sixty degree turn. Bartholomew was very close now; Brad could see him in the wing mirror.

‘Time for the unstoppable force to meet the immovable object!’ announced the Doctor. And drove straight for Bartholomew.  Head on.  At the last minute Bartholomew seemed to realise the Doctor was serious and tried to swerve.  It was too late.  There was a clang of impact from the roof and the bounty hunter went sailing over the edge of the car park, complete with skateboard. There was an unnatural silence.  Brad shook his head.  He wasn’t sure if he felt like crying or laughing. The Doctor placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘What the hell is happening?’ said Brad.  ‘Did we kill them?’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘Not a chance. They’ll have reverted to causal particles. They were over confident, that’s all.  We were lucky.’

‘Right.’ Brad became aware he was sitting in the front of a Land Rover. ‘Hey, the TARDIS?’

‘Emergency reconfiguration,’ said the Doctor simply. ‘Inserting a randomiser is a devil of a job, Bradley. We need to lie low for a while, let the temporal trail go cold.’ Gunning the engine he headed for the exit ramp and the next level. ‘So,’ he said, his eyes sad and his smile serious.  ‘Tell me about Jacen.’

Brad looked down, noticing a newspaper in the well by his feet. He picked it up and looked it over; apparently something called UNIT was due to make a world shattering announcement tomorrow.

‘Bradley?’

Brad squirmed in his seat.  Before the Doctor had chucked him out to be decoy, Brad was all for telling the Doctor about Jacen; he even had a plan of how to save his friend. But now… He sighed.  The Doctor wouldn’t let this one go, he had that look on his bearded face.

‘Okay,’ Brad said, and began talking.

*

Brad talked and the Doctor listened.  As he talked, he felt a weight lift from his mind. Nothing changed but he felt easier just for having talked it through out loud.

A good two hours later they were parked high above the suburbs to the south west of the city.  The Thames sprawled lazily far below them.

‘You know, it’s weird,’ said Brad, ‘I can’t even remember the sound of his voice, y’know, what he was like. That’s got to be wrong.’

The Doctor seemed to smile at a private memory.

Brad sighed.  ‘You can’t take me back can you?’

The Doctor shook his head.  ‘I might be able to take you back in the normal course of things but I still couldn’t change what happened.’

It was Brad’s turn to shake his head. ‘But look what’s happening to you.  I mean, if that isn’t someone messing around with time…’

The Doctor laughed a short, uncharacteristically mirthless sound. Brad looked closely at his face in profile. There were anger and passion and questions there to match his own.

The Doctor continued to stare ahead, into the dying evening.

Neither of them spoke again for a long time…

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To find out what happens next, look out for the soon-to-released collected stories of LEGACY season one, volume one, Requiem. It will be published by Japaf Publishing and distributed by Lulu Distributions. As ever, LEGACY is a non-profit series and the cost of the book covers printing and postage only – the contributors do not make a single penny from it. As an incentive for buying it, though, there will be two exclusive stories to volume one; The Ugly Bug Ball by Greg Miller (previously only available in the limited 2006 e-anthology, The Other Side of Reality), and The Flames of Chambrook by A. R. Montacruz – a never before released season one story!

Edited by Andy Frankham-Allen, Greg Miller & Elizabeth Medeiros.
Cover & Artwork © 2010 by Ewen Campion-Clarke.
'70s Cutaway © 2001, 2010 by Niall Turner,
Legacy © & ™ 2001, 2010 by Andy Frankham-Allen. 
Doctor Who © & ™ 1963, 2010 by BBC Worldwide. All Rights Reserved.


 




The online LEGACY adventures will resume New Year's Day 2011 with The Millennium People, which follows on from the events of Requiem. But until then I shall be running a new weekly serialised novel, exclusive to this blog, called Vampire Knights. The novel will be an experiment, modelled on the early days of LEGACY. It will be written week-by-week with no absolute direction to follow. The story will grow organically, and along the way will feature guest authors - some of whom will be known, others will be fresh new talent.


 
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Legacy #6: Three Night Engagement

Previously on LEGACY - Once Upon a Memory

‘Look at me

I opened a door I cannot close

I feel strange winds

Walk into here, open your door.

This is an introduction…’

 

Another night offered Brad a chance. ‘Philosopher’s Stone (or Lapis Philosophorum)’ was about to set up for their first night’s performance at Dante’s.  Formerly a Mongolian grill, Dante’s was a very small bar and musical venue. A plain bar counter, a stage raised about two meters, and about a dozen tables comprised the establishment.

The group was just about getting their drink on. Jacen was a whiskey sour man, Tobias a White Russian swiller. Brad didn’t sit well with hard liquor since he was in fact a dark beer and cannabis aficionado. Jessene, the sessioning violinist, didn’t show.

‘Guess what, man?’ Jacen chirped suddenly over the subdued din of the early bar crowd.

‘What?’ groaned Brad who was pretending to be dim for the moment.

‘I’m a whale!’ Jacen sprayed a mouthful of whiskey all over the table through his pursed lips.

Tobias slugged him forthwith in the bicep.

‘You want me to smack you in the ass, man?’ Jacen leered.

‘Oh, you wish!’

‘Yeah, well screw you, people. Jessene ain’t here and we’re going to have to do an improv show. Bitch’s probably tweaking anyway.’

Bradley was on fire and he didn’t care one whit.  This was it.  He swallowed the last of his beer and cruised over to the bar to check the time.

*

The flimsy curtain parted. With much gravitas stood Jacen with bass strapped on.

‘It’s so nice to see so many faces.  Good evening,’ he drawled, resplendent in his pressed business suit and neatly coiffured platinum blonde hair. His handsome features creased into a scowl behind the microphone as he began.

‘One thing I have to ask. Is it loud enough for you?’ The question was asked as a shrieking exclamation delivered in his baritone voice.

Thus commenced ‘Philosopher’s Stone’s’ first night at Dante’s. The set began with the stage being bathed in a lunar blue light which seemed to cool the feverish and smoke filled club.  Jacen began with a droning yet staccato series of electronically processed chords.  Then he began a simple Latin chant.

‘Ignit natura renovatur integra.’

Brad initialised a short series of pre-programmed samples as he also began an improvised synth fugue.  Tobias did his part in the proceedings by commencing a shamanic drum beat interspersed by a mighty gong strike.  Later, he would try out his set of Tibetan singing bowls.

Tobias was rude and often painfully surly in his interpersonal dealings.  On stage, his peculiar brand of magic was expressed in his percussion. Brad and Jacen, however, manifested total sublimity – something that pleased Brad no end.

‘Look at me.

I opened a door I cannot close.

I feel strange winds. The path I chose

This, but an introduction, no more.

Walk into here, open your door.

This is an introduction…’

 

Brad sang one of his own songs that first night as well.

‘What dream has come

Where time has gone?

Stunned, unsummoned and still

Again, I tried to lift up my eyes

And not shield them from the sun,

Again…’

*

A fetching and somewhat muscular young woman in an overly decorated bomber jacket turned to speak to her companion.

‘Professor!’ She had to shout over Dante’s PA system as the band played through a delirious second night. ‘Can I get a drink?’

‘Ace, I didn’t procure your ID so you could “catch a buzz”, or whatever you’d call it! Keep a clear head, please.’

Ace glowered at the Doctor.  A thought came unbidden to her of chucking a bar ashtray at him.  It would serve him right just to knock his silly hat off his head.  The Doctor had been so maudlin recently, ever since giving that little bit of life force away to his past self.

‘What are we looking out for, anyway?’ she asked. ‘I thought we were tracking the Master.’  She looked around at the dancing crowd.  ‘I don’t think this is his scene, Professor,’ she pointed out with a smirk.

The Doctor passed Ace a napkin with something scribbled on it.  Two names stood out in the message, whatever it had been.

Brad DeMars and Jacen J. Lewis.

‘What’s this, then?’

‘I’ve no idea. I found it a few hours ago before we got on that Tri-Met bus. It’s coated in temporal residue.’

‘But who are they?’ Ace had to shout again over the chorus of electronic damnation. The Doctor simply pointed at the stage in reply to Ace’s question.  The one with the dark hair caught Ace’s eye. A corner of her mouth twitched into a half-smile. That familiar feeling went through her body again. He was cute. It had been such a long time since she…

‘Can we meet them later, Professor? After the show maybe?’

‘That’s what the intention is.  Not that I really enjoy this sort of music, Ace.’ The Doctor’s tone was that of one discussing a particularly messy surgery. ‘It reminds of me a Ninhana symphony orchestra.  It’s like an incompetent dentist attacking a cavity with a rusty nail,’ he added while gritting his teeth.

*

The ambulance arrived at half past two in the morning. The stressed out bar staff had been looking forward to going home for drinks and bed.  But Jacen had ‘collapsed’ while descending the stage steps.

‘I just tripped, man!’ Jacen screamed at a paramedic.  ‘No! I don’t have any damned insurance! Let me be!’

*

In the narrow alley behind Dante’s, a pool of turgid shadows formed in defiance of the nearby streetlight’s attempt to stand sentry against such things.

‘Tock tock tick,’ said one Dommervoy to its featureless mates.  In unison they softly clapped their stiff semblances of hands together and disappeared back into that portable umbra of theirs.  A solitary thread of violet tinged blackness congealed into the receding anomaly.

A homeless man, who happened to be crouching behind the dumpster, simultaneously went blind.

*

‘What the hell was that?’

The Doctor narrowed his grey eyes, and stepped gingerly into the alley, holding a hand out before him. ‘Temporal disturbance of some kind.’

‘And those puppet things?’ Ace asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ the Doctor growled, pulling his hand back sharply, as if stung. He sucked his fingers, and said around them; ‘thhs pase ss ahive wff tempul ennery.’

‘Come again, Professor?’

The Doctor removed his fingers. ‘This place is alive with temporal energy. Those things must feed off it.’

‘Are they following the Master, too, then?’

‘I have no idea, Ace! Will you stop asking all these questions!’

Ace stepped back in shock. She hadn’t heard him sound so angry since the army barracks in 1941. ‘Sorry!’ she snapped back, and noticed the homeless man stumble from behind the dumpster at the other end of the alley. She pushed past the Doctor. ‘I’m going to help that poor sod over there,’ she said and made her way to the blind tramp.

The Doctor watched her, and raised the handle of his umbrella to his lips. ‘Bradley DeMars, he’s at the epicentre. We musn’t get too close to him again.’ He turned from the alley and called back. ‘Come on, Ace, we need to find the Master another way.’

*

‘I can’t believe this… sea-change,’ groaned Jacen, sprawled on his studio day-bed.

His head had been shaved by the neurosurgeon’s nurse. He wore an eye patch since he’d lost muscular control over his left eye. During the past four months, he had suffered from several more seizures. An MRI scan revealed that a tumour the size of a golf ball was resting on his brain. Subsequently, Jacen endured radiation therapy and ultimately surgery to excise most of the growth.

Brad’s mouth was painfully dry.  He had to say what was on his mind.

‘I just want you to know that I love you. You’ve been my greatest friend and collaborator.’ A bead of sweat trickled behind his ear as he spoke.

‘I know, Bradley Boy. I know. Sorry I can’t return it. Shit, I had enough of a time dealing with Jessene before she went to rehab.  God! You need to give it up.  I hate to see you so frustrated and pissed all the time, man.’

They locked eyes and Brad took Jacen’s weak hand in his own.

Brad knew exactly what Jacen was referring to. The love he held for Jacen was so much more than platonic, sometimes it hurt, and sometimes it lifted him above the clouds.  But most of the time it just hurt ‘cause Brad knew that he could never have Jacen, but at the same time he didn’t want anybody else, either… it was a tough path Brad walked down.

‘It’ll be all right. You’ll be back to your old self soon. Look…’ Brad stopped speaking and took a deep breath in a concerted effort to slow his heart down a little. ‘I have to go before I break down again.’

His chest began to heave as the tears came.  Jacen tousled his hair and rested his good hand on Brad’s shoulder and said; ‘Remember, Requiem; Ignit natura renovatur integra.  The whole of nature is regenerated by fire.’

*

Almost two months later, in the TARDIS, Brad opened his eyes.  Regenerated? Yes! He had it…

*

The Doctor looked up from the console just as the inner door flew open and Brad entered the console room. He couldn’t help but notice that Brad had been crying.

‘Doc, I need your help. I have an idea about how to save Jacen.’

The Doctor was, not for the first time today, quite puzzled.  ‘Jacen? And just who is Jacen, Bradley?’

Next Time

‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’

Before Doctor Langton could respond, the young man appeared to slip rapidly back into quite floridly psychotic speech.

‘They’ve probably got the Doctor already. I’ve got to do something and I can’t afford to go to sleep. Do that and they’ve got me.’ He looked up abruptly. ‘You must have some kind of one-shot system stimulant?’

Doctor Langton could only shake his head by way of reply.  He wondered what age the man was. Early to mid twenties? It was a sad case. ‘I can see you’re under considerable stress,’ Doctor Langton heard himself say eventually.

‘Oh go on, say it,’ muttered the man in a dejected tone.

‘Say what?’ wondered the doctor.

‘I’m mad,’ said the man, running a hand through his black hair. ‘I am, you know.’ And he smiled, a little unnervingly. ‘If I understand it right, I go to sleep now and the whole of reality buys the farm. Me too, come to think of it,’ he finished a little disconsolately. ‘Oh well.’ He held out his hand, which Doctor Langton took a little uncertainly. ‘It’s been fun. Have a nice life.’ With that, he turned on his heel and was gone.

‘Yes, well…’ Doctor Langton continued to lean against the wall for a moment, regaining his composure.  Eventually he sat down and pressed the intercom on his desk. ‘Jean, could you come in here a minute?’

A few seconds later his secretary, Jean Brooker, entered the room, smiling enquiringly.

‘Is everything all right, Ian? We could hear raised voices in reception.’ She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘He left in ever such a hurry you know.’

‘That’ll be reality running out,’ said Ian Langton, nodding sagely to himself.

‘Oh.’ Jean looked flummoxed.

‘I’m sorry, Jean.’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly, aware he still had another six patients to see. ‘Chap was definitely a few cards short of a full deck.  I need to put a call through to social services before I see anyone else. What was his name again?’

‘DeMars,’ said Jean with a frown. ‘American I think. He didn’t give a first name.’

‘Okay, thanks, Jean.’

‘No problem.’

As he began to dial, Ian Langton smiled wryly to himself. He’d only agreed to see the chap as a favour; he wasn’t even on the books.  Ah well, no peace for the wicked.  He stared out into the reception area.

*

Unseen by Doctor Langton, Jean Brooker or the bored patients in reception, a needle limbed creature hung upside down from the reception’s wall mounted clock by its feet.  Button eyes stared as it mouthed a soundless ‘Tick’ then ‘Tock’ in an absurd call and response.  Swinging serenely to and fro, a malignant pendulum, it grinned a rictus grin.

To Be Continued… Sat 6th November

Edited by Andy Frankham-Allen, Greg Miller & Elizabeth Medeiros.
Cover © 2010 by Ewen Campion-Clarke.
Three Night Engagement © 2001, 2010 by Christoph Lopez,
Legacy © & ™ 2001, 2010 by Andy Frankham-Allen. 
Doctor Who © & ™ 1963, 2010 by BBC Worldwide. All Rights Reserved.

 

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Legacy#5; Once Upon A Memory

Previously on Legacy; Reality Bomb

The haunting melody echoed throughout the corridors of the time ship.

*

In the console room the Doctor sat to one side of the console, the steady hum of the TARDIS engines keeping a continuous rhythm with the steady rise and fall of the time rotor. He was sitting in his shirt sleeves, legs crossed, a deck of cards laid out in a tableau before him. He was playing Accordion Solitaire and making good time with it, pondering the oddness of his recent trip to Ossobos.  He still couldn’t work out why he had taken Brad there, but he was sure it was something a little more important than to sample the local amenities. The music wafting through the room, however, continued to distract him from both his cogitations and his game.

Music was not a common occurrence in the TARDIS, and certainly not something she tended to play through the communication circuits, but then his ship had been acting oddly in many ways recently. Not unlike the universe itself, come to think of it.

Still, he had to admit, it was a lovely tune.  Made him feel all thoughtful and relaxed inside. Mellow. Reminding him of times past, and friends lost.

He got up and walked over to the console. ‘Well, old girl, where did you get this tune from?’

In answer the scanner screen activated. It was an internal image that showed Brad in his room, sitting on the bed, wearing the kilt he’d become so found of, playing his keyboard.

The Doctor smiled.  ‘Ah, Bradley.’

He left the scanner on, and turned up the volume, then returned to his card game, mindful of his own thoughts.

*

Brad closed his eyes, and let the music surge through him.  It was like a journey through time, the melody carrying him right back to the day he and Jacen had first composed the tune.

… Brad finishes playing the overture, and looks up at Jacen, who is sitting opposite. ‘What do you think?’

Jacen opens his eyes and nods. ‘Sweet, man, yeah.’ He takes a puff of the joint.  ‘What you calling it?’

‘Not sure yet, but I was kind of thinking Requiem. There’s something haunting about it.’

‘The repose of the souls of the dead.’

‘Dude, that’s pretty sound.  Where did you get that?’

‘Catholic upbringing, man. A requiem is a mass for the repose of the souls of the dead.’

Brad nods knowingly, not that he has ever been a church goer.  ‘That’s perfect,’ he says, accepting the joint off Jacen and taking a deep drag of it.

Jacen reaches down and picks up the bass guitar. ‘Play it again, man.’

Brad does so.  And while he does, he never once takes his eyes off Jacen.

Jacen closes his eyes and starts swaying his head to the tune.  He strums the bass then lets the music take over.  Within moments they are both playing in unison.  As the key changes they both adapt, taking the tune to the next level. They do not need words, nor do they need eye contact.  Making music together is a deeply spiritual thing for both of them.

For Jacen it is a sign of total unity of friendship, but for Brad it is a time of intense love. He knows that he can never have Jacen, so the union through making music is the nearest thing he ever gets to truly being one with Jacen, and Brad knows it will have to be enough.

With his eyes closed Brad continued to play, remembering the good times.

*

The card game was forgotten by the Doctor who now sat there with his eyes closed.  He was remembering something important, only he didn’t know where it’d had come from.

… ‘This ends now.’

The small man steps out of the trees, and approaches the scene.  One soldier lays in the grass, unconscious, a second stands nearby, pistol pointing at a man who is kneeling by the unconscious body of a fourth man.

The Doctor recognises this lanky man; it his him, in his third body, a scar on his head from where the soldier’s bullet had grazed his skull.  There is much blood over his chest, spreading across the useless hospital gown. He doesn’t think the soldier did that; rather it was the man kneeling next to him, holding the rifle. There is something distinctly familiar about that man.  Not his form, for the Doctor is certain he has never seen the man before. Time Lords have a way of recognising each other no matter the incarnation, and this one is known to him.

His old friend Koschei.  Only he seems so dark now; eyes as yellow as a cat’s, sharp canines dripping with blood. What had happened to him since the Doctor last saw him?

Koschei looks up; hatred for the Doctor dripping from his pores.  ‘No,’ he growls, ‘it ends when I say so. I told you, Doctor, I now have the power to kill you.’

‘You think you control that power?’ the Doctor’s diminutive future self asks.  ‘No, that power has you. You’re becoming an animal.’

Koschei licks the blood off his teeth, and smiles.  ‘Yes, an animal that has killed you,’ he says.

The Doctor’s eyes snapped open.

Things were becoming clear now. That version of Koschei was from his future, the same future that had brought the other Doctor to him. But why? What had happened to twist Koschei in such a way that he’d travel back along his own time stream to kill the Doctor?

Koschei had always been a slightly off-kilter character, never quite playing with a full deck, the Doctor thought to himself ruefully, glancing at the cards on the floor.  Even his nickname, Koschei, was a hint to his less than noble principles.  Koschei was a man from Slavic mythology, often called Koschei the Deathless, an evil person who menaced young women.  It was the name his classmates had chosen for him during the early days of the Academy, and he’d happily taken it on as his real name after graduating, a final insult to his noble family who represented everything Koschei hated about Gallifreyan society.  Although the Doctor had agreed with much of what Koschei said, he at least held to some of the strictures of Gallifreyan law. Throughout their time at the Academy they became fast friends, drawn to each other by their inherently rebellious natures.

Until the war planet.

It was his reunion with Koschei there that precipitated the events leading to the Doctor’s forced second regeneration and exile by the Time Lords. Koschei had allied himself with an alien race intent on creating the strongest army ever, by kidnapping people from various Earth wars, watching them fight until only the strongest survived. Koschei had been the alien’s war chief, giving them time travel technology so they could kidnap and brainwash the humans. It was a despicable plan, one the Doctor had to stop, even if it meant betraying Koschei in the process. The last the Doctor had heard, Koschei had been gunned down by the aliens, presumably dead. But no, it seemed he had regenerated and escaped. Surely that was not enough to bring this thirst for the Doctor’s death? He felt sure that somehow this other Doctor was several regenerations ahead; so much time had passed. But how much time? Did it matter?

The Doctor needed to know.

The Doctor let himself relax and sink into the music.  His future had touched his present, and somewhere in his memories was the information he needed.

*

He was no longer aware of his hands moving across the keys.  It was pure instinct.  The music continued, and Brad found himself standing beside Jacen’s grave.

… The wind blows his hair into his eyes as he stands there all alone.  The sexton has just left, having covered the hole with dirt and mud.  Brad shakes his head, at his own inability to face the facts.  Hole, indeed.  Why he could he not just admit it? It was not a hole it was a –

He looks up, hearing the music. Requiem, the final piece played by the band, and the one tune Brad had so wanted to play while they lowered Jacen Lewis into the ground.

It is a sad touch of irony, that they had composed such a moving tune only a week before their last gig, just before Jacen’s ‘accident’.

Again Brad scolds himself.  Such pointless words; hole and accident.  In his mind he can hear Jacen singing the last words of Requiem, like it is some kind of coda of his own life.

We all choose our time to go.

And none went as well as I,

Eternity open up for me.

He kneels down and places a hand on the dirt. A tear lands, muddying the dirt between his fingers, and he squeezes his eyes shut.  ‘Goodbye, Boo,’ he says, using his private name for Jacen, a name that even Jacen never knew.

He swallows hard, stands and turns away from Jacen one final time.  He takes his first step on the long journey to his destiny…

A month later and once again a single tear fell from Brad’s eye, this time hitting the ersatz-ivory key between his fingers.

*

The Doctor opened his eyes as soon as the music ceased. He frowned.

The little insight gave him some clues.  The future Doctor had saved him, stopped the future Koschei from killing him. It had brought on regeneration, but he had lived nonetheless.  His future had wanted something of him, but the what still escaped him.  The Doctor shook his head; it didn’t matter now.  All he knew for sure was that he had to find that dark twisted future version of his old friend.

He got up and walked over to the console.  Since the TARDIS seemed to like that tune so much the chances were that she had made a copy of it. The Doctor accessed the TARDIS’s memory and sure enough there it was.

He put the tune back on and closed his eyes.  He would find his old friend somehow.

Next Time…


In the narrow alley behind Dante’s, a pool of turgid shadows formed in defiance of the nearby streetlight’s attempt to stand sentry against such things.

‘Tock tock tick,’ said one Dommervoy to its featureless mates.  In unison they softly clapped their stiff semblances of hands together and disappeared back into that portable umbra of theirs.  A solitary thread of violet tinged blackness congealed into the receding anomaly.

A homeless man, who happened to be crouching behind the dumpster, simultaneously went blind.

*

‘What the hell was that?’

The Doctor narrowed his grey eyes, and stepped gingerly into the alley, holding a hand out before him. ‘Temporal disturbance of some kind.’

‘And those puppet things?’ Ace asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ the Doctor growled, pulling his hand back sharply, as if stung. He sucked his fingers, and said around them; ‘thhs pase ss ahive wff tempul ennery.’

‘Come again, Professor?’

The Doctor removed his fingers. ‘This place is alive with temporal energy. Those things must feed off it.’

‘Are they following the Master, too, then?’

To Be Continued… Saturday 30th October

 

Edited by Andy Frankham-Allen, Greg Miller & Elizabeth Medeiros.
Cover © 2010 by Ewen Campion-Clarke.
Once Upon A Memory © 2001, 2010 by Andy Frankham-Allen,
Legacy © & ™ 2001, 2010 by Andy Frankham-Allen. 
Doctor Who © & ™ 1963, 2010 by BBC Worldwide. All Rights Reserved.

 

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Legacy #4: Reality Bomb

Previously on The Legacy; In The Blood


‘Brad?’

‘I feel,’ said Brad, with careful emphasis, ‘sick.’

‘Sick? Sick! Nonsense!’ The Doctor spread his arms wide and laughed a life affirming laugh.  He knelt beside Brad on the floor of the lift as it continued its rapid ascent.

Brad was sure he had left his stomach several floors below.  If the Doctor was not careful he was going to find the contents of Brad’s stomach all over him.

‘Probably still acclimatising,’ said the Doctor, clambering back to his feet.  He reached out a great paw of a hand.  Weakly Brad took it. ‘You see?’ The Doctor’s grin sparkled.  ‘Feeling better already eh?’

Fighting the giddy surge of nausea threatening to poleaxe him, Brad attempted to take in their surroundings. Not a good move. They were blurring past at a rate of about two hundred feet a second. The rapid ascent, the unusual gravity and a hefty tankard of Ossoban Soul Killer were putting a whole new perspective on drowning your sorrows.

Abruptly the lift halted.  Brad leaned back against the smoked glass, fighting the urge to retch. ‘So what are we here for again?’

The Doctor was off ahead of him and he had to run to catch up. ‘Professor Sixela Capricornn,’ came the reply. The Doctor disappeared round a glaringly antiseptic corner.

Brad paused, shaking his head.  The air was sterile and mint fresh and seemed to be taking the edge off his nausea.

‘The antitoxicant filtration works best if you remain still, sir,’ piped a high pitched voice from behind him.  Turning, Brad saw a blue skinned octopus headed creature in official uniform.  Its one eye blinked hugely at him.

‘Uh, thanks for the information,’ said Brad cautiously.  Was he in some kind of trouble here?

‘Information dissemination is my duty, sir,’ returned the creature primly and moved lightly away.  Brad stared.  Its lower half tapered to a point like an ice cream cone and seemed to be hovering a few inches above the floor.

‘Brad!’ boomed a distant voice.

‘Coming,’ said Brad and realised with a shock that his nausea had completely vanished.  He stared at an illuminated sign on the far side of the plaza: LEVEL 337 – RESEARCH & PSIONICS – AUTODETOX ZONE

‘Great,’ he said, spying the Doctor in the distance.  ‘Don’t go getting totalitarian on me will you?’ There had to be a shop where he could buy an ‘I Love the Future’ badge.  With resignation he saw the Doctor was waiting for him by another of the streamlined lifts.  This was not good.  Sober, the prospect just filled him with alarm.

The Doctor was looking at himself in profile in the mirrored panel to one side of the lift.

‘Doctor?’ ventured Brad.

‘This beard…’ The Doctor wheeled around and faced him seriously.  ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s a good one,’ said Brad, wondering if this was going anywhere. Something small and silver flashed past overhead at high speed.  Brad stared after it.

‘Carrier chip,’ murmured the Doctor distractedly. He laughed. ‘Excellent, excellent, I thought as much myself but a second opinion is always valuable.’

‘Glad to be of service,’ said Brad with a smile so unsure of itself it threatened to walk off the other side of his face.

The Doctor guffawed with alarming good humour and clapped him about the shoulders. ‘Like the hair,’ he confided with a glance at Brad’s red bangs, ‘it’s very you.’  He stabbed at a button and the lift doors slid silently open. ‘Shall we?’

*

After three more upward journeys, they reached their destination: LEVEL 2876 – ADVANCED DIVINATION – AUTODETOX & AUTOSEC ZONE

‘This is where we’ll find her,’ breezed the Doctor.  ‘One of the finest minds of her or any era, present company included.’

Brad sighed.

They were in a functional grey corridor, lit imperceptibly from overhead. The Doctor set off to the right with the air of one who knew where he was going. They passed a reception area with another of the octopus creatures in clerical uniform.

‘Good afternoon,’ blasted the Doctor and walked straight past.  With an apologetic smile Brad hurried after him.

A good half hour later they were back at the reception desk and Brad had seen enough grey corridors to last a lifetime.  True, they were futuristic grey corridors but that really was not cutting much mustard with him.

‘Infallible sense of direction?’ asked Brad with a pained look.

‘Exception that proves the rule.’ The Doctor ignored him and beamed at the receptionist.

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Brad. ‘Information dissemination is your duty, right?’

‘That is correct, sir.  I would remind you that, were you to ask me my function, I would be unable to withhold that information under the statutory protocols.’

‘Right,’ said Brad slowly.  ‘Nice.’

‘Professor Sixela Capricornn?’ interjected the Doctor before the conversation could take a further down turn.

‘The professor is currently lecturing in the holo-suite, she will be free at the forty seventh segment,’ said the creature.  Its one eye blinked slowly and changed colour to a shimmering opaque blue.  The image of a similar creature in some kind of high tech lecture hall appeared.

‘Thank you very much,’ said the Doctor. ‘We’ll follow the signs for the holo-suite.’ He glanced at his wrist as they moved off, which showed the notable absence of a watch.  ‘Segment forty seven, which gives us, ooh, two and a half segments to spare.  Fancy taking in some more corridors?’

Brad was not listening.  ‘Who are these TV set tentacle heads?’

‘Fourth Ossoban Republic.  I told you that when we arrived,’ chided the Doctor.

‘Sorry, it slipped my mind,’ said Brad.  While the Doctor had set about ascertaining the location of the Data Tower he had had his Soul Killer moment in one of the lower level IntoxiKafs.  And had promptly forgotten where and nearly who he was for a good two hours.  Or was that segments?

Brad sighed again.

*

‘Here we are!’ The Doctor’s enthusiasm was palpable.  They had arrived outside a set of silvered double doors.  A small wall mounted screen showed a gowned Ossoban lecturing to a good four hundred plus students. ‘This is the one person, the one person,’ the Doctor pummelled the air with his fist for emphasis, ‘who might be able to help us. Temporal anomalies are her speciality!’

‘As in Portland disappearing into the wild blue yonder?’ said Brad.

‘You think that’s where it went?’ The Doctor considered.  ‘Dangerous place the Yonder, especially in the blue phase.  No, I can’t agree.  It doesn’t even exist within linear time.’

Brad wondered whether to slap the Doctor or himself.  He had come down in favour of the latter when he noticed the Doctor heading for the doors.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’ He caught the Doctor by the arm.

‘Might as well sit in,’ said the Doctor.  ‘I think she’s doing singular occlusion in fringe timelines.’ He grinned.  ‘I’ll meet you out here?’

‘Good call,’ acknowledged Brad.

The Doctor vanished inside the hall with a pneumatic hiss of air.  Brad watched the Doctor on the wall screen, as he found his seat, and then he set himself down on one of the low couches opposite.  He glanced idly up and down the corridor.  Away to the right the corridor turned a corner by another, internal, lift.  To the left were a number of alcoves.  The corridor itself disappeared into imperceptible distance.  For want of something better to do, Brad wandered up to the first of the alcoves.  He stared in amazement.

Turning slowly in a beam of turquoise light was the most beautiful, well… He did not know what to call it.  It looked like some perfect hybrid of guitar and synthesiser, fashioned from ebony black and silver.  Four crystalline strings ran the length of the instrument, from body to elegantly fluted neck.  The neck was interesting because there did not appear to be any keys for the ‘strings’.  It simply tapered to a sleek crystalline sphere which seemed to glow with an inner luminescence.

Brad looked up and down the corridor.  It was no good.  He could not resist.  Tentatively he plucked at one of the ‘strings’.  He jerked his hand back as a sharp electric shock ran up his arm.

‘Ow!’

Damn thing must be security tagged in some way.  Not surprising, it was a pricey looking item.

‘Do you wish communion with the host?’

Brad looked about himself. ‘Who said that?’

Maybe the Soul Killer had some kind of audio flashback effect.  With a start he realised the guitar synthesiser had drifted imperceptibly towards him.  ‘So you’re a speaking guitar, right?’

‘We are the Atrexian Host.  We are in communion with the Host world and existing here as a cultural exchange.  You wish for communion, yes? Mind meld can cause much pain to inferior species but is permissible nonetheless.’

‘No, no communion. It’s a mistake,’ said Brad. Under his breath he added: ‘I’m here as a cultural ambassador from planet cock-up.’

The guitar seemed to turn on its axis. ‘Please forgive this misunderstanding.’

‘The apologies are all mine.’

As cultural faux pas went, this one had been pretty hot.

*

Observing this exchange from the lift away to the right was a spindle limbed figure. It stared with night black eyes, letting a placard it carried swing idly from hand to hand.  To the left it read ‘Tick’, back to the right and it said; ‘Tock’.

The Dommervoy grinned a needle grin and snickered to itself.

*

Brad shivered as he made his way back to the couch. The lift doors at the turn of the corridor were sliding closed.  He had not seen anyone get in or out. There was movement on the wall scanner. The Ossoban holo-students were winking out of existence. The Doctor and Professor Capricornn emerged.

‘Professor, this is my good friend Bradley DeMars.’

‘Or just Brad,’ Brad suggested.  Having the Doctor calling him Bradley was one thing, but he didn’t want to be introduced as such.

‘Sorry to have kept you waiting so long,’ trilled the professor.

‘No problem,’ said Brad, a little uncertain. ‘It’s been no time.’

‘You are very gracious,’ said Professor Capricornn. ‘I overran terribly but it is rare to have such an esteemed guest.’

The Doctor attempted to look modest and failed.

*

‘So you see my problem, Professor,’ finished the Doctor.  He had been explaining how he had met Brad and something of subsequent and previous events as they sat around the professor’s hexagonal desk in her office.

The professor nodded imperceptibly, her one eye blinking.  ‘Where, or indeed when, to begin.’

‘Exactly!’ The Doctor was nodding furiously.

‘Of course,’ continued the professor, ‘the primary consideration must be the so called First Law of Time, plus a recognition of those who do not subscribe to the theory.’ She paused significantly. ‘In both principle and practice.’

Great, thought Brad.  That’s made everything really clear.  He stared distractedly out of the window, wondering why his teeth were itching.

*

Outside the window, an invisible paste white figure floated impossibly thousands of feet above the ground. It held twin balloons.  One said ‘Cause’, the other ‘Effect’.  The balloons burst soundlessly.

*

The Doctor was excitedly pacing the office.  He had already done three circuits of the table. ‘So what you’re saying is it’s a matter of narrowing the field of suspects.’ He paused. ‘Still leaves a pretty vast field.’ He patted his ample stomach.  ‘All this application has given me an appetite. Sixela?’ He looked expectantly at the professor.

‘I don’t think she’s listening,’ said Brad.

The Doctor stared. Professor Sixela Capricornn was clearly speaking but no sound was emerging.  She also appeared to be fading away before their eyes.

‘Oh good grief!’ The Doctor looked anguished.  He found he could pass a hand clean through the professor. ‘Reality bomb.  It must have been primed and waiting for the trigger… Some form of nexus point.’ He looked at Brad in horrified realisation. ‘Me, Brad, me! I’m the trigger!’

The effect was now spreading.  Table, walls and floor were fading out. Snaking lines of nothing ran into one another, widening the void.  Brad stumbled away from the table, or what remained of it. The professor had completely vanished. With mounting concern Brad noted the walls and corridor outside were vanishing as well.  He stumbled towards the window.

‘What the hell do we do?’ He was not sure if he sounded or felt more alarmed.

‘We don’t panic in the face of adversity,’ announced the Doctor passionately whilst also backing towards the window.  ‘We shall face this thing together, Bradley!’

‘That’s made all the difference,’ said Brad. He looked desperately about himself and noted a softly glowing panel on the wall by the window.  ‘What’s that?’

‘What?’

‘That!’

‘Oh, call panel for the external lift,’ said the Doctor blithely.

They stared at one another.

‘Try the lift?’ wondered Brad.

‘A superb choice! And perhaps the only one left to us.’ The Doctor gave his companion a thoughtful look.

Brad shook his head in disbelief, and leaned past the Doctor and hit the panel.

*

It had taken agonising seconds for the lift to arrive but arrive it did and they had tumbled inside, the Doctor hitting the descent button. There was no sign of the work of the reality bomb yet but Brad was not counting his chickens.

‘So what is a reality bomb exactly?’ he asked to pass the time.

‘Oh, terrible things,’ replied the Doctor. ‘Outlawed by all the major conventions. The field of effect can be cosmic or very localised. They level the playing field geographically and temporally. Once they’ve activated physically there’s a kind of mental wipe out for anyone within, but not physically destroyed by, the immediate zone of effect…’ He tailed off as the lift came to rest with a gentle bump.

‘What was I talking about?’ he asked with a frown.

‘Don’t know,’ said Brad, shrugging.  ‘Something about talking guitars… No.’ He winced. ‘I feel terrible.  I knew I shouldn’t have tried that Soul Killer stuff.’

‘Oh, you’ve tried the Soul Killer have you?’ The Doctor threw back his head and laughed a life affirming laugh.  ‘Come on, let’s get you back to the TARDIS.  You might want to sleep this one off in the Zero Room!’

The Doctor frowned again and shook his head.  ‘I can’t think what we’re doing on Ossobos for the lives of me…’

Next time…

Music was not a common occurrence in the TARDIS, and certainly not something she tended to play through the communication circuits, but then his ship had been acting oddly in many ways recently.  Not unlike the universe itself, come to think of it.

Still, he had to admit, it was a lovely tune.  Made him feel all thoughtful and relaxed inside.  Mellow.  Reminding him of times past, and friends lost.

He got up and walked over to the console.  ‘Well, old girl, where did you get this tune from?’

In answer the scanner screen activated.  It was an internal image that showed Brad in his room, sitting on the bed, wearing the kilt he’d become so found of, playing his keyboard.

The Doctor smiled.  ‘Ah, Bradley.’


To Be Continued… Saturday  23rd October

Edited by Andy Frankham-Allen, Greg Miller & Elizabeth Medeiros.
Cover © 2010 by Ewen Campion-Clarke.
Reality Bomb © 2001, 2010 by Niall Turner,
The Legacy © & ™ 2001, 2010 by Andy Frankham-Allen. 
Doctor Who © & ™ 1963, 2010 by BBC Worldwide. All Rights Reserved.
1 Comment

The Legacy #3: In the Blood

Previously on The Legacy; Urban Decay


‘Brad?’

Brad rubbed his head and opened his eyes.  Looking down at him was the strange man with the beard.  The Doctor? Yeah, that was his name.  But what kind of name was that?

Brad sat up and looked around.  He was sitting on a bed in a large white room.  The chairs and tables seemed to be made of some type of mouldable plastic – it reminded him of those ’50s B-movies, the type that looked towards the future.  Oh yes, very 21st Century – not!

‘Do you know Blackjack?’

Brad looked back at the Doctor.  ‘Huh?’ It was the best he could manage.  The Doctor’s face crumpled into disappointment, so Brad tried a little bit better.  ‘Black who?’

‘Blackjack.’

‘No,’ Brad said slowly, thinking it was probably best to humour the large man, ‘don’t think so. Friend of Black Beard?’

The Doctor waved a set of playing cards in front of Brad’s face.  Brad just shook his head, causing his nuclear red bangs to fall down in front of his eyes. ‘Oh,’ the Doctor mumbled.  He looked around the room, then back at Brad, smiling.  ‘Poker?’ Again Brad shook his head.  ‘Oh,’ the Doctor reiterated.  ‘Oh. Well, not to worry.’ He stood up and walked to the door at the far end of the room.  He looked back. ‘There is a bathroom through there.’ He pointed at an alcove in the corner of the room.  ‘Once you have freshened up come and meet me in the console room. I have something to show you.’ With a final smile, he left the room.

Brad sat there for a few moments.

Had he really fainted? How uncool was that?

Deciding to ignore the sadness of such a reaction, Brad got off the bed and walked over to his big black bag.  He had noticed it next to the table before.  Nice of the Doctor to bring it in with him.

He opened the bag and took a look in there.  Nothing had been taken as far as he could see.  His synthesiser was still there, complete with electrical cables.  He glanced around the room, but could see no sign of a plug socket.

Shit, he thought, let’s hope there is enough power still in the batteries.

He returned to the bag.  The suit he had worn at the funeral was still in there, although it did not seem likely that he would be changing into that.  Not that it was a major deal, of course, all he had to do was freshen himself up and then head back home.

Home? Just thinking about that sent his mind reeling.  Images of Big Pink tilted at an improbable angle, the ripple surging through the grounds west of Willamette River…  He shook his head.  Had he been on some whacked out trip or had it been real? Well, the Doc was obviously real, but it was feasible that he remembered the Doc from a calm moment in-between trips.  Of course, the only dumb thing about that reasoning was that Brad knew he had not taken any drugs for a few days.

He walked through the alcove and found himself in the bathroom.  Well, that is what the Doc called it.  There was a basin that was obviously the toilet, and there was some kind of cubicle.  He opened the cubicle.  Apart from a switch the cubicle was empty.  He flicked the switch, and immediately jumped back, his arm and the front of his sweater all wet.  He glanced at the cubicle with a grin.  Okay, so that was the shower.

He closed the door, and figured it best to ignore the fact that there was nowhere that the water could have come from.

Brad looked around the bathroom as he began to get undressed.  There was bunch of clothes piled in the corner, including what appeared to be a skirt.  The Doc had put him in some chick’s room? Great, thanks for that.

Only there was something familiar about it; the pattern.  It reminded him of a trip he’d taken to Scotland with Jacen some time ago.  It was a kilt, not a skirt.

Brad grinned, and wondered if he should wash it.  There was something sexy about a man in a kilt, and he’d always wanted one himself.  Continuing to remove his clothes Brad decided that he’d ask the Doc about a washer later.

*

The Doctor sat on the floor of the console room, playing cards laid out before him.  It was a simple game, but one that helped him to focus.  A technique he had been taught during his recent trip to Gregoramani at the turn of the First Quarter.  Not that it was working too well at the moment.

He glanced up from the cards as the inner door opened.  Framed in the doorway was Brad.  Still dressed in his jeans and trainers, but now with a black leather jacket worn loosely over a white t-shirt.  His black hair was still a little wet, but it was brushed back, making the red tips merge with the black of his crown.

‘Hello,’ the Doctor said cheerfully, and got to his feet, feeling a lot more nimble now.  His run around the Portland construct had done wonders for settling his body.  He felt ten times fitter than he when he’d arrived in that construct. ‘Feeling better?’

Brad walked into the room.  ‘Yeah, kind of, thanks.’

‘Good.’ The Doctor nodded and went over to the console.  ‘Good. Kind of is actually excellent considering your survival rate.’ He hit a button on the console and turned back to Brad.  ‘Wouldn’t you say?’

Brad thought back to the car crash.  ‘Yeah, if you say so, Doc.’

‘I would indeed.’ The Doctor bellowed out a laugh.  ‘Indeed I would.’ His laugh stopped abruptly, and with a meaty finger he pointed behind Brad.  ‘What do you make of that?’

Brad turned.  There was something a little like a television set up in the top corner of the wall.  On it was the strangest thing Brad had seen.  Well, not strictly true.  Portland being turned into some kind of cyber-induced landscape rated as the strangest, but this was a close second.  Some kind of dark tunnel made of red triangles.  No, not red.  The colours were changing.  Reds, blues, greens… And it was no longer triangles.  Shapes of all kinds.  Brad stepped back, dizzy all of a sudden.

‘Sorry,’ the Doctor said behind him.  ‘Some of those shapes aren’t made for human perception.  What do you make of them?’

‘What, apart from a great cause of epilepsy, you mean?’ The Doctor nodded, seemingly oblivious to Brad’s sarcasm.  ‘Nothing.  Just shapes in a tunnel.’

The Doctor’s face fell.  ‘Oh.’  He smiled.  ‘Oh.  Well the human mind will catch up one day.  It is, in point of fact, the causal nexus of the universal quantum reality.  And it is greatly in flux.’

‘And that is bad?’

‘Very.’

‘The temporal and spatial nexus?’ Brad asked, remembering something the Doctor had mentioned before he had drifted off.  The Doctor nodded, quite pleased.  ‘And it is breaking up?’ Again the Doctor nodded.  Brad thought some more, but he had no idea where he was going with this conversation.  So he gave up.  ‘Means nothing to me, Doc.  Sorry.’

‘Not to worry.’ The Doctor pressed a button and the screen went off.  ‘I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it one day.’

‘We?’

‘Yes, we.’ The Doctor placed an arm around Brad’s shoulders.  ‘You do realise that you should never have existed in that echo of Portland? It was not mere chance that allowed you to exist, you know.  And neither was it mere chance that allowed you to meet me.  We are destined for great things.  Great things.’

For a moment Brad almost believed him.  Almost.  Hell, it was a nice thing to believe.  After the disasters of late it would be nice to have some kind of hope.  But Brad was not much of an optimist these days.  ‘Okay. So what do we do now?’

The Doctor laughed.  ‘We explore, Bradley.’

Brad chose to ignore the Doctor’s use of his full name; normally only his father used it, but somehow it sounded right coming from the Doctor’s mouth.  ‘Explore? Explore what?’

The Doctor walked past the console and pointed at the central column.  ‘When the TARDIS is in flight – for want of a better word – the time rotor there oscillates.  As you can see, it is quite still now.  It means we have arrived somewhere.’ He climbed into his big brown coat.

A load of questions entered Brad’s mind, but he never got the chance to ask them.  Before he could even open his mouth the Doctor was walking through a pair of double doors.

‘Hey, wait up, Doc,’ Brad called and followed.  What else could he do?

*

Yet again Brad shook his head, clearing the wet bangs from his eyes. Wet? Ha! Soaked more like.

‘Nice spot, Doc. Couldn’t you have found somewhere a little warmer?’ The Doctor seemed to ignore Brad, being quite content to just continue with reading the stained newspaper he had found on the deserted road.  Again, Brad shook his head.  ‘You know, allowing me back into the TARDIS would have been nice. I mean, it’s all right for you.  You have that bear of a coat keeping you dry.  And what do I have? A jacket, not exactly rain wear.’ Brad growled at the Doctor’s back, and took a step forward.

The Doctor spun around, nearly knocking Brad over.  He shoved the paper at Brad.

‘What do you think of that?’

Why was it always questions with the Doc? Brad took the soggy paper and began to peruse the front page. ‘Not a lot.  Nothing familiar.’ He glanced at the date, but the digits made no sense to him.  ‘Where are we, Doc?’

‘Don’t know.  Can’t say I have been here before.’

‘Great,’ Brad muttered.  ‘Just goddamned great.’ He sighed and threw the paper onto the sodden grass by the side of the road.  ‘Are we in England? Looks dirty enough to be England.  And wet enough.  Went to the UK not so long ago, and it rained a lot.’

The Doctor jumped into the air.  For his bulk it was quite a big jump.  ‘Nope.  Not England.  In fact, Bradley, not even Earth.’

‘Excuse me? What do you mean, “not even Earth”?’

‘The gravity is all wrong for Earth.’ The Doctor jumped into the air once more and smiled.  ‘Besides, there is much more to the universe than that one small planet.  So much more to see.’ He put his arm around Brad’s shoulder.  Brad squirmed.  As if he was not wet enough.  ‘Do you know how much I have been to Earth, Bradley?’ the Doctor asked in a whisper. All Brad could do was offer him a blank look in response.  ‘Hmm. Nor me.  But I do know I have been to Earth more times than any other one planet.  I think it is time the Earth looked after itself for a change, don’t you?’ The Doctor winked, and removed his arm.

Brad was stumped.  He watched the Doctor for a while, allowing the big man to walk away from him.  ‘Now wait a minute there, Doc.’ Brad ran up to the Doctor.  ‘What do you mean “not even Earth”? I’ll admit, your TARDIS is pretty cool, and yes, even that Portland went all trippy.  But are you trying to tell me we are on another planet?’

‘That is exactly what I am saying.  Yes, I know it is quite a concept, but your human mind will soon get used to it.’ The Doctor noticed the offended look on Brad’s face.  ‘Don’t be hurt. In my time I have had many companions, and most of them have been humans.  And each of them was a little shocked about being on planets other than Earth.  But they adapted well, as I am sure you will.’

Brad swallowed.  Well, he had to admit this got him away from all the crap that had been going on in his life recently.  ‘You know, Doc, I wonder if I am still on a trip, or if this is some dream.’

‘Oh no, no dream, Bradley.’

‘No? It was a nice hope.’ Brad smiled, despite the cold.  ‘But, hey, I will get used to it.  I’m nothing if not adapt –’

A screeching interrupted Brad’s eulogy.  The Doctor looked down at Brad and smiled.  ‘Aha. Sounds promising.  Come on.’

Brad blinked and the Doctor was away.  Brad ran behind, and called out.  ‘Promising? What?’

The Doctor looked back, but did not stop running.  ‘That sound means someone is in danger.  Which means I can help.’

Brad was not so sure. That screech was not the sound of someone, more the sound of something. Something pretty crazed, and… inhuman.  The Doctor’s voice drifted back.

‘Come on; adventure, excitement.  It’s waiting around the corner!’

*

Once they had turned the corner they came to a stop.  Before them was a woman holding her arm, screeching in pain.  Brad could not say he blamed her, after all the fire raging around her arm must have killed. There were four other people behind the woman, protecting a dog from the madman with the flaming torch.

How the wood managed to stay alight in this weather was beyond Brad, but it was so.  The man holding the torch out looked quite mad.  Wide eyed, looking as if he had had no sleep in decades.  A patchy beard, evidently not big on the shaving, either.  A sword lay abandoned on the ground beside him.  The man took another swipe with the torch, and the flame spread from the woman’s arm to the rest of her body.

Brad blinked, shocked at the Doctor’s speed.  Within moments the Doctor had intercepted the crazed man, taken the torch off him, and pushed the man onto his back.

‘Wow,’ was all Brad could manage.

The Doctor turned to Brad. ‘Quick! We must get some water!’

Brad shook his wet bangs. ‘Are you shitting me, Doc?’ He waved his arms around.  ‘Don’t you think we have enough water here all ready?’

The woman screamed and dropped to the ground.  The flames died abruptly.  All that remained was a burnt out carcass.  Her fellows looked at each other, and Brad felt a sting of sympathy for them.  Losing someone was not an easy thing.  Seeing the burnt corpse reminded him of Jacen lying in his coffin.  Brad took a step forward.

‘Hey, it will all be…’ His voice tailed off.

The four people snarled and looked at Brad.  He gulped.  They were not people.  They were vampires.  The teeth and the yellow eyes were a dead giveaway.  Ragged vampires, perhaps, but vampires nonetheless.  As one they advanced on Brad.  He tried to move but could not.  All he could do was look at the eyes of the tallest man.

‘Erm, Doc!’ he yelled.

Two of the vampires looked away from Brad to where the Doctor was standing.  Brad forced himself to look.  It killed his neck, but he could just make out the Doctor from the corner of his eye.  The Doctor stood there, arms behind his back, face set in a sad frown.  The two vampires advanced on the Doctor.

He shook his head and stepped forward to meet them, revealing the sword in his hand.  The vampires did not get a chance to react.  The Doctor moved swiftly and finally.  Within seconds the first vampire was dust.

‘Go Doc!’ Brad heard himself saying, but soon shut up when the Doctor threw an angry look at him.

The second vampire growled, but the Doctor showed not one iota of fear.  The vampire launched itself at the Doctor, and soon that vampire was a pile of dust, too.  The Doctor coughed and brushed the dust off him.  He looked at the two remaining vampires, and so did Brad.  They looked pissed.

‘Um, Doc…’ Brad began.

‘Don’t worry, Bradley.’ The Doctor walked through the dust piles towards the two vampires, and glanced down at the remains, a look of distaste on his face. ‘Are you going to leave us, or do I have to dispatch you as well?’

The two vampires looked at each other, then the tall one stepped up to the Doctor.  ‘How dare you interfere? You will be like us.’ He grabbed the Doctor by the throat, causing the sword to fall to the ground, and pulled the Time Lord closer to him.  ‘Or die.’

The Doctor laughed in his face.

The head vampire snarled at the Doctor.  ‘It is not wise to laugh at me, mortal. I am Lord Cheng, and I am not to be trifled with.’

‘You know, I have other enemies who like to say such nonsense to me.  And they are so much nastier than you.’ The Doctor grabbed the vampire’s wrist and twisted.  Cheng released the Doctor’s throat and fell back.

Brad blinked the rain out of his eyes and saw the vampire holding his broken wrist aloft.  Brad laughed.  ‘Way to go, Doctor,’ he whispered, not wishing to receive another of the Doctor’s glares.

The Doctor continued looking at the remaining vampires and bellowed: ‘Now go!’

They went.  But not before Lord Cheng said; ‘There will be a reckoning with you! I promise it.’

Once they were out of sight Brad stepped up to the Doctor and patted the large man on the back.  ‘Wow, Doc, I’m very impressed.  You could teach Van Hel–’

The Doctor turned on Brad and said through gritted teeth; ‘It is no laughing matter, Bradley, taking a life never is.’

Brad laughed, nervously.  ‘Yeah, but they were vampires, right? Demons and all that.  Evil.’

‘Life is life.  Sometimes I have to fight evil with evil, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.’ The Doctor took a deep breath, sighed, and looked at Brad.  He placed a large hand on the young man’s shoulder.  ‘Don’t worry about it, Bradley, you’ll get it one day.  Now then,’ he added, and looked down at the man they had saved.  ‘What say we get this fellow indoors, eh?’

*

The sun was shining and they stood outside the TARDIS.  The man, Ori’en, did not look so crazed now.  In fact he looked quite relaxed.  He had explained to the Doctor and Brad that he had not slept in weeks, not since he had realised that he was the last person alive on this planet.  It seemed that the whole planet had been infested with some kind of vampire virus, and Ori’en was the only one not to have turned.  Yet.  He expected it would happen soon, but in the meantime he intended to see if he could find a cure.  The Doctor offered to help.

‘Thank you, Doctor.  But this is my problem.  The longer you and Brad stay the more likely you are to become infected.’

This suited Brad fine.  Staying on a vampire-infested planet was not his idea of fun.  So now they were at the TARDIS saying goodbye.

‘Well, best of luck, Ori’en.  I daresay the vampires will give you a little breathing space.  At least until they realise that I have gone.’

Ori’en smiled.  ‘Let’s hope that it is enough time, Doctor.  And thank you, again.  I needed a good rest.’

The Doctor just laughed and opened the door of the TARDIS.  He ushered Brad inside, then looked back at Ori’en.  ‘Take care of yourself.’ The two men shook hands and the Doctor entered the TARDIS.

*

Ori’en stood there and watched the TARDIS fade from sight.  He looked down at his torn hand, at the infected blood.  His eyes glowed with a yellow hue.  ‘I will take care, Doctor.  I hope you do, too.’ As he walked away he could feel his infected blood mingling with that of the Doctor.

*

Brad glanced back at the closed doors.  ‘That was really weird, Doc,’ he said, removing his wet jacket from his sodden shirt. He glanced down at his jeans, now darker than usual and clinging uncomfortably to his skin.  ‘You got a washer?’

The Doctor wiped the blood off his hand, and noticed the slight cut.  ‘Oh dear… I wonder how that happened? Must have been the sword.  Oh well, it’ll heal.’ He glanced up at Brad.  ‘A washer, did you say?’ The Doctors reached into his pockets and pulled out all kinds of metal bits.  ‘Washers, nuts, screws, bolts, nails; I have them all.  A handyman’s dream!’

Brad shook his head, smiling out of the corner of his mouth.  ‘Yeah, that’s really neat, Doc, but I was thinking of washing my clothes, not attaching moving parts to them.’

‘Oh! A washing machine? I think we need to find you some new clothes.’

‘Well, I saw this kilt earlier; I could maybe try that on?’

The Doctor’s brow furrowed.  ‘No, fresh and new is the way to go.  Believe me, Bradley, I speak from experience.’

The Doctor led Brad through the inner door. ‘Is this what you do, then, Doc? Whiz in and out of peoples’ lives with barely a hey and bye?’

The Doctor gave this some consideration. ‘No, I usually tend to get a little more involved, but since my regeneration… I don’t know. I feel this need to move on, as if I’m looking for something.’ He shook away these obviously disturbing thoughts. ‘Enough of this, let’s see if we can find you a washer,’ the Doctor said with a beaming smile. Brad couldn’t help but return the smile. Somehow being stuck with the Doctor didn’t seem such a bad thing after all. It sure beat being stuck in Portland…


Next time…

Outside the window, an invisible paste white figure floated impossibly thousands of feet above the ground.  It held twin balloons.  One said ‘Cause’, the other ‘Effect’.  The balloons burst soundlessly.

*

The Doctor was excitedly pacing the office.  He had already done three circuits of the table.  ‘So what you’re saying is it’s a matter of narrowing the field of suspects.’ He paused.  ‘Still leaves a pretty vast field.’ He patted his ample stomach.  ‘All this application has given me an appetite.  Sixela?’ He looked expectantly at the professor.

‘I don’t think she’s listening,’ said Brad.

The Doctor stared.  Professor Sixela Capricornn was clearly speaking but no sound was emerging.  She also appeared to be fading away before their eyes.

‘Oh good grief!’ The Doctor looked anguished.  He found he could pass a hand clean through the professor.  ‘Reality bomb.  It must have been primed and waiting for the trigger… Some form of nexus point.’

To Be Continued… Saturday 16th October

Edited by Andy Frankham-Allen, Greg Miller & Elizabeth Medeiros.
Cover © 2010 by Ewen Campion-Clarke.
In the Blood (previously released as 'So Long Legend') © 2001, 2010 by Andy Frankham-Allen,
The Legacy © & ™ 2001, 2010 by Andy Frankham-Allen. 
Doctor Who © & ™ 1963, 2010 by BBC Worldwide. All Rights Reserved.


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The Legacy Season One

Due to the positive response for the first two stories, I have decided to run the rest of The Legacy‘s first season at one story every Saturday for the next thirteen weeks. A break will then follow before season two picks up the story…

So, drop by tomorrow for story #3…

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