Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Rose and Nine The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Fifteen ( Chapter 15 )

Rose and Jack were in the Home for the Cognitively Disconnected; known to the fiction geeks as the Big White House. It turned out that people living on Colony World 4378976.Delta-Four were not allowed to use their imagination.

Jack had been brought here for telling stories of his adventures, in an attempt to find the leader of the fiction geeks. He had only just managed to escape a frontal lobotomy.

Rose arrived under her own steam with what she thought was the Doctor. He was pretending to be a 900 year old alien time traveller, and she was trying to get him sectioned. They let them in, but gave her a “shot” instead of the Doctor, which made him disappear . . . well, it made her imaginary Doctor disappear at least.

The real Doctor had arrived with Police Inspector Waller, whose mission appeared to be ridding the world of the subversive fantasy geeks. He was pretending to be a researcher for a television channel, which wanted to make a documentary about the police's fight against the fiction geeks ring leader, Hal Gryden.

But it wasn't a documentary he wanted to put on air, it was the truth he wanted to transmit to everyone in the city. He had taken one of the fiction geeks, Domnic Allen, to the TARDIS where he had found micro organisms that absorbed neuroelectro-chemical signals.

He'd given Waller the slip, and went to find Rose, while Jack had mobilised the inmates of the house into an army of defenders to man the barricades and keep the police out.

Rose was a few doors away, huddled up on a bed in the dark. The TV screen in her room had been smashed. She greeted the Doctor with a smile and a `Hi', but neither reached as far as her eyes.

He was with her in two strides, enveloping her in a hug, assuring her that he was who he appeared to be and that she was safe now.

`You found the monsters, then?' she asked, forcing herself to sound cheerful but not quite succeeding.

`Oh yeah.' He tapped a forefinger against her temple. `They're in here.'

Rose flushed. `What's that s'posed to mean?'

The Doctor moved the finger to his own head. `They're in here too. Micro-organisms in the air of this world. The settlers' equipment isn't sensitive enough to detect them and it's been a long time since they looked anyway.'

`Which means . . . what? We're all just breathin' 'em in?'

The Doctor grinned. `Yeah. Hold on, here comes the science bit. These organisms feed off electrical activity in the atmosphere. They were probably quite happy till human beings came here and offered them something a bit tastier.'

`You mean our . . . brains? They're eatin' our brains?'

`Er, not quite. Just absorbing their neuroelectro-chemical signals. The right side of the adult human brain has the best flavour, apparently. It's like sugar to them. They've become quite the addicts, started colonising wholesale in there.' He tapped Rose's temple again.

`Trouble is, too much right-brain activity . . . dreams, for example . . . and they get bloated. The surplus impulses are reflected back where they came from, creating a feedback loop.' He was twirling his fingers in a hopeless attempt to demonstrate.

`The dreamer finds his dreams amplified over and over again until the right brain reacts to them as if they're real and communicates that information . . .' he clasped his hands together and described an arc through the air . . . `to the left brain.'

`Left brain,' repeated Rose, still not quite following.

`Yeah. Logic, reasoning, language, all that stuff. And memory.'

`So that's why they . . . they kind of half froze my brain . . .'

`So you couldn't dream, yeah.'

`All the muscles down my left-hand side . . .'

`Right side of the brain controls the left side of the body.'

He now needed to tell the whole city about this, so that they could do something about it. There was a problem though. Waller would not want him to tell this lie, this fiction.

One major channel, apparently, had been taken off-air when its studios had been invaded. A police spokesperson was urging the public to remain calm, to stay in their homes . . . until he broke down in tears and confessed to the world that there was nothing he could do, that his force was outnumbered and that, contrary to his previous statements, the truth was that everyone was going to die.

The programme's editors cut back to a stunned newsreader who fiddled with her data pad and tried to think of something to say. She was spared the effort as her image suddenly crackled and died. There was a brief burst of static, then a new picture wobbled uncertainly into view.

The Doctor was out of focus at first, visible only from the neck down. He rushed forward until his navy-blue shirt filled the screen. He seemed to be having a row with the patient behind the camera; Rose cranked the volume up and heard muffled voices.

Blurred fingers clashed over the lens. Then the Doctor's face dropped into view, ridiculously huge, his nostrils gaping like caverns. He blinked, grinned and backed away until he was perched on his desk, now perfectly framed.

`Um, yeah, hi,' he said . . . and he smiled again, self-consciously.

Come on, Doctor, thought Rose, pull it together!

`You're watching Static,' said the Doctor, playing with his hands, `broadcasting on all frequencies for . . . for as long as we can. I think you all know me, though I might not look quite as you imagined.'

Over the racket of the police raid, Rose could just make out the Doctor's voice: `I'm Hal Gryden . . . and I've got something important to tell you.'

`I messed up,' the Doctor was broadcasting, more confident now, getting into his role. `I've been telling you that fiction's good, and I stand by that. But I got one thing wrong. I was treating the symptoms, ignoring the cause.'

`There's no need to fight, no point. It's not what I wanted. I wanted you to dream of building, not of tearing things down.'

As the Doctor broadcast his message on the emergency network, Rose and Jack had been trying to hold back the police to buy him time. They had bought him ten minutes, but now the police had breeched their defences.

Rose raced into the small office, where a cop with pips on her shoulder and a uniform a bit too large for her was levelling a gun at the Doctor, who had stopped talking and was raising his hands.

`I trusted you,' spat Waller, `and you were him all along. You lied to me!' Rose leaped onto her shoulders . . . to be thrown off with an almost casual shrug. She landed in a heap, found her arms pinned by two cops before she could stand again.

And there were many more cops streaming into the room, more guns aimed at the Doctor's head, and his hapless volunteer was wide-eyed with fear as he was wrenched away from his camera.

`Turn it off!' the cop with the pips ordered.

`Why?' asked the Doctor.

`Because we've all heard enough of your lies!'

`But you're here now. Inspector Waller to the rescue. The world is watching you. Your chance to fix everything; set the record straight.'

Waller hesitated, gesturing to the cop who had picked up the camera to stay his hand for now. She was thinking about it.

`You can be the one who tells them the truth,' said the Doctor. `The whole truth and nothing but the truth.'

And he smiled past the cops at Rose.

`The only truth that needs telling here,' stormed Waller, `is that you're fantasy crazy, the furthest gone I've ever seen! The people only have to look at you, Gryden. They only have to see what's happening out there.'

The Doctor shook his head. `I didn't cause any of this. Pushed the process along, maybe, but . . .'

`It's your fault, you and your Static channel. The media is meant to inform, to educate. It tells us what's real, what we can believe. But you've corrupted it. You've used it to spread dissent and violence and fear!'

`Your people want change,' said the Doctor.

`Yeah,' piped up Rose. `And if you'd listened to what the Doctor was sayin', you'd know . . .'

`I was calling for the violence to end. There's a better way.'

`Oh yeah, and don't we all know it!' spat Waller with distaste. `Leave it to you, you'd have people dreaming as much as they like.'

`We all need dreams, Inspector Waller,' said the Doctor. `Even you.'

Waller shook her head firmly. `I'm happy with my real life, thank you. We've seen where your way leads. Everyone wanting different things, fighting for their own dreams.'

`Price you pay, I'm afraid. The freedom to hope, to imagine something better so you can make it real . . . worth it, believe me.'

Waller let out a hollow laugh. `You're asking me to believe you?'

`Yeah. You're so concerned with the truth, aren't you?'

`It's all there is.'

`And what do your superiors think of that? Come on, Inspector Waller, why not talk to them? Find out what they think.'

`I don't have to. I know the law.'

`And the law never changes.'

`Right.'

`So prove it. Talk to them. Make me out to be a liar in front of the whole world.'

after a moment's indecision, Waller brought up her wrist and spoke into her vidcom. She asked somebody called Steel if he had heard, and requested instructions.

She nodded and grunted as she listened, and then thanked the person before turning to the Doctor triumphantly. `You see now, Gryden? Do you see who the liar is?'

The camera zoomed in, to show that her vidcom was broken, blank, just the remnants of a shattered screen nestling in a mess of burnt-out circuitry.

`Yeah,' said the Doctor quietly. `I think we all do.'

The other cops were shaken, unsure who to trust. They were wavering, some of them turning their guns on Waller herself.

`Course, I don't know the full story,' said the Doctor. `I don't know where you got the uniform and the bike, but there's always a way if you want it badly enough. And of course, who'd question you? Who'd dare accuse a police officer of lying? Did the uniform come with the pips, by the way, or did you make them yourself, give yourself a promotion? How about the vidcom? Was it always broken, or did you break it yourself so you'd only hear the voices you wanted to hear?'

He shifted his gaze to Waller's colleagues. `Anyone else heard of this “Steel”? No? I wonder . . . if “Inspector” Waller got away with it this long, how many more impostors are there out there? How many in this room?'

Waller had dropped her gun. She looked as if the life had drained out of her. She was muttering something feebly. Sound technicians had worked hard to decipher the words, so that they could be subtitled.

She was saying, `I didn't mean to . . . I was only trying to put things right, fight the monsters . . .'

But the Doctor didn't let up. `Ironic, isn't it, “Inspector”, that you've spent so long denying other people their dreams . . . and all that time you were living all yours!'

The cops had gathered their thoughts now and command had passed without discussion to a short, stocky man with sergeant's stripes. At his signal, they moved in and seized the Doctor, Rose and Waller. None of them resisted.

A black-gloved hand closed over the lens of the camera, blocking its view of the scene . . . and a moment later, it went dead. But by then, of course, it was far too late.

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Domnic Allen hurried through the jungle, not caring about a few scratches this time. Every so often he thought he could hear voices ahead of him. He dismissed them as products of his imagination, before realising that they were real.

He reached the blue cabinet just as its door shut with a final sounding thud. He ran up to it but didn't know what to do. Cry out? Knock on the door? What would he say if somebody answered?

He walked round the box, staring at it, agonising over his indecision. He completed his circuit and was surprised to find Rose Tyler in front of him.

`Hi.'

`Er, hi,' Domnic stammered. `I just . . . I didn't want to . . . I felt . . .'

`I know. Sorry 'bout sneaking off like that. The Doctor's not keen on goodbyes.' Domnic didn't said anything, so Rose continued, `I think it's all the adoration . . . makes him a bit embarrassed.'

Captain Jack popped his head out of the door. `You ask me, he's missing out on the best bit. Why else put our necks on the line, if not for the adoration? Coming, Rose?'

`OK, yeah.'

Jack glanced at Domnic. `Listen, mate, the Doctor said you should try to re-establish contact with other human worlds, get them to send you all the fiction they have. He said you've got so much to look forward to: Hitchcock, Proust, Blyton, Dennis the Menace.' And then he disappeared again.

`No, really,' Rose laughed, `that's what he said: Dennis the Menace.'

Domnic swallowed. `Will I . . . Will we see you again?'

`Doubt it,' she said regretfully. Then, turning back to the cabinet, she paused and added, `Well . . . maybe in your dreams.'

Then she darted forward, kissed Domnic quickly on the cheek and disappeared with a wink and a grin. She walked up the ramp to the console, where the Doctor was starting up the Time Rotor, filling the room with that wonderful sound.

`So, where are we off to next then?' she asked him.

The Doctor straightened up and frowned in thought, before raising his eyebrows and smiling. `I know, I've just had an urge to go somewhere.'

`An urge?' said Rose. `That sounds interestin'.'

`Where is it then?' Jack asked.

`Let's go to the wardrobe and I'll give you a clue,' the Doctor said mysteriously.