“No! No! NO!”
“Sir, I—”
“Pryce, shut your damn mouth! I think it’s enough that you’ve condemned an entire world today!”
Elijah Pryce wisely shut his mouth, but his breathing did not slow down. Nor did he rise from his kneel. Pryce was looking at him now, and whenever he did, he just felt like groveling for his life. So, naturally, Pryce was well prepared for this moment.
“And stop that sniveling, you twit!” He yelled at Pryce, “We still have time! We’re just going to have to risk an incident! You’re much more useful to me alive right now. So, get up.”
Pryce slowly rose to his feet, “I…these anomalies were not expected, sir. Please let me say how convinced I am that we would have eliminated the subjects by now, if not for that interference.”
“What the hell does that do for me now, Pryce? That’s neither impressive nor particularly uplifting. Now you have one final, slim chance to avoid failure. Whether you succeed or not, you’re probably dead. Now, off with you.”
Pryce had barely registered the words when he was struggling to open the large, oaken doors that led out of the office. He just had to get out of there, away from the thing inside.
“Where…she was…right here…”
The words dribbled out of the Doctor’s mouth thick like blood. Merry knew he was right though. It had been right there.
There was large pattern of a square object, with its boundaries marked by scorch marks on all sides. It was all the evidence needed to show the TARDIS had been right there.
The Doctor only stood, jaw gaped and arms out, as though it had to still be right in front of him. Merry, futilely, looked around at the wreckage of the concrete, the autos, the corner paper stands, as if the TARDIS had decided to take a calm stroll around the block.
But the fear eventually crept to Merry’s voice, and she asked, “What are we going do, Doctor?”
The Doctor closed his eyes and brought his fingers to his temples, “Okay…what’s wrong with this picture?”
He rubbed at his temples for just a second longer before his eyes flashed open. Then, he turned around, back toward Merry, and back toward the boy.
The Doctor pointed at the boy, still in Merry’s arms, “Give it back. You took her, didn’t you? You needed her for transport! What did you do with her?” The Doctor wrenched the boy out of Merry’s arms and throttled him, “Answer me!”
“Doctor!” Merry yelled as she pulled the boy from him, “Calm down!” Merry placed the boy down on the street and pushed the Doctor back a few feet, toward where the TARDIS used to be, “Don’t you ever touch him again!”
The Doctor glared at her, “Merry, do you have any idea what this means?”
“Yeah.” Merry spat, “It means you misplaced your phone booth. Check all your pockets. Retrace your steps. In the meantime, I’m going to try to keep that little boy alive! Oh, and I’m gonna run like hell from the guys who are shooting at me with guns bigger than Herve Villechaize! Or did you happen to forget about them?”
“Merry, shut up and listen to
Merry was quiet for a second, and then she looked away from the Doctor. She looked around herself for moment after that, looking again at the damage all around her. The entire block had been cut off with police tape, so the streets that were so full of life earlier were quiet. A quiet that reminded Merry of a graveyard, or a wake.
Then, she looked at Peter. He looked just like the others. His blonde hair went to his shoulders, his skin was eerie in the high sun, and his crystal blue eyes still sparkled, despite the destruction around him. Yes, he looked just like his brothers, his dead brothers.
Merry looked back up to the Doctor, “I just want to help him. Someone has to, before…”
The Doctor returned her gaze, waiting for her to finish. But the words just didn’t want to leave her throat. Merry forced them out.
“Before he turns out like me. Completely alone.”
The Doctor sighed and put his hands on her shoulders, “Merry…you’re not alone.”
“Heh, yeah. Says the guy who forgot all about me and Peter when his phone booth walked off.” Merry scoffed, but she didn’t move the Doctor’s hands from her shoulders.
The Doctor heaved, and then looked back to Peter, “Perhaps…I jumped to conclusions.”
He turned around quickly and looked down at where the TARDIS had been. The Doctor walked to perimeter of it, nodding as he did so.
Merry also looked at it, and then her eyes widened, “The Special Executive!”
The Doctor didn’t look at her, but he kept nodding, “It’s the only reasonable explanation, I’ll admit. Peter’s…siblings couldn’t have accessed it; neither could anyone else for that matter. But, how?”
“Yeah, how?” Merry walked to his side, not bothering to stay outside the scorch marks that showed the perimeter of where the TARDIS had been, “With that force field, it would have been impossible.”
The Doctor chuckled and waved Merry off, “Nothing is impossible, Merry. It was just…well, highly unlikely.” He walked into the middle of the perimeter, stretching his arms out as he thought aloud, “They could have had an operative, invisible, waiting for me to open the doors to the TARDIS. They…could have created some sort of feedback to short-circuit the force field. They…”
“Could have held their breath?” Merry shrugged, “Packed an ACME force field cutter? Or maybe reality was altered by six gems of unlimited power. Who knows?”
The Doctor heaved again, but that was the only indication that he had heard Merry’s comments, “I’ve got to have it back. Wardog almost certainly has the knowledge to pilot a TARDIS but…why here? Why now? They have their own craft. They could have struck at any—”
“Doctor.” Merry said calmly as she spun him around, “Could we focus on the situation now? Either way, we’ve got a lead and we can come back to it. Look, my emotions may be on edge, but you need to admit the situation is Peter. I know how much you care about the TARDIS, but—”
“Of course.” The Doctor only smiled at her, and Merry’s frown eased a bit. But then he snapped his fingers right in front of her face, “The Special Executive wanted to take me alive. So, since they were defeated, they take my TARDIS, stranding me in one time and place, spend however long they want to lick their wounds, and come back for me!”
Merry groaned, “Doctor—”
“Merry,” the Doctor interrupted again, and he put a finger on her lips, “now that’s been settled, we need to get to a hospital. There, I believe I can help Peter.”
A grin spread on Merry’s face and she shook her head at him, “That’s more like it.”
Merry turned back to Peter, and the Doctor watched as her smile vanished from her face. The Doctor quickly followed Merry’s gaze to the boy. He understood her reaction.
Peter had lost every pigment to his skin. His blonde hair was a stark grey. His pale skin had darkened a bit to match his pinstriped suit. The Doctor observed, it was exactly the same pigment. His eyes, however, only brightened.
The boy had not said one word to either of them since they had escaped from the sewer, but when he spoke, the words were as clear as his eyes were, “It won’t be long now. This world is doomed.”
The Doctor only had to point the sonic screwdriver at the lock to disarm the alarm system. Then, he placed it back in his pocket, before he loudly kicked the door in.
Merry followed him inside, with Peter in her arms, “Doc, I can pick locks. For future reference.”
The Doctor continued on, but replied, “So can I. But I like doing that. Works off the stress of discovering my TARDIS hijacked, you know.”
“Well, maybe we can find you some horse tranquilizers in here too.”
“That’s hilarious, Merry.”
“No, I’m perfectly serious. What are we doing in a veterinary hospital?”
The Doctor stopped walking and looked around himself. The hospital had been evacuated, as the Special Executive had attacked not far from there. He shrugged, “I don’t need very sophisticated equipment to make a thorough examination of him, Merry. And the quicker the better, but regardless, with his changes now, I’m pretty sure of what we’re going to find.”
“You know, for some reason,” Merry said, following the Doctor into one of the rooms farther into the pet hospital, “I am not comforted by that at all.”
They had come to an operating room, and in the middle of it was a long, metal table. Merry sat the boy down on it, as the Doctor turned on the bright lights above them. In the brilliance, the boy’s skin only seemed more frightening. It was as though Merry was seeing him through a black-and-white film lens.
A loud, crashing noise came from behind her and she jumped back a few feet from Peter. She turned to see the Doctor rummaging through cabinets, throwing equipment to the side until he found what he needed.
“Is all that noise helping you work off stress as well, Doctor?” Merry asked.
The Doctor grunted and continued, “I should have left you with the Special Executive.”
He continued to casually toss very heavy, and of course therefore expensive, equipment to his side. But, finally, the Doctor pulled out exactly what he was looking for.
“An EKG?” Merry asked, as the Doctor dropped the machine to the side of Peter.
“Yes.” The Doctor began to hook up the machine to Peter, “To measure the electrical activity in Peter’s heart…or lack there of.”
“What are you talking about?” Merry asked, and she moved closer to Peter.
The Doctor finished placing the electrodes on Peter’s chest. He plugged the EKG machine into the wall, and then turned it on. They were all quiet for a moment. Peter still neither moved nor spoke.
“Nothing’s happening.” Merry said, “Is it broken?”
“No.” the Doctor replied, “It’s simply not reading any electrical activity in Peter’s chest.”
Merry grimaced, “How is that possible?”
“I’m asking myself the same question.”
“I mean, he has to have a heartbeat, right? He can’t be alive without one!”
“Hmm?” the Doctor looked over at her, “Oh, no, Merry. I’ve long since deduced that Peter is not human by any standards…”
“What?” Merry yelled.
“…but that doesn’t mean the EKG could not have picked up electricity inside of him. I figured that he was probably an android or perhaps a synthezoid. But those would all give EKG readings…”
The Doctor turned back to the EKG machine, taking his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket as he did. Merry kept staring hard and grim at his back, but the Doctor didn’t turn around to acknowledge. Merry shook her head and then turned back to Peter.
Peter, as phantasmal as he appeared, looked right back at her when Merry looked at him.
“What are you, Peter?” Merry asked, but the boy didn’t even move, “Could you at least tell us that? I want to help you, you know.”
The boy still didn’t move. Merry sighed and put her face in her hands.
“This is so confusing.” She began, “A faceless corporation with a covert army is trying to kill you. You’ve said they created you, that you’re a weapon, yet they want to destroy you. Why would they want to do that?”
Merry looked up, shocked, when she felt something soft and cold touch her hands. She saw Peter looking at her and pressing his cold hands against hers. When he spoke, it was like the words were coming from an antique phonograph.
“Because we weren’t their weapons.”
“Got it!” the Doctor shouted enthusiastically.
Merry turned from the boy and up to the Doctor, “Doctor, I think we may be—”
“Yes, I heard him, Merry.” The Doctor interrupted, hooking the EKG back up to Peter quickly, “But from what I have been told, Peter and his…‘brothers’ were created to be living weapons. However, they obviously gained sentience and tried to escape. Now, rather than let them run loose, this…Prodigy Group wants to simply eliminate them. And they’ve largely succeeded.”
“But not entirely.” Merry said sternly.
The Doctor cocked an eye at her, but nodded, “Not entirely, no.”
The Doctor flipped on the EKG machine again, and this time, the screen picked up a significant amount of electric activity.
The Doctor continued, “Since we can’t keep him safe on my TARDIS, I have to find out what Peter is, in order to act accordingly. I’ve rigged the machine to act as a sort of oscilloscope.”
Merry had been looking at Peter’s blank expression this entire time, as though she was sure the boy would speak again, maybe tell the Doctor if he was wrong or not. But there came nothing but the same sad stare. Merry couldn’t help but feel this was all a bit more complicated than what the Doctor believed.
“Good grief.” The Doctor said, taking a closer look at the readings of the machine.
Merry looked over at him and the machine, “What is it, Doctor?”
The Doctor frowned at her, “Peter is receiving electrical impulses from some kind of source, that much is obvious. It’s how I was able to subdue his brothers with a tiny EMP from my sonic screwdriver*. Looking at Peter, I thought that he was losing power, shutting down as it were, since he’s lost pigmentation.”
(last issue- Zack)
Merry moved closer to him, “And that’s not happening.”
The frown on the Doctor’s face faded into a look of puzzlement. It was a look that Merry had not seen very often, “Quite the opposite, Merry. The electrical impulses are actually being shot through his body with unbelievable strength.”
The Doctor chewed his lip and Merry came to the same, easy conclusion that he did.
“Without his brothers,” Merry said, “all the energy is being redirected to him. Energy meant for twelve separate beings. This could kill him!”
“But it’s not, Merry.” The Doctor looked down at the boy, “Somehow, he can control all that energy…as though it were pooling for one, big…”
“No.” Merry interrupted, “You can’t mean…he’s a…bomb?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” the Doctor said, “But that doesn’t make sense. If he’s a bomb only with the energy he has now…why would they bother creating twelve of him? And there are certainly easier ways to build bombs. And what kind of substance is Peter made of? Nothing I know can stand such electrical intensity…”
“You said this energy had a source.” Merry said, “Can’t we find it?”
“We must.” the Doctor said simply, “It’s the final piece of the puzzle. If I can figure out what it is, and shut it down quietly and safely, I could end this whole mess.”
Merry shook her head, “But that would kill him, wouldn’t it?”
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at her, “Merry…if the vast energy inside of him were to be released…”
“I know.” Merry said quickly, still shaking her head, but then looking back at the boy.
Peter still said nothing, and made no move to. It was like he was becoming more and more the piece of machinery the Doctor had said he was.
“Alright.” Merry said to the Doctor, “Let’s find it.”
The Doctor turned back to the EKG machine quickly, and started to mumble to himself, “If I could just reverse the polarity of…”
“Wait, Doctor,” Merry said, looking away from both Peter and the Doctor, “Do you hear that?”
The Doctor looked up from the machine and heard what Merry had. It was the sound of sirens. Getting louder. Getting closer.
“That can’t be for us, right?” Merry asked.
“I wouldn’t doubt it, Merry.” the Doctor turned back to the machine, “There were probably three or four witnesses to our breaking and entering.”
Merry folded her arms, “But how could they? We were so discreet when we came in.”
The Doctor didn’t look up from his work, “Perhaps I can adjust this machine to take away your voice, Merry…”
“Well, whatever you do, do it fast.” Merry said, “They’ll be right outside soon.”
“This will only take…one second longer…” the Doctor grumbled as his fingers rerouted the many wires, crossing some into one large wire, halving others, and completely ripping out a few more. He picked up the sonic screwdriver again, and a small laser shot from the hilt in a certain pattern of places inside the machine, “Okay then.”
Merry had seen the entire process and stared at him, cock-eyed, “You’ve got to be kidding me. You turned this into a homing beacon in under eight seconds.”
The Doctor shrugged, “That was the easy part. Now comes the hard part. I need to get Peter to redirect some of his energy into the machine…through here.” The Doctor held up a thick wire of the machine. Merry could see small sparks from the end.
The sirens were blaring now, and both of them heard the slamming doors of cars outside. Flashing lights illuminated the room through the windows, and there were sparsely audible, yet unmistakably human shouts from them as well.
“Hurry, Doctor!” Merry said.
The Doctor frowned at her, and said quickly, “I’m sorry to have to do this, Merry.”
Merry tilted her head, and she could hear the doors of the hospital being flung open, but she said, “What?”
The Doctor, also hearing the footsteps in the hall drawing nearer and nearer, clutched Peter gently by the side of the boy’s head, and then quickly, forcefully and emotionlessly, the Doctor jammed the sparking wire into Peter’s bright, blue eye.
“Oh my god.” Merry gasped.
Peter immediately stood. He was shaking with that familiar blue haze, and the haze spread like a stampede from Peter to the wire that was still hanging from his eye like another limb, and then, to the Doctor himself. The Doctor watched the energy flow over him, curious about it, but then his eyes gleamed as he understood what was happening.
“Merry…” the Doctor tried to say, but his voice was muffled, like he was speaking through a thick chloroformed cloth.
The footsteps were right outside the room at that point, and just before the doors burst open, Merry watched the Doctor and Peter slowly fade from her view, as though they both were cookies crumbling in the wind. The blue haze faded with them. Merry reached out for the Doctor desperately, and he did so to her, but--
“Police!” the shouts were right behind her.
“Doctor!” her shout was too late and his fingers crumbled through hers.
Peter and the Doctor were gone. The room was now in lonely dimness, with the operating table lamp the only light. Merry thought she saw the EKG machine sparkle for a second afterward, but it couldn’t keep her attention from what was behind her.
Six, nicely
dressed
Where did the Doctor and Peter go? Are they even still alive? Merry didn’t want to think those questions. But they were the only things that echoed through her mind. She was pushed the floor, with shouts in her ears but with only those questions in her mind.
The police pushed her out into
the
But as the police finally hauled her into the back of a very large, blank, white, suspiciously unsuspicious van, Merry realized that things were probably going to get worse before they were going to get better.
NEXT ISSUE: The conclusion of ‘The Tomorrow Children’ and the beginning of something a lot crazier!
DOCTOR’S NOTES:
Well, hopefully, you’ve stuck through this much. I look back on this issue and realize there was some real techno-babble in there, and hopefully you more illuminated readers didn’t find any mistakes with my medical knowledge. Next issue will be a crazy one, and will end on quite a high note.
Take it easy,
-ZACK!