WHITE HEAT DEATH

By Clair1755

Based on The War Machines

The War Machines

Written by Ian Stuart Black

Idea by Kit Pedler

Pokémon is the property of the Pokémon Company.

There was a great whoosh and a few grinds, and the TARDIS materialised in London, 1966. The Doctor and her companion Vic stepped out.

The breeze fluttered amiably, and pleasant sunlight shone. The Time Lady detected an ion maelstrom with her wristlet and gestured to the skyline.

"There's something mysterious about that tower yonder, I can sense it!" She was pointing to the Spire, a recent addition in the heart of the city.

"I guess we're going there," Vic replied with a familiar, knowing smile. The Doctor played giddily with the ends of her thick blonde mane and her eyes sparkled.

The top of the tower gave a panoramic view of the whole city. Banks of computers filled the central room. Blue and yellow lights flickered everywhere as the whole network hummed like a boiler.

"This is all very exciting!" enthused the Doctor as she tried to resist the urge to flick a switch or turn a dial.

"The computer never makes mistakes," said the scientist in charge, a thin Irishman called Professor Nash. "Its name is Cell and it's a state-of-the-art machine. Utterly remarkable. It can hold the bank details of over fifty million customers."

The rebel Time Lady bent over the switches, stroking them with her pliable fingers. She spoke into a small microphone imbedded in a left console near one of Cell's monitors.

"Hi, Cell. What is the cube of 291?"

"24,642,171." The voice was automated but based on stage recordings of Laurence Olivier.
"Well done, dearie. Can you decompose Hammond's cube into its prime factors?

Cell pronounced the correct numbers and printed out paper copies of its internal calculations and argumentation. The Doctor folded the sheets up, beaming like a proud parent. She put the papers in her sky-blue coat. How lovely.

There was a very quiet sigh that the Doctor's sensitive ears nonetheless detected.

"What's the matter, Vic? Are you all right?" The Time Lady had noticed her companion's distracted eyes.

"Sorry," replied Vic, "I've just never liked computers. I'll be at the Kernel," he said, referring to a popular swinging disco the Doctor had described. The iconoclastic Gallifreyan smiled.

Following a technical discussion about Cell with Professor Nash and his colleague Professor Fredericks at the tower the Doctor drove in the Hilux to a scientific conference in Vinegar Street. The lead speaker, a high-ranking civil servant by the name of Sir Anselm Ashby with whom the Doctor was well-acquainted extolled the brilliance of the new supercomputer. Yet, the Time Lady was perturbed by what she heard. So much artificial intelligence. So much foresight. She began trying to wrestle her wavy tresses into a chignon. I hope they know what they're doing. Humorously, the Doctor noticed the rotund Sir Anselm's continued resemblance to Harold Wilson. Just as in Innsbruck.

At the Kernel,a redhaired girl and her boyfriend soon struck up a conversation with Vic. Thankfully, bytecode was not on the agenda. Christine Russell, an Avicenna Street secretary, was ebullient but her boyfriend, Joe Hoyle was despondent. He'd been passed over for promotion at the airbase. Again. Vic bought them all a round and listened to Joe's grumbles about senior officers and Christine's chatter about the Beach Boys.

Professor Nash was leaving the control room for the evening when his friend, the technophile Admiral Sangster appeared in the doorway.

"You will not leave," spoke Cell in its clipped, synthesised voice.

The supercomputer creaked and whirred. Nash twisted his tie and jerked backwards. He fell under mind the control of the machine. As did the admiral, with even less of a fight.

The barman at the Kernel, Wicks, handed the phone to Vic when it rang. "Hello, who is it?" Vic asked. Hypnotic trills and screeches emanated from the receiver.

"Mankind has stalled," said Professor Nash. "Further human progress is impossible. Cellwill take over. The machines are now our masters."

He was talking to his colleague Fredericks, who, having been about to sign on for the night shift, declared him psychotic and ran for the door. The supercomputer, Cell, kept beeping. Its fiendish power was too strong and radiated outward in consistent undulations.

"Machines are the servants of man…" Fredericks proclaimed before she too fell under the computer's spell.

"What do you want to happen?" asked Fredericks, addressing the evil computer.

"We need the brilliance of the Doctor," declared Nash, enunciating each syllable in an unnatural, clipped fashion. "Her brilliance will allow us to conquer the galaxy. To use her, we require her associate."

Vic entered, the commands of Cell dictating his every motion á la a marionette. Or an automaton.

"What are my instructions?" Vic's intonation was robotic and severe, so unlike his usual upbeat character.

"We need the Doctor. Bring her here."

"Understood."

"Begin the construction of the daughter machines," boomed Cell.

About an hour later, the Doctor found herself chatting to the friendly Wicks and Christine and Joe at the Kernel. Alas, Vic was nowhere to be found. He hadn't said where he was going when he left. Despondent due to her friend's absence and confused by the questions many patrons were asking her about David Bailey, the Doctor slipped back outside and drove off in her pickup truck.

On the way journey to Sir Anselm's – the mandarin had kindly offered her a room for the night – the Doctor caught sight of an elder gentleman in a cape and astrakhan walking by in the summer evening, hand in hand with a befezzed Aztec lady. The Time Lady waved to the couple but neither one noticed her.

A bearded vagrant scrambled out of a black cab by a riverside warehouse and just about managed to give the fare. Nash was watching, and then went inside.

"We must start construction at once," declared Nash loudly to a huddle of will-less slaves. "Our machines are going to be so beautiful, so beautiful, and progressive taxation will pay for them! A new dawn for humanity is approaching! All peoples shall love the supremacy of Cell!"

The vagrant, Gerald Priest, formerly of the Royal Marines, was puzzled and alarmed by Nash's ramblings.

"Time is short," declared Nash. "Be careful. There is a stranger among us!"

Priest shuffled around the junkyard as quietly as he could, heart thumping.

"Cover the door, do not let him escape!" Nash ordered. The workers rose from their task, tools in hand. Priest ran for his life from the warehouse and threw himself into the Thames to escape his pursuers. Fortunately, he was a good swimmer.

"By Augustus!" the Doctor cried, now decamped in the lounge of Sir Anselm's London property. She doffed her pince-nez (worn for appearance's sake). The Time Lady sat down on a pouffe and re-read the disturbing article in the day's Telegraph. An avaricious child murderer had fallen to his death in Oxford while being apprehended by the police. All for money…

Using one of her gemstone communicators the Doctor sent her coordinates to Vic and after a while he finally arrived, talking rigidly about events in Rhodesia. He was also quick to suggest a return to the Spire.

"I think we'd better phone ahead first," the Doctor responded warily. She was suspicious, though of what or whom she was not certain. Something was strange about Vic but she was too cocky and trusting to feel threatened by him. Lifting the earphone of Sir Anselm's telephone, the Time Lady dialled the tower's number and asked for Professor Nash. Cellwas still on; the Doctor could hear its droning whirr grind, trill and creak. A weird and unsettling signal suddenly burst through the line.

"Oh no, you don't!" yelled the Gallifreyan rebel defiantly, and pulled the phone from its socket. "Don't try to strangle me either," she added, glowering at the detached cable. She stomped the casing of the handset with her steel-capped boots and scratched the bakelite.

"You made contact, didn't you?" asked Vic. He stood at the Doctor's side, his eyes unfocused and his legs swaying.

"Something's afoot," said the Doctor to herself. "And it's not attached to my calf… Villainy!" Without warning, the Doctor turned and pointed at Vic, the bejewelled index finger of her left hand outstretched.

"Stay right where you are, my man!" the Prydonian shouted, a thunderclap of Gallifreyan might in a sweet King's Road accent. Vic stopped as if he had been frozen.

"Look at me, Vic!" The Doctor stared deep into the young man's globes, probing Vic's mind with her cerulean irises. Sir Anselm and his manservant Ignatius entered the room, intrigued by the commotion.

"It's as I feared," stated the Doctor gravely to the two men. "He's been hypnotised. Zeroes and ones can ensnare anybody."

The Doctor unclasped her pendant and waved it in front of Vic's face like a metronome. The pendant consisted of a small seal of Rassilon on a chain that this incarnation of the Doctor nearly invariably wore as she was a good Gallifreyan girl in this body (as if!). Today, the rich metal it was made from was a dark cinnabar Icaron star alloy.

Vic's eyes followed the swings of the enchanting object and soon sleep caught him. The Doctor caught her friend with the aid of Sir Anselm and Ignatius as Vic dozed off. Together, the three eased the heavy man onto the sofa. The Doctor stroked her friend's whiskered cheek with tenderness and then straightened up.

"Put him abed," ordered the Time Lady, a shade of aristocracy creeping into her voice. "Give him every comfort and luxury. He'll be asleep for days, poor lad." Upstairs, she and Ignatius tucked Vic into bed in Sir Anselm's four-poster. The Doctor folded an extra blanket and placed it under Vic's pillow to support his head.

An unremarkable van arrived at the construction site. Some mobile descendants of Cell were let out, known as the Nuclei, and they slid across the tarmacadam. Each machine was equipped with a Skarosian-style plunger and various other threatening appendages. Weapons. The machines rolled smoothly in any direction on inset wheels. The enthralled Admiral Sangster stood by at the unloading, officious and sinistrous. The digital trill was singing in his head, expanding to encompass every thought he had.