TWENTY-ONE
"Good morning, my darling Great Britain, it's a lovely winter morning in London, unseasonably warm, and we have a major treat for you today," Eleanor Fenster said into the television cameras. She was small, blonde and wore a bright yellow suit with an orange scarf. If anyone had not been awake when they'd tuned in, they certainly were now. "Letitia Doaui is here, she is… drum roll please… the agent who represents the mysteriously talented Martha Jones!"
Of course, the channel had been advertising this fact all week, as two others had begun doing this morning, in anticipation of Tish's appearances on the next two chat shows she'd booked.
"And she's here to talk to us about her enigmatic client, and those wonderful Doctor Who stories that we've all been riveted to. Alan, have you been reading this stuff? It's amazing, isn't it, it's addicting…"
After a couple of young actors from shows Martha had never seen appeared on the show, it was finally Tish's turn. It was a good sign that they had scheduled her as the last guest. They introduced her, and she came out looking great; confident and clever.
"So, Letitia Doaui," said Fenster. "Wow, it's so exciting to have you! Finally, a real connection to this unattainable figure, Martha Jones!"
Martha watched nervously, as she had her yoghurt and toast and tea. She wondered if the world's journalists would actually be disappointed to learn how attainable Martha really was, how approachable and human.
"Thanks - I'm really excited to be here," Tish responded.
"So, let's cut right to it: who is Martha Jones?"
Tish laughed. "Oh, now, that wouldn't be sporting," she answered lightly. "If we wanted anyone to know that right now, she'd be here herself, wouldn't she?"
Fenster laughed her fake chat-show-host-laugh as well, conceding. "All right, fair enough. But you have seen her, in person, in the flesh?"
"Yes, I have."
"You know her, know she exists."
"Yes, I do."
There was a little pause while Fenster looked at Tish slyly. "Are you Martha Jones?"
Tish laughed again. "No, absolutely not. But that's a great question!"
"Is Martha Jones her real name?"
"Now that, I cannot say," Tish answered deftly.
"Is Letitia Doaui your real name?"
"Yes, it is," Tish answered.
Martha chuckled again. Doaui was Tish's middle name, so technically she hadn't told a lie.
After another four minutes of Tish silkily, vaguely ducking the questions, and only directly answering the ones that would benefit her and Martha, Tish finally got to the real "meat" of her visit.
"Well, you really are very tight-lipped, aren't you? You and your client both," said Fenster, a little bit frustrated with her interviewee.
"Yes, well, I did come here with a purpose," Tish told her, and the audience. "I do have an announcement about the Doctor Who series."
"Oh?"
"Yes," Tish said. "I have been authorised to tell you that the saga will ultimately be the story of ten Doctors. Or, the first ten, anyway."
The crowd tittered a little bit.
"Ten Doctors?" asked Fenster. She looked into the camera to address her at-home audience. "Okay, so as most of the world knows, we're currently into the adventures of the Sixth Doctor." To Tish, she said, "So we're more than halfway done?"
"Not really. It's about half, exactly," Tish told her. "Because, the Tenth Doctor is special. His part of the story will take slightly longer to tell."
"How do you know all of this?"
"Martha Jones pulls my strings, Mrs. Fenster," Tish replied. "I do what she tells me to do, and say what she tells me to say."
"So, the message form Martha Jones is, there are ten Doctors, and something special will happen with the Tenth?"
"Yes, exactly," Tish confirmed.
"Marvellous," Fenster exclaimed. "That's been one of the big questions, as you probably know. The question of how many Doctors there can be, and how long the serial can last."
"Right, that's why I'm here," said Tish. "And there's one more thing."
"Is there?"
"Yes. Martha Jones would like you, and the British public, and the public throughout the world, to know: she will be revealing herself with the final instalment of the series."
There was a great big titter from the audience, and from Eleanor Fenster.
At last, the bustle died down. "How d'you mean, revealing herself?" asked the agitated hostess, rather more loudly than necessary.
"She will be revealing who she is," answered Tish, now the only calm person in the room. "She'll show her face, do an interview, answer questions…"
"So, she'll be coming on television to show us all who she is? We'll get to meet the real Martha Jones?"
"That's right. In June, when the final story is told, Martha will come into the light, as it were!"
There was a round of applause.
"Well again, that's marvellous!" commented Fenster. "What has made her decide to do this, after all this time?"
"Now that, I cannot say," Tish said. "Mostly because I don't know for certain."
"Now, Letitia," said the male host of the second chat show, a week later. "How can we be sure that the woman who will show her face in June is the real Martha Jones? How do we know it's not some hoax with an actress?"
"We've discussed that, Martha and I," said Tish. "By that, I mean, that given the fact that she's been so secretive thus far, she might be called upon to prove herself as the real Martha."
"And?"
"We give you our word."
"The word of two gentlewomen?"
"Absolutely," Tish nodded.
"Good enough for you?" the host asked his studio audience. There was a reserved round of applause, and the host said, "All right then. We'll take you at your word."
"Thank you. You can trust us, honestly. Neither of us has anything to gain by hiring an impostor."
"So Letitia, what else can you tell us, that we haven't already heard, concerning Martha Jones and the Doctor?"
"I can tell you that when Martha does appear on television, she will be bringing with her the final instalment of the series," Tish said, amid a sea of ooh and aah from the audience. "Our plan is to deploy that final story all at once, when Martha gives the word, no matter what time zone, no matter what time."
"So you'll have booksellers and newsstands all over the world, watching," the host said. "Waiting for Martha to give permission for people to read it?"
"Yes," Tish answered simply.
The host gaped at her, incredulously. Then he laughed. "That's quite ambitious of you!"
"Well," Tish shrugged. "If they won't agree to it, then they won't get to sell it. Plain and simple."
"Miss Doaui," said the hostess of the afternoon chat show, the third in Tish's little tour. She looked at Tish with a mixture or mischief and wonder.
"Miss Glass," Tish responded in kind, returning the expression.
"One of the questions over the past week, as you must know as Miss Jones' agent is, what show will Martha appear on in June," Miss Glass asked. "Which channel, even?"
"I'm glad you asked that," Tish said. "The answer is: we don't know yet."
"Well, you must have representatives from umpteen different shows beating down your door!"
"We do, yes. But we have not committed to any of them."
"Why not? Holding out for the right bid, I'd assume," said Miss Glass, matter-of-factly.
"No, neither Martha nor I is concerned with money. Neither of us has accepted a penny for the stories, either," Tish confirmed.
The audience shifted in their seats. There had been rumours of this, but no-one, especially in the publishing and/or entertainment industry, could quite grasp it.
"Really? Now, it's been speculated that Miss Jones is not exactly getting rich over this, but… well, I don't think anyone believes she's not accepted any money at all."
"You can believe what you like," Tish told her calmly. "But I'm telling the truth."
"Well, if she's not accepting payment, then what is her motivation?"
Tish smiled in a way that let everyone know, much to the hostess' chagrin, that she knew the answer to the question, but would not say.
"Okay, then," Miss Glass continued, deciding to sidestep Tish's enigmatic expression. "Back to Martha's impending appearance… how will the two of you decide which channel and show that Martha will apppear on? I'd personally like to endorse ours!"
The audience laughed a bit, and there was half-hearted applause.
"The public will decide," Tish said.
"Pardon?"
"We're not married to the idea of using a British show," Tish reported.
"But Martha Jones is British, is she not?"
"She is. But the Doctor is not. The Doctor's story, as we have seen, transcends nation and race and language. Martha will go wherever she is called. America, France, South Africa, Guam – it's up to the readers."
"How do you plan on gaining momentum for that, or collecting results?"
"The system is under construction as we speak. We'll release more information as it becomes available."
"I'm sure you will," Miss Glass muttered, realising, like all the other hosts, that she was being used to mete out information, bit by bit. And whatever Letitia Doaui and Martha Jones had planned, it was going to be big.
"Letitia Doaui, you're quite the PR pundit," said host number four, after Tish had skilfully refused to answer seven direct questions in a row.
"Well, Matthew Connor," Tish said back, flirtatiously matching his use of her first and last name (or at least what everyone thought was her first and last name). "That is my job!"
"You do it well!" he exclaimed. "How about a round of applause for Letitia!"
The audience obliged, and applauded, apparently, Tish's ability to keep secrets and lack of willingness to crack under pressure.
"So is there any news on which chat show you'll be using, hint hint," he asked, winking at her.
"As a matter of fact, there is," she answered. Then she gave a web address. "It's a simple voting device – just type in the name of the chat show, which country, which channel or network. Then it will ask for your name and e-mail address, and your results will come to us. There's a spell-check thing, or a misspelling accommodator, or whatever it's called, so even if you get it a bit wrong, we'll still get the info."
"Brilliant."
"And the best part is, there is no limit to how many times you can vote!"
"Really?"
"Yes. The only thing is, you'll have to wait until next week to vote. Any votes cast before 11th February will not be counted."
"You heard it here, ladies and gents," said Connor. "Log in first thing on 11th Feburary, and vote for our show - seven or eight hundred times if it strikes your fancy!" The web address flashed on the screen, thus ensuring it would appear on every news show that night, and for the rest of the week.
The fifth interview went very much like the first four. Each host knew that there were certain questions she wouldn't answer, but they asked anyway. Each host knew that there were certain ways of discussing the subject of Doctor Who and Martha Jones, without Letitia Doaui having to divulge anything unduly, and each had his or her creative way of doing so. And each knew, as did everyone in the world at this stage, that toward the end of the interview, she would reveal one more piece of the puzzle, one more thing that would make the public ravenous, and get them to act immediately, at the water cooler, at school, in chat rooms, clamouring for more.
"So, what have you got for us this time, Letitia?" asked Ed Fricker, the host of the final booking for Tish.
"Well, as most of you know, you can all begin voting for your favourite chat shows tomorrow," Tish answered. "Martha Jones will appear anywhere in the world, any channel, or in any language – we'll find an interpreter if we have to, it doesn't matter."
"Great."
"However… and this is mostly news that I've brought for you, Ed. We will be reporting our results to the PR departments of each of the shows that receive votes," she announced. "They will know how many votes they've received, and where they are in the running. We will do this every Monday afternoon."
"Amazing!" Fricker exclaimed. "What a brilliant idea. So every show will know where they stand in the fight to acquire the famous Martha Jones!"
The following Monday morning, Martha stared at her computer screen, though she wasn't working on her Doctor Who story as she should have been. She was watching the votes mount, and watching the statistics come up on ninety-eight different chat shows worldwide.
"Tish, how the hell are we supposed to report all of these results? I suppose we could make ninety-eight phone calls, but… it's just going to get worse, and I can't do this, and keep up with writing, all at the same time," Martha complained.
"I guess I'll have to call in a few more favours," said Tish.
"Oh, lovely."
"Well, if you don't want me to, feel free to start dialling."
"No, no, do what you have to do. Just… never, ever tell me about these favours of yours."
Tish gave her a dirty look and made a call.
The result was four computer science graduate students, one friend of Tish's and three of his friends, put upon the task of cataloguing the results. They were also charged with cataloguing the PR departments' contact information via e-mail or phone, and making the information available to various television pundits throughout the world before midnight on Monday, GMT.
What ensued was an all-out campaign by each of the shows that had received results. They began offering incentives for the person who provided them with the most votes. The top shows in Britain, the U.S., Canada and Australia were the front-runners, and were therefore running the most aggressive campaigns. Eleanor Fenster's show was offering a free iPod to whomever voted for her show the most often. Matthew Connor was offering an all-expenses-paid weekend in Brittany. A couple of American shows were offering to let the winning voter appear on the show, and in Australia, a couple of them were promising clean copies of all the stories, autographed by Martha Jones herself (even though Martha had made no such promise).
Twenty or thirty programmes in Western Europe joined in the fight, two in India, five in Japan, ten in various places in South America, and a few from remote, oddball places all round the globe. Just about every region of the world was represented, even places where they didn't use any one of the four languages in which the stories had been printed. The phenomenon was enormous, and the campaign forced them to up the ante each week, for the most fabulous prizes, and to vie for the most popular guests, to get people to watch, and to hear the newest bribe to the viewers. And there was something to be said for viewer loyalty, after all.
Each week it got bigger and badder, the competition got stiffer, and the four grad students became eight, and then twelve. The results registered in the hundreds of millions, and they became more and more difficult to track. Martha, however, didn't care how accurate the results actually were; she was only concerned with the lust, the fever, the furor over the Doctor.
Meanwhile, Tish had been busying herself with all of the various magazine publishers round the world. She was asking for certified, notarised copies from each individual publisher, and each of their individual carriers, that they would not release any publication containing the final Doctor Who story until Martha Jones, appearing on an as-yet unknown television show, gave the definitive command. It was not to be like "Midnight Magic," Harry Potter-style. It was all to be deployed at the same moment, everywhere in the world, regardless of the hour.
It was more perfect a scenario than Martha could ever have hoped for, and the public and the chat shows were creating the frenzy all on their own. All she had to do from here on out was write, and hope.
If she survived this, she knew she'd owe Tish her life, and so would the Doctor.