At the end of the previous chapter, the Doctor and Martha found themselves becoming closer, but were interrupted by the TARDIS being forced to land somewhere. Why? Well, let's find out! Enjoy!
TWO
Earlier that day…
In a forgotten alcove of a building in a largely-forgotten council estate, in a not-terribly-well-known city in England, a man sat drawing, and his brother sat next to him. He was finishing up on some work that had been "commissioned" the previous day.
"What's that?" asked the brother.
"Sshh," said the man, drawing. He was particular about not being disturbed during his artistic process.
But the fact was, his particular artistic process was unlike that of anyone else on Earth.
"Is that a bucket?" asked the brother. "What's Mrs. Marais going to do with a bucket?"
"Sshh."
The brother watched the drawing and the shading, the bizarre process of something very mundane coming into being upon the page.
Coming into being, was a phrase that stuck in his mind just now. It was an apt phrase for what was happening.
The artist appeared to be drawing a patch of grass, with a wrought-iron fence behind it, and behind that, some bricks. On the grass there was, surely enough, an orange bucket – the only thing on the page with any colour – turned upside-down.
Hastily, the artist folded the page back and began working on a new drawing.
The brother had nothing to say – he just watched. Although, he did wonder what sort of thing was…
"Oh!" he said after a few minutes. "I get it! That's the inside of the upside-down bucket!"
"Mm," grunted the man doing the drawing.
Within another few minutes, a stack of paper (which turned out to be a bundle of one-hundred-pound notes) appeared on the page, on top of a bit more grass.
When he was done, the artist wrote at the bottom of the page, "Miraculously, no-one noticed the bucket except for the eagle-eyed Mrs. Marais!"
"There, that's done," said Curtis Malmay, as he finished his drawing. "Jessica's late."
"Yes, she is," said his brother, Tim, checking his watch. "But you know how her boss is – probably made her stay after and refill the bloody salt-shakers or something."
"What d'you reckon she wants?"
"I'm guessing it'll be something to do with her boyfriend again," Tim sighed. "You know, we have to start turning her down for those… it's not really fair to draw the boyfriend without his knowing about it. It's kind of creepy."
"Why?"
"You know why, Curtis," Tim said, sighing. "It's like we're controlling people."
"We do it all the time."
"No, we don't," Tim snapped. "We do it… occasionally. And we should stop. We have rules… no manipulating people should be one of them."
"Oi, Malmay," said a voice, coming into the forgotten alcove. It was that of a short, portly man wearing a Manchester United polo shirt that was about eight inches too long for him, and a pair of running pants, that had never seen a "run" in their entire existence. "Hoped I'd find you here."
Tim stood up from the rickety folding chair upon which he'd been sitting. He held a hand out, and pressed it against the man's chest, without pushing. "No, Beaman," he said. "No more."
"Why, 'cause I've been blacklisted?" asked the amused Beaman.
"Yeah, that's right," Tim said. "Now go away."
"Come on! Just let me talk to your brother," Beaman begged.
"No! You're an arsehole, and we have rules."
"Fine," said the rotund man. "I'll just come round your flat when you're not there. Talk to him on his own."
"He's never on his own, Beaman, you know that," Tim said to him as he walked away. He turned and sat back down in the alcove, on the rickety folding chair, beside his brother.
Curtis had shut his sketchbook and replaced his pencils in their pouch. His fingers were now drumming and scratching upon the cover, and his feet were tapping.
"Itching to draw something else?" Tim asked.
Curtis pulled up the hood of the red sweatshirt that he almost always wore, and nodded.
"Just a bit longer," Tim said, patting Curtis' hand. "When Jessica gets here, she'll have something for you. And if not, then, we'll go home and eat something... recommended, and you can draw to your heart's content.
Curtis nodded again, but his fingers continued to drum.
When Tim had told Beaman that Curtis was never on his own, he had not been exaggerating. This was because Curtis Malmay was not an average twenty-five-year-old man. He was autistic, wicked talented, and had a secret… a secret that was not-so-secret anymore.
His not-so-secret was that whatever he drew became real. It was a special power of his, that he had discovered about one month prior, when he'd drawn a dragon atop the Leeds City Museum… and an actual dragon had appeared on the roof of the Leeds City Museum. He had also drawn a couple of medieval-fantasy-flavoured characters, which had wrought havoc upon the city, and their lives.
Fortunately, when the spit had hit the fan, they had had help. First UNIT appeared in Leeds to deal with the dragon, because frankly, the local police didn't know what the hell to do. And when UNIT gets out of its depth?
Well, that's when they'd met him. The man in the suit. The man in the blue box. The total enigma of a humanoid who seemed to know everything, and be able to solve everything, and finesse everything, and convince anyone of anything and…
…and his companion, the brilliant and beautiful Dr. Jones, who was much more normal. But no less fascinating, as it turned out.
They had been able to explain to Curtis and Tim why he had the power to make his drawings manifest, and give him the tools to control it.
What the Doctor and Martha had not been able to do was arrange for Tim a steady income – not that he had expected them to. Just after moving to Leeds, following the promise of a job, he'd lost that prospect, and was back to square-one, almost totally broke, with a brother to support, living in a new town, unable to afford to move back home.
At that time, they had begun experimenting with foods that would help mitigate some of the symptoms of Curtis' autism, which would also mitigate his ability to manifest whatever he drew. His more moderated behaviour had caused Tim to wonder whether they could also experiment with leaving Curtis alone for longer periods.
So, one day, about a week after Tim was made redundant, while he was out, as they say, pounding the pavement, Curtis remained at home, with no supervision. For eight hours. When Tim came home that day, he asked a hundred questions, but the only thing he'd been able to glean was that Curtis had taken a walk around the estate, and had a conversation with Olive Marais, a woman of about sixty, who lived in the estate, in the next building over. Curtis would not say what they'd discussed.
A couple of days later, Curtis handed a ten-pound note to Tim, and said, "Here. For groceries."
"Where did you get this?"
Curtis had pulled up his hood and sat down on the sofa then, shrugging.
"Curtis, tell me. Where did you get this?"
The more Tim pressed, the less Curtis would say, and the more nervous he became.
Eventually he was shaking his head over and over again and repeating, "Can't tell you, can't tell you."
Tim sighed, seeing plainly that his brother had stopped eating the foods that would help his symptoms, and could also see that if he pushed any harder, there might be a meltdown. Clearly, whatever had produced this ten pounds was something that bothered Curtis.
But the next day, he had twenty pounds.
The third day, he had another twenty.
It wasn't much, but it got the two of them through the week on groceries and electricity.
The fourth day, Tim only pretended to go job-hunting. Instead, he waited around the corner, and followed Curtis when he left the flat. This was how he discovered that Curtis had been meeting people from the estate in the alcove, doing favours for them by using his special skill, and charging ten pounds each time.
Mrs. Marais had only wanted a smart new dress, because she had recently also lost her job which she'd been doing for twenty years. It had been ages since she'd had to do a job interview, and she didn't have any nice clothes that fit… and could not afford to buy new ones. At least, not of the sort that were bound to get a sixty-year-old woman hired somewhere nice.
Curtis had drawn a navy-blue, button-up dress on her, tea-length, with a white collar and nice shoes, and had given the drawing a caption that said, "Mrs. Marais looks smart in cashmere." And voilà, she'd paid ten pounds for a cashmere dress that was bound to bowl over whoever interviewed her next.
Four others on the estate had found out about Curtis' talent, and had asked for small favours, which he had obliged.
At first, Tim berated him for exploiting people, abusing his gift, and asked him, "What would Dr. Jones say about this?"
This question had temporarily cowed Curtis into agreeing to stop, because he knew that Martha Jones, formerly the Chief Medical Officer of UNIT, would disapprove. He did not wish to do anything to displease her, so he refrained.
Tim subsequently got a job, but the pay was not enough for rent, utilities, groceries, transportation, plus other unforeseen needs, like new shoes, a new phone (after Tim's was stolen out of his jacket at work), and a takeaway dinner when their power was out.
Abusing Curtis' gift, just a little bit, began to seem mightily attractive.
Now, a month or so had passed, and Tim and Curtis had been, reluctantly, supplementing their income with this little endeavour. They met with people by appointment only, in the alcove. They never explained how it worked, and always reserved the right to deny requests. They helped only people who asked for small things – such as a nice dress, or in the case of the orange bucket, eight hundred pounds for veterinary bills – and "blacklisted" anyone who repeatedly asked for too much. Dorian Beaman had asked for five million pounds on his first visit, and when he was denied, he'd got belligerent. They had allowed him back, and he'd asked for a car, again, becoming belligerent when denied. After that, they never even listened to him,
Well, Tim never listened to him. Curtis, left to his own devices, would have been much less vigilant about vetting "clients," mostly because he didn't see the big-picture of consequences as his brother could, and so all requests went through Tim. He wanted to maintain some semblance of safety and integrity in this bizarre venture, and Curtis was not great at seeing nuance. At all.
After Mrs. Marais' dress, word had got out in her building, then around the whole estate. And then to neighbouring estates. Tim always asked for ID, and so far, everyone they had seen had come from council flats – poor working folks, just like them, who just needed a hand. For ten pounds.
Jessica was forty minutes late that day, and asked Curtis to do something to give her a break from her boss, the restaurant manager, Nigel Bishop. Just for a while. The three of them discussed the ethics of possibly drawing him on a beach in Spain, but that seemed too much. Then they talked about having him meet a woman, so he would just be a little nicer.
Curtis wound up drawing a document stating that Nige has two weeks' paid time-off time coming, which he needed to take ASAP, on the desk of someone high-up in the company the owned the restaurant.
"Are you sure you don't want the paid time off?" Tim asked.
"I'm sure. I'm hoping he's in a good mood for a while, after he comes back from holiday. Maybe get more mileage out of that two weeks," she shrugged. "Besides, I've already marked out five days off at Christmas. Can't do both, or someone might get suspicious, starting with Nige."
Tim agreed, this was probably just a bit wiser, Jessica handed over her ten pounds with a smile, and left.
Curtis packed up his supplies, and Tim folded up the chairs, putting them back exactly in the haphazard way they'd been leaning against the wall for years, and they made to leave the alcove.
But they were stopped.
"Hello, there," said the man. "How are we today, gentlemen?" He had a non-local accent – sounded more like a Londoner.
"Erm, hi," Tim said. When the man simply blocked their way, Tim said, "Mind letting us through?"
"Yeah I do," said the man. "I need a word."
"We have words by appointment only," Tim said. "If you'd like to come back…"
"My employer thought you might say that, so here's a little retainer," said the man, and he produced a one-hundred-pound note out of his pocket.
He was wearing a black suit, and a black tie, and it seemed fairly obvious that he was part of someone's security detail. He was a brick wall of a person, and had slicked-down, jet-black hair. All in all, he had the air of someone who was not to be trifled with.
And yet, Tim said, "I don't want your money."
The man reached forward and pulled open the zippered pocket of Tim's green jacket, and shoved the note in.
"My employer is running late, so he asked me to hold you here. He wants to see you personally."
"Who is your employer?" asked Tim.
"Best not say," said the man. "The walls have ears."
Tim and Curtis both frowned and looked about. "No they don't," Tim scoffed. "Not these walls. Have you seen where you are?"
The man smiled sardonically, and simply said, "We'll wait."
Twenty minutes passed, Tim and Curtis having sat back down in the alcove, basically imprisoned, as the thug would not let them leave.
Eventually, the man said, "He's here," and disappeared from the archway. Tim and Curtis peered out to where he'd gone, and spied a large black, shiny, expensive car that had just pulled up to the kerb. The man in the suit opened a door, and another man stepped out. This man was younger, and was wearing more casual clothes – a trendy-brand tee-shirt, and designer jeans – and had the swagger of someone who owned the universe. He looked about the estate with disgust, and then his eyes fixed upon Tim and Curtis.
"Oh, shit," Tim spat, with more intensity than he'd meant, but less than he felt.
"What? Who is that?"
"That's Daniel Edge," said Tim.
"Who is Daniel Edge?"
"You know… the Edge family."
"Who's the Edge family?"
Tim sighed, exasperated. "Rich family. Super rich. They own hotels, casinos, a restaurant chain, a clothing line… you know! The Edge family!"
"Oh. What's he want with us?"
"I don't know," Tim said darkly. "What can't he buy, that he wants badly enough to come here for?"
Curtis had gone off to his room to sleep.
The encounter with Daniel Edge had made Curtis decidedly nervous, and the tension of it threatened to put his control on its own edge.
Curtis had his reasons for wanting to comply with Edge's request, but Tim had been very firm that he could not do so, also realising that the subtleties of the whole situation might be lost on Curtis, just by its very nature. It had ended in confusion, tears, and a full-blown meltdown that Tim was powerless to stop, because he, himself, felt a bit like melting down. Exhaustion ensued then, and Curtis had eventually dragged himself off to bed, still in tears.
He'd never let Curtis see him doing so, but he now paced back and forth between the tartan sofa and T.V., and he wrung his hands. He felt totally buggered. He not only had to work out what to do about the Edge problem, but also had to keep Curtis unwound, and guide him through working out the right thing to do.
Tim wasn't much of a drinker, but this evening, he wished he had some alcohol in the house. Calming down using booze was another thing he'd never let Curtis see him do, but Curtis was asleep, likely for the next twelve to sixteen hours, after the shock he'd had. In the absence of anything stronger, he decided to do the most thoroughly British thing he could think of: attempt to assuage his nerves with tea.
He stood in the kitchen staring at the kettle, waiting for it to boil.
And as he did, he heard a noise.
It was a familiar noise. Otherworldly. And awfully, awfully close.
A high wind suddenly began to displace everything in the flat, as though a small tornado were ripping through. Tim cursed, trying to grab a pile of bills out of the air, that were now swirling about the kitchen like dry leaves in a gale.
He looked through the little window into the parlour, and there it was, seemingly blinking in and out of existence. A blue box. Transparent. Bizarre. Bigger on the inside.
"Oh, Curtis, you didn't!" Tim groaned.
"Well, I didn't know what else to do!" Curtis whined, emerging from the hallway. "She can help us!"
Tim sighed, realising that his brother must have drawn a picture of the TARDIS manifesting in their living room, just so that he could ask Martha Jones what to do about Daniel Edge.
And as much as he was about to be embarrassed when the good doctor and her Time Lord companion stepped out of the vessel, he was secretly glad that Curtis had taken things to extremes this time. Because who the hell else could give them advice on how to fix something this bloody weird?
So... if you're reading, please review! Let me know you're out there!
