Author's Note
Here is a long chapter for your reading pleasure. You will see some references to recent historic events here and likely throughout the rest of this story, in one form or another. I promise not to go too deep, and not to delve into actual politics or present a political point of view. This is a work of fiction, as well, so please don't construe anything here as purely factual.
Chapter 3
18 December, 2025
"There was a nuclear event. You probably already guessed that. Britain wasn't involved. We were part of the collateral damage."
They had moved to a makeshift operations center in the middle of the large hospital basement. Peter worked over a little Primus stove to brew tea while Kate and the Doctor sat at a battered card table and talked.
On the walk to the operations center the Doctor heard the chugging of what sounded like several generators in a maintenance cupboard. Thick orange power cords extended out from underneath the door. So that answered the question of where they were getting their power.
"How did it happen?"
"Good question. The details were pretty sketchy, but we think it was human error, initially. The United States was performing routine training exercises in South Korea. A Russian satellite picked up the activity and somehow it got interpreted by Russia and North Korea as an act of aggression. There was an exchange of conventional missiles. Things escalated from there. In the end, all of the NATO countries received either direct hits, or residual effects that moved through the atmosphere.
"The true number of global casualties is unknown. Here in London, before things really fell apart, we were in the hundreds of thousands. Now it must be higher than that. Those who survived are below ground, where the radiation is still at near normal levels."
The Doctor's quick scan on his sonic confirmed Kate's assessment of the radiation levels in the basement.
"We have about thirty people at this location, not including the sick or wounded. We have an improvised med bay the next level down with about 50 patients, give or take. Fortunately, we have among the survivors a surgeon, a physician and a nurse practitioner. They were all on staff here at Royal London.
"We send scavenger and rescue crews out daily, but the rescue crews haven't found any new survivors in a few days. There are other pockets of survivors throughout the London underground and in other large buildings with subterranean levels. Some are more well organized and provisioned than others."
"Are the thirty with you all UNIT operatives?"
Kate coughed painfully and then smiled ironically. "Only three of us are UNIT, that's Osgood, Jax and I. The rest are survivors we rescued, or who found us. But by now, everyone is a veteran."
The Doctor thought through everything Kate had told him so far. He knew she could probably give him more details about the war, casualty count and state of London, but he decided to shift things in another direction.
"In the message I got from your future self you said you thought someone was messing about with time. What makes you think that?"
Kate at first looked like she didn't understand the question.
"I said someone was messing with time? Interesting. That would make sense, though."
And the Doctor realized that his presence here likely changed or eliminated that original moment when Kate sent him the video message in the first place. Another bootstrap paradox to my credit, he thought.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, it's curious. I remember events in two different ways. At the first news of a missile exchange, I thought, 'that can't be right.' But naturally I would think that. No one could believe it. But the feeling of certainty I had was really weird."
Kate coughed into her hand and had a sip of water from a military style canteen before continuing. With the degree of damage to the environment and loss of infrastructure, the Doctor surmised they were boiling their water or otherwise treating it to limit contamination. At least, he hoped they were.
"Why would Russia and North Korea launch an assault without provocation? The US has a big enough arsenal to take out Korea about a hundred times over. It didn't make much sense.
"And then as time went on and things escalated, that sense of non-belief increased. In the morning when I first awoke, I would remember the recent past differently. In those few moments, the war never happened. Things were tense but peaceful among the nuclear powers.
"But then, once I was fully awake, the current reality would set in again. I thought maybe I was dreaming about a different reality as an escape from the present circumstances. But then someone else mentioned they were having the same experience.
"I started actively questioning people. We were all having the same dreams or recollections of a different course of events."
How exciting, the Doctor thought. He tried to school his features to hide his enthusiasm for such an obvious symptom of timeline corruption.
"Can you write those down for me?"
Kate smiled tiredly. "I already have. Osgood and I interviewed over 100 survivors and pieced together a different sequence of events. In the course of doing that, it became clear that the differences started long before the armed conflict broke out. I will show you in a bit."
"Is there still active fighting?"
"No, at least we don't think so. We lost communications early on. As far as we've been able to ascertain, we have no acting government and no means of communicating with the outside world. London's been a shambles. It took a long time for me to locate and recall a handful of UNIT operatives."
"Recall?"
"Oh yes, Doctor. UNIT was defunded three years ago under a liberal government. That's another area where we suspect there was a different reality. I remember working with the team on a number of alien incursions during the time since UNIT was disbanded. I even remember you being here for two of them, and now that you're here, I'm sure it was you in your current incarnation, even though I didn't recognize you when you arrived here today." She rubbed her forehead. "It's that shadow memory thing again."
The Doctor had no recollection of seeing Kate since he regenerated. Curious. Of course, Kate might have been working with his future self, and that would explain why he didn't remember it. Or, perhaps he was also suffering the effects of the timeline disruption.
"Osgood and I stayed together and moved into the private sector as consultants."
"Interesting. How did that work out?"
"Badly."
The Doctor decided to move away from that topic.
Just then, Peter brought over a pot of tea and three mugs. They took a minute to organize their beverages. The Doctor asked for sugar, but sadly, there was none. Regrettably, he had not packed any in the haversack sitting at the foot of the table. He settled for Kate's offered teaspoon of tinned condensed milk.
The Doctor studied Peter, who was seated across from him and to Kate's left. His missing right arm was noticeable, the fresh stump ending just above the elbow.
"And what's your story, Peter? How did you end up with Kate and Osgood and the others?"
The boy blushed a little and didn't make eye contact. He didn't answer. Kate answered for him, her voice weighted with quiet compassion.
"He doesn't like to talk about that. We pulled him from the wreckage of a collapsed underground station. He wasn't conscious. His arm was beyond salvation. Luckily, that was the worst of it. His parents and sister were already gone."
Peter finally looked up and met the Doctor's gaze. His eyes shined with unshed tears.
"But it's weird, because I know they're still alive. It's like what Kate said about remembering things differently. I know they're gone. I saw them die. But I'm also sure they're still alive. I feel the same way about my arm. But Osgood says people who lose a limb often feel like it's still there for a while. Sometimes for the rest of their lives."
The Doctor made a mental note to observe the boy and assess the degree of his phantom limb syndrome. If it truly was PLS, he could easily fix it. If it was an effect of whatever was going on with the timeline, that was another matter.
After tea, Kate led the Doctor into a separate room within the basement with Peter in tow. The room was well lit. The Doctor smiled when he saw Osgood seated at a desk and peering into a laptop, her nose inches from the screen.
"Osgood, we've got company. Believe it or not, this is the Doctor. Do you remember this regeneration?"
The UNIT scientist stood to greet them, studying the Doctor's face carefully before she responded. "No. And also yes. Hello Doctor, glad you found us."
"I had a message."
The Doctor thought Osgood looked slimmer and paler than the last time he'd seen her. Her glasses were broken at the nosepiece and repaired with silver duct tape. Instead of her customary lab coat and striped scarf, she wore cargo pants and a ratty jumper.
"You've explained about the phenomena?" Osgood asked Kate.
"Yes, he knows the basics. Can you walk us through it?"
Osgood smiled. "Sure."
Instead of sitting back at the laptop, she walked over to the far wall of the room, which was covered with yellow and blue stickie notes. The notes had thumb tacks in them. Two different colors of twine were wrapped around the thumbtacks, travelling from one sticky note to another, forming a network of connected notes.
"The yellow notes are the timeline as it currently stands, going back to 2016. The blue ones are the shadow memories we all agree upon. Working backwards from where we are now, we pieced things together to the first significant event that diverged from what we are all remembering as an alternate sequence of events. The first divergence we've isolated is the French election on 7 May of 2016. In our current reality, the National Front candidate won in a landslide. In the other version of events, there was actually a runoff election between the top two candidates, and the République En Marche! Candidate won with a narrow margin.
"The next critical event was England's vote to remain in the European Union, which happened on 13 June 2016. In the other version of events, the Brexit vote resulted in a decision to leave the EU, followed by the PM stepping down and the subsequent two PMs in a very difficult three-year period working toward and achieving the exit. From there things branch out exponentially, as you can imagine. I can walk you through that, but I think it makes more sense to focus on the earlier critical events that may have caused a knock-on effect."
"I agree," the Doctor said, privately admiring the approach Kate and Osgood employed to chronicle the two versions of events. But this is really Osgood's work, the Doctor mused. Osgood's mind. Kate is the strategist, but Osgood is the one who sweats the details and makes the connections. Not for the first time, the Doctor thought of the possibilities that might arise if he took Osgood on an adventure. Not now, obviously, he thought, but he filed it away for later consideration.
"After that, and this is a big one, I think, The United States general election on 8 November of 2016. In our version of events, the election was narrowly won by the progressive liberal candidate running on the Democratic ticket. In the other version of events, a nationalist Republican candidate did not win the popular vote but did win through the Electoral College. In that version of events, what followed was four years of growing tension between the two political parties and also between the United States and its allies, world-wide economic volatility, and war – but not this war. There was an intense trade war between China and US, a disinformation war between the US and Russia and one unfortunate military altercation between the US and Iran that led to an escalation of tensions in the Middle East. There was never a nuclear exchange.
"Germany's election was 24 September 2017 and in our reality the SCP candidate won. In the other version of events, the CSU candidate won. Overall, that doesn't appear to have had a huge bearing on the sequence of events that led to the current state of affairs."
Kate picked up the narrative from there.
"In our reality the progressive US leadership focused on the environment and health care and put less energy into diplomacy with Russia, North Korea and the Middle East. North Korea worked diligently to develop its nuclear program in spite of existing sanctions from the US and NATO.
"Things fell apart too fast to say for sure, but it's likely that Russia assisted North Korea in those efforts. Finally, Russia identified United States routine training maneuvers in South Korea as an act of war and that's when the missiles flew. Any questions?"
"Impressive work! What you've laid out here as the current reality isn't jiving with my recollection of those years. What you have on the blue stickies sounds much more familiar to me. I would have to check the TARDIS data banks to be sure, but I agree that something's gone amiss."
Osgood seemed to relax visibly. "That's a relief! You're from outside of this system, so if you're seeing it, that means we're not all experiencing shared post-traumatic paranoia. Do you have any theories on why things have gone a different route? Are we, for example, in a parallel universe?"
The Doctor could tell that Osgood was excited at the prospect of somehow being in a parallel universe and aware of what was going on in the sister universe. He stood and examined the network carefully, tracing out the two discrete timelines. Osgood and Kate waited on tenterhooks. Kate coughed painfully and had another sip from her canteen. Peter heard a noise in the main part of the basement and left the room.
"While a parallel universe is an interesting theory, I think it is more likely that something caused an adjustment to a critical event that altered the course of history. The fact that you all have this double memory tells me that the adjustment to the timeline, or the paradox, if you will, has caused enough entropy that the two timelines are crossing over each other. You're right. The war should not have happened. And yet, it did."
"What can we do, Doctor?" Kate asked. "If something went awry, is there a way to right it, or are we doomed to this version of events?"
Peter returned, nibbling on what looked and smelled like a peanut butter sandwich. The Doctor weighed his answer before replying.
"This looks like a serious aberration in Earth's timeline. It may even extend beyond Earth. You've done a great job of cataloguing the known aberrations, and that's the first step. Next, I will take what you have and put it in front of an expert in these things."
"What kind of expert?" Osgood asked. "Can't you just run things through your TARDIS data bank?"
"It's not that simple, Osgood, since apparently I am part of events. If I wasn't before, I am now because I came here today. That means my TARDIS is part of events, as well. Only an objective observer will be able to confirm what the true reality is, and what went wrong. I'm going to bring the problem to a timeline auditor."
Osgood made a harsh laughing noise. "You mean like an accountant, only of time?"
The Doctor considered Osgood's question.
"Yes, that's very close. There's a planet in the Cygnus constellation called Sagacity – at least, that's how the name translates into English. You lot only recently discovered it and named it Kepler-452b.
"This is the home of the Universal Collaborative for Temporal Insight. They're time scholars. The Collaborative is dedicated to studying time on a universal scale and identifying anomalies." The Doctor cleared his throat nervously.
"There is also an enforcement side to the Collaborative. They intervene when a violation of time travel laws occurs."
"But Doctor, I thought that was the role of the time lords. Are they involved in Sagacity at all?" Kate asked.
The Doctor laughed. "It is the role of the time lords. The time lords founded the Universal Collaborative. Way, way, way back in the day. Over time, though, the Collaborative became a shared venture with all species that use time travel. Think of it as the United Nations of time travel."
"But I thought that Gallifrey was gone, Doctor. Are there still time lords on Sagacity?"
The Doctor felt a lump form in his throat. In all the time since he and his other incarnations hid Gallifrey in a pocket universe, it had never occurred to him to visit Sagacity and see if any time lords remained.
"Possibly. Probably. In their final years at the Academy, time lords do a mandatory rotation on Sagacity, to get practice auditing time and policing the laws of time travel. At least that's the way it used to work."
Where a few minutes before the Doctor was dreading the idea of going to Sagacity and presenting this problem due to his questionable status from a temporal law enforcement perspective, now he found himself wanting to depart as quickly as possible in hopes of discovering even a token few fellow time lords, possibly even someone he knew or was distantly related to.
Osgood was back at the laptop taking notes, no doubt capturing these newfound tidbits about time lords and the Universal Collaborative in her already impressive file on him.
"So, let's say you go to Sagacity and have them look into it. What happens next?" She asked.
"Well, the auditor will study the timeline, similarly to what you did here, only on a much larger scale. Through that process, the auditor will hopefully pinpoint the exact incident that caused the shift in events. Once that's done, I will go back to that point in time and set it to rights." If possible, the Doctor added in his head. If I can get there before the Reapers. And if I don't get arrested.
The Doctor had Osgood pull up the file that held what they'd mapped out on the wall and uploaded it onto his sonic.
"What will happen to us, though?" Peter asked. "Will we just wink out of existence? Or will we wake up on the other time stream and go on, business as usual? Will we remember any of this reality at all? Will my parents be alive again? Will I have my arm back? Will I still know Kate and Osgood and Jax and the rest of our group?"
The Doctor resisted an impulse to ruffle the boy's hair, or perhaps hug him.
"Those are all great questions, Peter, and there are a lot of variables that affect what happens from there. In the best circumstances, you're back in the 'correct' reality and don't remember anything from your time on this faulty timeline."
Of course, the Doctor thought, but didn't say, being on the correct timeline may not mean that your family is alive, or you didn't lose your arm. Or that you even survived.
"But before I go, I brought a few things I thought might be useful."
Kate and the Doctor returned to the card table in the operations center while Peter and Osgood checked in with a salvage crew that returned while they were going over the timelines. Cooking smells of beans and tinned meat pervaded the air. The Doctor was glad to have some time alone with Kate.
"Kate, have you had any word of Clara?"
Kate broke eye contact for a moment. When she returned her gaze the look of compassion on her face caused the Doctor's stomach to clench uncomfortably.
"I'm so sorry, Doctor. Clara was one of the first people Osgood and I searched for in the aftermath. Clara was on one of the early lists of English casualties, before official communications broke down. Coal Hill School was flattened by a Russian smart bomb during school hours. There were no survivors."
He turned away, taking time to master his reaction. He felt Kate's hand on his shoulder.
All the more reason to get this set to rights, post haste, he thought, while studying the top of the card table, looking for a distraction from the intense feelings of remorse and grief. Then he noticed a curiously familiar object – the large green book that had been across Kate's lap when he and Peter arrived and found her asleep.
"What's this book, Kate? I remember it from somewhere."
Kate smiled tiredly and placed a hand on top of the book.
"You have a good memory, Doctor. It's my father's journal. He wrote in it throughout his UNIT years. There are many accounts of his adventures with you in here."
The Doctor felt a strong wave of nostalgia as he remembered that book's special place on the corner of the Brigadier's desk, under a tin cup full of pens and pencils. He'd never looked in it, but knew it was something of special importance to the UNIT chief.
"Good old Brigadier."
"It's one of the few things I took with me when things fell apart. I read it most nights. It helps me sleep."
"These are radiation stabilizers," the Doctor retrieved the twelve stabilizers from the rucksack and placed them on the table. Kate picked one up and examined it.
"What do they do?" she asked.
"They detect high levels of gamma radiation and neutralize it. Twelve should be enough for the basement. Set them around the perimeter, equidistant from each other. If I had more, I would give them to you to use on the lower level or share with other communities. If I come by more of them I will find a way to get them to you."
The Doctor was nearly certain that if he tried he would be unable to do so due to the corrupt timeline that prevented him from arriving at the time of Kate's original message. However, his act of coming here might have altered things enough to make a return trip possible. In the Doctor's millennia as a time traveler, he'd learned to trust his instincts and keep his options open.
"Do you have to turn them on? Change a filter? Anything?"
"No. Nothing. Just make sure they stay placed evenly around the perimeter. Don't let Peter or anyone else play with them."
Kate grasped his forearm.
"Doctor, take Peter with you." The Doctor realized he should have seen this coming.
"Kate, I don't think that's a good idea." But the UNIT chief science officer's intense gaze penetrated the Doctor's defenses.
"Look, things are getting worse here, not better. The radiation is increasing outside. We have no fresh food. No livestock. We're all getting weaker, sicker. A twelve-year-old boy shouldn't live in a basement. He's lost so much. Please, get him out of this for a little while. We'll still be here – I hope – when you come back."
How could he say no?
And that's how after giving Kate a supply of radiation sickness tablets, a case of nutritious rations and an advanced high capacity water purifier, the Doctor and Peter said their goodbyes to Kate and Osgood before donning their radiation suits, leaving the basement and ascending the stairs back to where the TARDIS waited on the third floor.