CHOICES
Some minutes later the strange trio were sitting cross-legged facing each other, each having filled in the other two on what they knew. Sarah had told the Master and Doctor all about her encounter with the Dark Doctor and the Master had told them about how he thought the High Council had contacted him and asked him to help the Doctor. But now they were all faced with the same puzzle. Every location they visited to collect the missing parts of the TARDIS was in some way related intimately to the Doctor's past.
This planet was the turning point. In one reality the Master wiped the Doctor's memory and he went on to become a hero, while in the alternative reality the Doctor had lived on with his guilt and to deal with it had allowed himself to begin to enjoy the pain and death he had caused rather than agonise over it.
The version of Telos where the Daleks were raiding the cyber tombs was a version of how events would have turned out if the Doctor had never begun to meddle in the two races' time lines. It was his meddling that had kept the inevitable conflict between the two imperialist species at bay and without his early presence the archaeological team had no hope of survival.
All around them the threads of the universe they knew were unravelling and a new reality was breaking through. Only this desolate planet where the change had begun would remain unchanged in it's own unalterable tragedy.
They all knew that their only hope was to kill the Dark Doctor. The Master seemed rather cheerful about this, but understandably the Doctor himself was resigned but disturbed, knowing he would need to commit a strange form of suicide. The Master had offered to act alone but the Doctor had insisted that he had to do this himself. They were all about to stand and begin the search for the Dark Doctor when the peace of the courtyard was interrupted by a strange wheezing groaning sound and the sudden materialisation of a Police Box.
The Doctor, the Master and Sarah all exchanged glances of puzzlement.
The door of the police box opened and a man stepped out. He was wearing a dark brown jacket over a red waistcoat, with a paisley tie and a strange misshapen hat on his head. When he spoke he had a Scottish accent.
"Let me introduce myself to myself. I am the Doctor, number seven in fact." he announced.
"What are you doing here?" asked the Doctor. "The First Law . . ."
"To offer you a choice," said another Scottish voice almost identical to the other Doctor.
Out from the TARDIS stepped a twin of the seventh Doctor. He was almost identical except he was dressed in a light cream coat and a pullover with question marks all over it. The two little Scottish Doctors stood next to each other, looking very much like a pair of twins trying very hard to look different from each other.
"What sort of choice?" asked the Doctor.
"Look at the two of us," said the dark jacketed Doctor.
"We are the same, but different," said the first.
"Neither of us is really here," explained the second. "The First Law of Time doesn't apply to us. We are just reflections of what you may become."
"I am the reflection of what you will become if you succeed in killing the Dark Doctor and return to your natural time stream where your memories of this planet are erased again," said the light jacketed Doctor.
"Whereas I am the reflection of what you will become if you chose not to kill the Dark Doctor, but to merge with him instead," said his dark jacketed version. "To absorb him, his memories and his penchant for manipulation."
"If you choose me you will again be carefree and able to travel on finding your battles wherever they arise," continued the first one.
"If you choose me you will carry a world of woes, but be able to choose where and when to fight and cut off the roots of evil before they grow too strong," said the second.
"Doctor, the choice is yours," announced the dark and light jacketed Doctors together.
"A dilemma indeed, Doctor," the Master noted. "I do not envy your choice."
"Doctor, what are you going to do?" asked Sarah.
The Doctor was deep in thought, weighing up the options. Sarah could almost feel the tension. "Very well," he said to the two other Doctors. "I have made my decision, but I want something in return."
"Ah. You want to know the location of the spatial anomoliser," the light jacketed Doctor surmised.
"Yes," the Doctor replied. "Once I have that, I can set things in motion."
"To what end?" asked his dark jacketed seventh persona.
"So that I may merge with my dark side."
Sarah was shocked. "Doctor, no!"
"Sarah, I must." He regarded Sarah's concerned face. "I'm responsible for all of this, either directly or indirectly. If I can make some kind of amends for my past actions, or if there is the slightest chance that I can turn this dark version of me into a positive force, then I have to try."
She fell silent at his words, knowing he was right. Even the Master nodded his assent.
The Doctor turned to his future selves. "Now to your side of the bargain. Where is the spatial anomoliser located?"
The two Doctors exchanged glances, and nodded. "It's on Earth," replied the first one.
"More specifically," continued the second one, "during the time of your - our - exile."
"Well, come on, you two!" The Doctor was exasperated. "I haven't got all day!"
They sighed as one. "You must be particularly careful," cautioned the first.
"Because," the second added, "its time trace places the spatial anomoliser's location at the first invasion of the Nestene Consciousness."
"Oh no," the Doctor realised. "Autons."
*****
The Doctor and Sarah stepped out of the Master's mouth on the exact co- ordinates of UNIT HQ. The Master closed his mouth and looked around the area where he had landed.
"What's happened here?" asked Sarah.
They were standing amidst the ruins of London. Shattered buildings and broken bodies surrounded them.
"The Dark Doctor's universe is starting to become the real one," the Master explained. "This is London as it would be if the Doctor had never become involved in the affairs of Earth."
"He's right, Sarah," the Doctor told her. "In this reality wave after wave of alien invasion has ravaged the Earth and its population. First the Yeti then the Cybermen and now the Autons. Invasion force after invasion force, following one another and fighting each other over this damaged little planet."
Sarah studied her surroundings and the bodies strewn across the landscape. Looking more carefully than the first time she registered something. Yes there were human bodies, but there were also others. Lizards with three eyes crushed under the bodies of giant hairy beasts with robotic innards bursting out of their shaggy coats. Half-shattered Cybermen, frozen in the final moments of a struggle with a melting Auton. "We must find the Brigadier and UNIT," she said.
"No hope of that, I'm afraid," the Doctor answered. "In this reality I never helped the Brigadier fight of the Yeti invasion, and so the Great Intelligence won and UNIT was never formed. The Great Intelligence will have been in control until the next invasion came along and then the next, then one after another again and again. On this Earth the Brigadier probably died in that first battle with the Yeti." He shook his head in disbelief. "All this devastation, because I was content to sit back and enjoy the spectacle rather than get involved."
"You can't blame yourself. It isn't you that did nothing. It was him, that alternative Dark Doctor," said Sarah.
"Miss Smith is right, Doctor," said the Master. "In our reality you did not sit back. You got involved and stopped me, and many others, from bringing this down upon our heads. Don't worry, we will stop this."
"Thank you for your concern," noted the Doctor.
"Oh no, don't say that. I can feel a change beginning in myself. The wider changes in the universe are beginning to take hold of me," the Master gasped.
"What, how can you tell?" asked Sarah.
"He's just shown concern for me and Earth," the Doctor realised. "Something he would never normally do. As the alternative universe begins to take hold, the Master is beginning to take on an alternative persona - what he would have become had I become the Dark Doctor. The Master is becoming a hero."
The Master could feel the changes envelop him. He was slipping into a kinder version of himself, but still he maintained his sharp mind. His usual look of cunning was now replaced by an open, more honest demeanour. "Come along, you two," he called. "We've got to find the spatial anomoliser."
The Doctor and Sarah quickly followed on. "I hope we find it soon," the Doctor remarked.
"What's the matter, Doctor," Sarah laughed. "Afraid he'll upstage you?"
"It's more serious than that. He'll be struggling inside to reassert his true personality, while this new facet of him becomes stronger."
Now she understood. "You mean he could suffer a mental breakdown?"
He nodded. "Unless we find that component quickly, it's a real possibility." They hurried on, spurred on by the Master's impending condition.
As they caught him up, the Master turned to them. "Doctor, where was the final battle with the Autons eventually played out?"
He thought back. "A company called Auto Plastics. The company may no longer exist, but I can lead you to the site."
*****
As expected, the building was now a gutted, empty shell. The Doctor, Sarah and the Master made their way into the construction yard, where UNIT had held off the advancing hoard of Autons while he and Liz Shaw had confronted the Nestene Consciousness and its agent, Channing. It all seemed a long time ago. And yet . . . "Even in this alternate Earth, there has to be something," the Doctor mused.
"But in a place this size, what could it be?" wondered the Master.
"Up to now," Sarah thought out loud, "we've been looking for something out of place. Something that doesn't quite fit."
The two Time Lords looked at her. "Go on, Sarah," the Doctor prompted.
"Well, supposing this time we're after something that did fit in. Something that used to blend in, but would now be out of place among this devastation?"
"I see what she means," said the Master. "A subtle variation of what's gone before."
The Doctor nodded. "Hmm. I wonder . . ."
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Quiet, Sarah. I'm wondering."
"Wondering about what?" she persisted.
The Doctor looked at Sarah carefully as though he was looking at her for the first time. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Fine, thank you," replied Sarah, slightly puzzled.
"No strange twinges or aches?"
"What's all this about?" asked the Master.
The Doctor shushed the other Time Lord and returned his attention to Sarah. "Sarah. You know that it's the chameleon circuit that has been disguising all the missing components?"
"Yes."
"Well, one of the remarkable facilities of the chameleon circuit is that it blends the disguised object in with the environment where it lands. It can do that either as a free standing object or as part of the fabric of a larger artefact."
"So?" she replied.
"Sarah, answer my question. Any strange twinges or aches?"
"Well no, but my back has been feeling a little stiff since we first crash landed in that field."
"Oh, Sarah!" exclaimed the Doctor.
He spun her around and started feeling down her back. "Oi, get off!" she shouted.
The Doctor however was persistent and suddenly unzipped the back of Sarah's blouse, running his fingers up her spine. She was startled at this, but even moreso when her spine began to vibrate and hum. Then in a sudden puff of smoke, a long silver piece of technology popped out of her back straight into the Doctor's hand.
"There we are. The final component," he announced.
Sarah was fumbling to close the back of her blouse while she tried to grasp what had just happened.
"So the spatial anomoliser hitched a ride on the back of Miss Smith," said the Master.
"Yes," said the Doctor.
"But why did my sensor sweep indicate that we would find it here?" the Master wondered.
"Because I told it to," said the Dark Doctor as he emerged from behind a pile of rubble.
To be continued . . .
Some minutes later the strange trio were sitting cross-legged facing each other, each having filled in the other two on what they knew. Sarah had told the Master and Doctor all about her encounter with the Dark Doctor and the Master had told them about how he thought the High Council had contacted him and asked him to help the Doctor. But now they were all faced with the same puzzle. Every location they visited to collect the missing parts of the TARDIS was in some way related intimately to the Doctor's past.
This planet was the turning point. In one reality the Master wiped the Doctor's memory and he went on to become a hero, while in the alternative reality the Doctor had lived on with his guilt and to deal with it had allowed himself to begin to enjoy the pain and death he had caused rather than agonise over it.
The version of Telos where the Daleks were raiding the cyber tombs was a version of how events would have turned out if the Doctor had never begun to meddle in the two races' time lines. It was his meddling that had kept the inevitable conflict between the two imperialist species at bay and without his early presence the archaeological team had no hope of survival.
All around them the threads of the universe they knew were unravelling and a new reality was breaking through. Only this desolate planet where the change had begun would remain unchanged in it's own unalterable tragedy.
They all knew that their only hope was to kill the Dark Doctor. The Master seemed rather cheerful about this, but understandably the Doctor himself was resigned but disturbed, knowing he would need to commit a strange form of suicide. The Master had offered to act alone but the Doctor had insisted that he had to do this himself. They were all about to stand and begin the search for the Dark Doctor when the peace of the courtyard was interrupted by a strange wheezing groaning sound and the sudden materialisation of a Police Box.
The Doctor, the Master and Sarah all exchanged glances of puzzlement.
The door of the police box opened and a man stepped out. He was wearing a dark brown jacket over a red waistcoat, with a paisley tie and a strange misshapen hat on his head. When he spoke he had a Scottish accent.
"Let me introduce myself to myself. I am the Doctor, number seven in fact." he announced.
"What are you doing here?" asked the Doctor. "The First Law . . ."
"To offer you a choice," said another Scottish voice almost identical to the other Doctor.
Out from the TARDIS stepped a twin of the seventh Doctor. He was almost identical except he was dressed in a light cream coat and a pullover with question marks all over it. The two little Scottish Doctors stood next to each other, looking very much like a pair of twins trying very hard to look different from each other.
"What sort of choice?" asked the Doctor.
"Look at the two of us," said the dark jacketed Doctor.
"We are the same, but different," said the first.
"Neither of us is really here," explained the second. "The First Law of Time doesn't apply to us. We are just reflections of what you may become."
"I am the reflection of what you will become if you succeed in killing the Dark Doctor and return to your natural time stream where your memories of this planet are erased again," said the light jacketed Doctor.
"Whereas I am the reflection of what you will become if you chose not to kill the Dark Doctor, but to merge with him instead," said his dark jacketed version. "To absorb him, his memories and his penchant for manipulation."
"If you choose me you will again be carefree and able to travel on finding your battles wherever they arise," continued the first one.
"If you choose me you will carry a world of woes, but be able to choose where and when to fight and cut off the roots of evil before they grow too strong," said the second.
"Doctor, the choice is yours," announced the dark and light jacketed Doctors together.
"A dilemma indeed, Doctor," the Master noted. "I do not envy your choice."
"Doctor, what are you going to do?" asked Sarah.
The Doctor was deep in thought, weighing up the options. Sarah could almost feel the tension. "Very well," he said to the two other Doctors. "I have made my decision, but I want something in return."
"Ah. You want to know the location of the spatial anomoliser," the light jacketed Doctor surmised.
"Yes," the Doctor replied. "Once I have that, I can set things in motion."
"To what end?" asked his dark jacketed seventh persona.
"So that I may merge with my dark side."
Sarah was shocked. "Doctor, no!"
"Sarah, I must." He regarded Sarah's concerned face. "I'm responsible for all of this, either directly or indirectly. If I can make some kind of amends for my past actions, or if there is the slightest chance that I can turn this dark version of me into a positive force, then I have to try."
She fell silent at his words, knowing he was right. Even the Master nodded his assent.
The Doctor turned to his future selves. "Now to your side of the bargain. Where is the spatial anomoliser located?"
The two Doctors exchanged glances, and nodded. "It's on Earth," replied the first one.
"More specifically," continued the second one, "during the time of your - our - exile."
"Well, come on, you two!" The Doctor was exasperated. "I haven't got all day!"
They sighed as one. "You must be particularly careful," cautioned the first.
"Because," the second added, "its time trace places the spatial anomoliser's location at the first invasion of the Nestene Consciousness."
"Oh no," the Doctor realised. "Autons."
*****
The Doctor and Sarah stepped out of the Master's mouth on the exact co- ordinates of UNIT HQ. The Master closed his mouth and looked around the area where he had landed.
"What's happened here?" asked Sarah.
They were standing amidst the ruins of London. Shattered buildings and broken bodies surrounded them.
"The Dark Doctor's universe is starting to become the real one," the Master explained. "This is London as it would be if the Doctor had never become involved in the affairs of Earth."
"He's right, Sarah," the Doctor told her. "In this reality wave after wave of alien invasion has ravaged the Earth and its population. First the Yeti then the Cybermen and now the Autons. Invasion force after invasion force, following one another and fighting each other over this damaged little planet."
Sarah studied her surroundings and the bodies strewn across the landscape. Looking more carefully than the first time she registered something. Yes there were human bodies, but there were also others. Lizards with three eyes crushed under the bodies of giant hairy beasts with robotic innards bursting out of their shaggy coats. Half-shattered Cybermen, frozen in the final moments of a struggle with a melting Auton. "We must find the Brigadier and UNIT," she said.
"No hope of that, I'm afraid," the Doctor answered. "In this reality I never helped the Brigadier fight of the Yeti invasion, and so the Great Intelligence won and UNIT was never formed. The Great Intelligence will have been in control until the next invasion came along and then the next, then one after another again and again. On this Earth the Brigadier probably died in that first battle with the Yeti." He shook his head in disbelief. "All this devastation, because I was content to sit back and enjoy the spectacle rather than get involved."
"You can't blame yourself. It isn't you that did nothing. It was him, that alternative Dark Doctor," said Sarah.
"Miss Smith is right, Doctor," said the Master. "In our reality you did not sit back. You got involved and stopped me, and many others, from bringing this down upon our heads. Don't worry, we will stop this."
"Thank you for your concern," noted the Doctor.
"Oh no, don't say that. I can feel a change beginning in myself. The wider changes in the universe are beginning to take hold of me," the Master gasped.
"What, how can you tell?" asked Sarah.
"He's just shown concern for me and Earth," the Doctor realised. "Something he would never normally do. As the alternative universe begins to take hold, the Master is beginning to take on an alternative persona - what he would have become had I become the Dark Doctor. The Master is becoming a hero."
The Master could feel the changes envelop him. He was slipping into a kinder version of himself, but still he maintained his sharp mind. His usual look of cunning was now replaced by an open, more honest demeanour. "Come along, you two," he called. "We've got to find the spatial anomoliser."
The Doctor and Sarah quickly followed on. "I hope we find it soon," the Doctor remarked.
"What's the matter, Doctor," Sarah laughed. "Afraid he'll upstage you?"
"It's more serious than that. He'll be struggling inside to reassert his true personality, while this new facet of him becomes stronger."
Now she understood. "You mean he could suffer a mental breakdown?"
He nodded. "Unless we find that component quickly, it's a real possibility." They hurried on, spurred on by the Master's impending condition.
As they caught him up, the Master turned to them. "Doctor, where was the final battle with the Autons eventually played out?"
He thought back. "A company called Auto Plastics. The company may no longer exist, but I can lead you to the site."
*****
As expected, the building was now a gutted, empty shell. The Doctor, Sarah and the Master made their way into the construction yard, where UNIT had held off the advancing hoard of Autons while he and Liz Shaw had confronted the Nestene Consciousness and its agent, Channing. It all seemed a long time ago. And yet . . . "Even in this alternate Earth, there has to be something," the Doctor mused.
"But in a place this size, what could it be?" wondered the Master.
"Up to now," Sarah thought out loud, "we've been looking for something out of place. Something that doesn't quite fit."
The two Time Lords looked at her. "Go on, Sarah," the Doctor prompted.
"Well, supposing this time we're after something that did fit in. Something that used to blend in, but would now be out of place among this devastation?"
"I see what she means," said the Master. "A subtle variation of what's gone before."
The Doctor nodded. "Hmm. I wonder . . ."
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Quiet, Sarah. I'm wondering."
"Wondering about what?" she persisted.
The Doctor looked at Sarah carefully as though he was looking at her for the first time. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Fine, thank you," replied Sarah, slightly puzzled.
"No strange twinges or aches?"
"What's all this about?" asked the Master.
The Doctor shushed the other Time Lord and returned his attention to Sarah. "Sarah. You know that it's the chameleon circuit that has been disguising all the missing components?"
"Yes."
"Well, one of the remarkable facilities of the chameleon circuit is that it blends the disguised object in with the environment where it lands. It can do that either as a free standing object or as part of the fabric of a larger artefact."
"So?" she replied.
"Sarah, answer my question. Any strange twinges or aches?"
"Well no, but my back has been feeling a little stiff since we first crash landed in that field."
"Oh, Sarah!" exclaimed the Doctor.
He spun her around and started feeling down her back. "Oi, get off!" she shouted.
The Doctor however was persistent and suddenly unzipped the back of Sarah's blouse, running his fingers up her spine. She was startled at this, but even moreso when her spine began to vibrate and hum. Then in a sudden puff of smoke, a long silver piece of technology popped out of her back straight into the Doctor's hand.
"There we are. The final component," he announced.
Sarah was fumbling to close the back of her blouse while she tried to grasp what had just happened.
"So the spatial anomoliser hitched a ride on the back of Miss Smith," said the Master.
"Yes," said the Doctor.
"But why did my sensor sweep indicate that we would find it here?" the Master wondered.
"Because I told it to," said the Dark Doctor as he emerged from behind a pile of rubble.
To be continued . . .