The Final Season of Doctor Who

Episode Eleven "An Ordinary Day in Milton Keynes" Part One of Two

Intro

It was a pleasant Tuesday August morning in Milton Keynes, a postwar "new town" perhaps an hour's drive north of London that was actually a city of close to a quarter of a million people. It was close to time for a coffee and tea break and several people had congregated near a local café. A woman in her early seventies was walking her dog, but decided to sit down on a nearby bench. On the café's outside tables, a young woman with garish dyed red and green and blonde hair was speaking very loudly into her cell phone, though the mix of third person pronouns made it unclear what exactly she was talking about. An Anglican clergyman in his sixties was having a cup of tea reading The Times. A somewhat plump man in his thirties wearing a plumber's uniform looked too tired to drink his coffee, despite encouragement from his slightly younger and definitely thinner partner. There was a mother talking on her phone, while her pre-kindergarten son was trying to read a book taller than his baby sister. A somewhat nerdish young man with thick glasses rode up in a bicycle, but was having problems securely locking it.

Just then a van drove up, driven by two security guards. It stopped and the guard not on the driver's side got out.

"Finished your morning round, Pete?" asked a waitress.

"Yeah, time for a tea break, Jill. Roger, what will you have today?"

"Do you have any of those lemon tarts?" Roger called from the van.

"We certainly do," Jill said.

"Then Roger will have those. Let's see, I can't decide between coffee and tea. And should I have a snack?" As Pete was saying these words, a tall thin young man was walking by listening to a very loud and annoying song. But before anyone could ask him to turn it down, he wrapped his arm around Pete's throat and put a gun to his head with his other hand.

"Open the back door!"

"Yes, open the back door!" chimed in the "nerd" who also took out a gun and pointed it Pete.

"You must be daft!" replied Roger. "We just made a delivery."

"We know," said Pete's captor. "And the company smuggled something back and we want it."

"Keep your hands up," the "nerd" ordered Roger, "let me open your door, and then open the back. You have ten seconds, or Pete gets it,"

The nerd raced to the door, and opened it, and Roger, somewhat awkwardly since his hands were up, slowly slid out of the van.

But just then the two plumbers stood up, also carrying guns. "Authorized firearms Officers—flying squad! Drop your guns!"

"Bloody hell," said Pete's captor, while the "nerd" forced Roger to the ground.

"We know who you are, and we've got you!"

"But you don't got me!" The girl with tri-colour hair jumped out of her seat, aiming two guns at the officers. "Put your guns down or you're dead!"

All this time, Jill the waitress, the clergyman, the old woman, the mother and her children had dived down to the ground. The mother was, understandably, most upset, and was clearly hysterical: "Oh no oh no oh no!" How this armed standoff would end was not clear when suddenly three helmeted figures, dressed entirely in black, materialized in front of the café doors.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" the "nerd" wondered.

The three black figures examined the scene very quickly. Then they shot Pete, the old woman and the clergyman dead before vanishing.

The force of the shot that killed Pete forced him to the ground, pinning his captor. The "nerd" quickly dashed away. The tri-coloured girl dropped a gun in surprise, and put down the other one when the two officers pointed their weapons at her. The officers quickly handcuffed her and the late Pete's captor. "What just happened?" one of them asked.

Act One

The Doctor and Rassilon were walking away from Fenric's corpse. Already, the shadowy corridors of Fenric's "Sphere of Influence" were merging with the more familiar ones of Gallifreyan architecture.

"You seem distracted, Doctor."

"I was thinking of what Fenric said. He said that no single intelligence could find his Sphere. Clearly that suggests that two intelligences could. He also said no rational process could find him. So that obviously means a random process would."

"Oh yes, your companion was very helpful on that score."

"Fenric also said that no mortal could enter his Sphere, and immortals like us would be immediately detected." Just then the two Time Lords approached someone who looked exactly like the Doctor.

"I was wondering who had been pretending to be me over the last couple of weeks," said the Doctor. "And it turned out to be me all along. Or should that be Me with a capital M? I take it that it's been you imitating me in the Dalek Reality Bomb Crucible, Restoration England, Xanadu and Fenric's Sphere of Influence."

The Pseudo-Doctor nodded, and abruptly changed into Me, or more helpfully Ashildr, the Viking girl who had been afflicted with immortality in an encounter with the Twelfth Doctor. "An immortal human wouldn't be immediately detected by Fenric," the Doctor clarified.

"She's working for me now," Rassilon explained. "Ashildr, go help the others retrieve what useful devices Fenric had." Ashildr vanished. Then a few seconds later she appeared with several others carrying various weapons further down the corridor. Behind him, the Doctor saw Galiffreyan doors with Time Lord insignia appear and seal the Sphere from the rest of Gallifrey.

The Doctor continued. "Fenric said he couldn't die as long as he was in the Sphere. So I imagine you sent Ashildr to arrange an interdimensional connection with Gallifrey. He also said he would live to the universe's last day."

"And he was right."

"He also said he might be killed by a dead God."

"Legends, Doctor. Fenric was always too infatuated with them. Though I was perfectly happy to be dead until the Time War. Perhaps I'll be a God when this day's over." There was an abrupt noise, like something falling. "Ah. The Sphere has been cut off from Gallifrey. Now Fenric's tomb is unreachable by anyone."

"I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor clarified. "I've always been a Time Lord. Everything that suggested otherwise was all just a plot by you to confuse Fenric. What I don't understand is how you're all alive."

Rassilon entered a new room. Unlike the lightless and shadowy rooms of Fenric's Sphere, it was all white and filled with light. "Oddly enough, your former companion Clara Oswald was key to the solution."

The Doctor saw, perhaps twenty feet in front of him, a catafalque. He raced towards it and found the corpse of his former companion laid upon it. "Clara!"

"Yes," Rassilon said coldly. "She said she would take the long way round. But eventually she returned. The point, Doctor, was she created multiple versions of herself when she entered your timestream. The concept is not that difficult, it happened all sorts of times during the Time War. It explains why there's still a Skaro after you destroyed it."

"And you created two Gallifreys."

"Of course. This one and one inhabited by Gallifrey's military. Humans are very silly, Doctor. The more wars their armies lose, the greater humans feel compelled to respect them."

"You created the story of the Timeless Child and manipulated the Master into destroying your rivals."

"I also created a duplicate of myself so the Master would have the pleasure of killing me, vainglorious twit. Personally, I thought the story of the Timeless Child was full of holes. An incarnation centuries before your first incarnation, living in a time when all of your incarnations were likely to bump into her? And still disguised as a police box when everyone knew your chameleon circuit only stopped working after it left 1963?" Rassilon pointed to a woman who had just entered the room. The Doctor recognized the apparently Anglo-Caribbean woman with dreadlock hair as "Ruth Clayton," who smiled sheepishly at the Doctor. Rassilon continued. "And there was that whole miserable Flux affair, an arrangement powered by its own temporal anomaly, with most of the participants playing their parts. Much of it was preposterous. And yet I knew you'd believe it. You'd rather believe your entire life was a lie, than live without hope knowing all the Time Lords were dead."

Rassilon pointed to a grand staircase and motioned the Doctor to follow him up it. "Clayton, send Ms. Oswald's body back to her time. I imagine her parents would like it." The Doctor took a last look at Clara as he walked up the stairs with Rassilon.

"You could have given me a heads up."

"I did. I twice sent images of the Valeyard to your eleventh and twelfth incarnations. Since I killed him, I assumed you would realize they came from me. Did Fenric tell you anything else?"

"Among other things, he said I had only six hours to live."

"Six hours? Well that's encouraging." The Doctor and Rassilon were now on the top level of an expansive tower. There was just one more staircase that took them to its roof, but the level they were in was filled with computers, monitors and sensors. Several Time Lords, some in formal regalia, others in more practical clothes, raced around performing various duties. The reason why was all too obvious. That very morning, the very last morning Gallifrey would ever see, saw a host of creatures attacking the Capital. The most prominent were winged reptilian creatures, which the Doctor recognized as Reapers. Rassilon continued. "According to your TARDIS' Malachi circuit, it has less than seventy minutes."

Petronella Osgood was in the TARDIS and looked at the monitor counting down as the Cloister Bell continued to toll: 1:06:20, 1:06:19, 1:06:18.

"We're on Gallifrey," she gulped.

"Yes," Romana confirmed.

"I thought Gallifrey was destroyed. How is it still here?"

"I'm not sure. But it's definitely Time Lords outside, and not the Cybermen the Doctor defeated the last time he was here."

Petronella looked at the scanner showing the outside, and winced at seeing various monsters attacking the passerbys. "Shouldn't we contact them? Get some help?"

"Hold on. I'm getting confirmation that Rassilon is the undisputed leader of the Time Lords."

"Didn't Rassilon create the Time Lords in the first place? Isn't that a good sign?"

"Unfortunately, Rassilon had a back-up plan to win the Time War. It consisted of destroying the rest of the universe so the Time Lords would live."

"Oh God, this is a nightmare."

"I have some good news. I have somebody on the inside who can help us." Romana extracted a tool kit from a pocket, and went to the console. Underneath it, she stared adjusting the wiring.

"What are you doing?" Petronella asked.

"I need the Doctor's TARDIS to route communications. It's still very important that nobody, not even the Doctor, knows that I'm here." It took a couple of minutes for Romana to arrange the wiring. "Finished!" Romana stood up again. "Here is the situation. Ever since the Eleventh Doctor regenerated, the Time Lords have been in a time bubble near the very end of time. And they still are. Conceivably they could have stayed at that final instant forever. But now the bubble is unstable, and it's being attacked by all sorts of creatures. I'm also noticing a very large power buildup."

"The same power buildup that's going to destroy the TARDIS in…" and Petronella pointed to the monitor, which now read 1:02:27.

"That's likely, but we can't assume that. Hold on, I'm getting more information. Fenric is dead, and the Doctor is with Rassilon. I am going to teleport away and try to meet my contact. I know you don't want to be alone right now. But trust me, what I am doing is far more dangerous than your being in the TARDIS. I have a plan to save you. I'll still be able to communicate with you, but it won't involve your cell phone. And I admit the communication will only be one way. I'll contact you, not the other way around. If you're still in the TARDIS when the monitor counts down to five minutes, get out. Regardless of what's going on outside. I guarantee you will not fall when Gallifrey does."

David Lister, not to be confused with his slightly plumper and decidedly more admirable father Dave Lister, was striding the special corridors of Spencer and Associates Tuesday morning. Here the public and most of the staff were forbidden to enter. He was concerned by the tone the Emissaries had shown to him in the past eighteen hours. They were most displeased by his recent encounter with Doctor. Lister decided to take out a cigarette. As head of security, he did not have to obey the firm's non-smoking rules. It also helped that his 22nd century cigarettes had no nicotine.

Notwithstanding his defeat at the hands of the Doctor, Lister had very good instincts. Such that he turned around when he felt someone behind him. As indeed there was, an imposing bearded figure who sternly eyed Lister.

"Mr. Raskolnikov! I didn't know you were here."

Just then another Emissary, the gaunt alien with the penetrating stare known as Turlough, entered the corridor. "Mr. Raskolnikov will be in charge of ordinary security. You will instead follow our orders as we relay them from the Munster room. Right this moment, Mr. Phrropox requires your assistance."

Soon Lister entered another room and saw one of his guards, a very tall and imposing Italian, force a large slab of beef into a dumbwaiter. After succeeding, he closed it and it began to descend. Just then Phrropox entered. Although the alien was only five feet tall and a not very inspiring shade of purple, Lister knew better than to suggest anything other than absolute obedience.

"Mr. Lister, Mr. Starace: you will take the tin chest there and join me as I inspect the Green Corridor," Phrropox said. Soon they descended a flight of stairs. Phrropox unlocked the door outside of the sign "GREEN CORRIDOR—ADMISSION STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. He pushed some more buttons and the door opened.

The Green Corridor appeared to be at least a hundred meters long, substantially longer than it should have been given the building's dimensions. It was awash with light and, except for some mirrors, appeared to be almost completely empty. The exception was something on the floor several dozen meters down and which Phrropox pointed to. The two security men quickly marched to that place carrying the tin chest. Phrropox moved down the corridor and extracted from his suit's inside pocket something that looked like a cigarette case, though a bit larger. He opened it, revealing a metallic quadrilateral, with diagonal lines covering the otherwise empty rectangle. He tapped the center where the lines intersected, and the rhombus lifted off the case and attached itself to the wall. Surprisingly, similar rectangles also appeared and attached themselves to both walls, as well as the ceiling. They made a strange metallic, chirping sound as they expanded and contracted, and then moved up and down, right and left on the surfaces.

"Yes, I know you don't particularly like cleaning," Phrropox said to apparently no-one in particular. "But these things have to be done, and I don't particularly care for your opinion."

After about thirty seconds, Phrropox looked at his watch. "How are we doing, Mr. Lister?"

"We're finished." Shortly afterward, the Green Corridor was locked off from the rest of the building, and Lister and Starace placed the chest in another dumbwaiter. The dumbwaiter descended. Nobody was in the room where its descent stopped. But even if they had been, the chest was opened too quickly for anyone to see what was dropped in the vat of powerful acid below.

Phrropox now gave orders. "Mr. Starace, you will join your three colleagues in Mr. Spencer's bedroom. The quintet of you are to guard him with your lives." Starace nodded and left. "Mr. Lister, you will follow me to the floor below." As they descended a stairwell, Phrropox clarified matters. "We believe we will be attacked soon. And we believe the floor below will be the place you will confront them and make your stand. Mr. Raskolnikov will be in charge of evacuation. Myself, Mr. Turlough, and Mr. Greenman will direct matters from the Munster Room." Phrropox did not need to add that Lister was to obey all and any of the four without question. "If we are lucky, the enemy that has ravaged countless star systems will appear first. If you are unlucky, the unknown enemy whose total numbers of victims are so far only in the double digits, will appear first and certainly kill you."

Mrs. Sarkar was an intelligent woman of Bengali origin in her early forties who worried too much that she was ten pounds overweight. Especially since she was actually twenty pounds overweight. Over the last decade she had managed to oversee one of the best daycare centers in all of Milton Keynes. Right this moment she was applying iodine and then bandaging to a three-year-old boy who had cut his hand on a broken glass. Although he was crying, she was successfully calming him. She lived for moments like this. Especially since the child's mishap distracted her from her strong desire to throttle her very attractive and very stupid musical coordinator for her three and four-year old clientele, who started to sing for the eighteenth time that day "Afternoon Delight."

Suddenly, another woman, also in her early forties, burst into the building. Mrs. Sarkar recognized her as Ruth Wesley, the boy's mother and one of Mrs. Sarkar's oldest friends since they had met in secondary school decades ago.

Mrs. Wesley bent down and hugged her son. "Now you know you have to be more careful. Remember Mrs. Sarkar knows what's best for you."

Her son stopped crying, and Mrs. Sarkar pointed him back to the other children. She spoke to her friend. "So how are things, Ruth?"

"Well, you know, it's never easy to raise five kids."

"Especially since you thought you couldn't have any, only to end up with triplets."

The two chuckled, and Mrs. Wesley then sighed a little. "I mean Julia's been sick for the last few days. And Tony is now scared of ghosts for some reason and…" But just then she noticed the musical coordinator singing. "Is that song really appropriate for small children?"

"Of course it's not appropriate. But I can't fire her, and there are laws against bashing her head in."

"Where did you get her from? Mayfair?"

"No. The sad thing is that she's genuinely talented, except for her habit of only singing the most annoying songs imaginable. She spent all of yesterday singing 'Who let the Dogs out?'"

As it happened the coordinator, whose name was Geri Grin, did not hear them and would not have cared if she did. "Star rockets in flight, Afternoon De…AAGHH!" For suddenly a black helmet assassin appeared right in front of Ms. Grin. It was hard to see with her in the way, but the assassin had no trouble maneuvering before shooting Mrs. Sarkar and Mrs. Wesley dead. Then the assassin vanished.

The Doctor looked around. "We're in the Prydonian Cathedral, the tallest point in the capital." He looked up at the sky and saw the "bubble" which enclosed Gallifrey. The bubble maintained the atmosphere while generating the light and warmth that substituted for Gallifrey's long absent (and now long dead) sun. Taking a closer look, he could see through the "bubble" the rest of the universe on its final day, which appeared as swirls of massive energies.

"Wait! I thought the universe was to dissolve in a sea of infinite entropy. Shouldn't that be what's happening?"

"Short answer, no," Rassilon replied. "The longer answer… too complicated for me to explain right now. Let's walk up to the roof."

They did so. There was a rail around it, and some computers, monitors and scanners, but otherwise apparently nothing protected the two from the Reapers ravaging the capital, along with many other powerful beasts and entities the Doctor had never seen before. "Is it safe here?" he asked with some alarm.

"Of course. The force fields make this the most secure place in Gallifrey." Just then a particularly large reaper burst through the field, landed right in front of the two and roared. Rassilon coolly took out the blaster he had used to assassinate Fenric and shot it dead. "Deal with it," he said to a functionary who had raced up to join them.

Rassilon turned to the Doctor. "Very powerful weapon. Pity there aren't more of them." He handed it to the Doctor for inspection. The Doctor examined it, and then aimed it at Rassilon. "I've arranged it so it can't be fired at me," he explained and the Doctor reluctantly returned it.

Rassilon continued. "I didn't arrange everything simply to confuse Fenric. I know your abilities, and your strengths. They're not enough. I have created the greatest civilization the universe has ever known. You, by contrast, are just a lucky carefree anarchist. If you knew my plans you'd counter them. Consider an analogy from your humans. Britain and the Soviet Union had to fight the Germans. But they didn't trust each other. In the end, however, they had no choice but to work together. And you have no choice but to help me. The only problem with the analogy is that I forget which country tricked the other into helping them."

"Ah. Well, I'd point out another problem. The British and the Soviets won, but Britain lost her empire, and the Soviets lost uncounted millions. While the Americans became the world's most powerful country."

"Are you alluding to Spencer?" The Doctor nodded, feeling no need to dissemble. "You are fearful of the Array. But they are still missing several pieces of the puzzle. I have the one they need the most and they can't reach it without dying. And their time is running out."

"I don't understand."

"The TARDIS' fate is sealed. But ours needn't be." The Doctor took a closer look at the enemies besieging the capital. "Those are space whales! But I've seen them before and they were kind."

"Species do change over billions or trillions or whatever years."

The Doctor noticed a shadowy creature flying through the sky. It appeared to have a lion's head but the body of dragon. "That shadow, it's like the Chimera from Greek mythology."

"That reminds me, Doctor," Rassilon said. He spoke into a communications device on his wrist. "Clayton, have you connected the Doctor with the anti-distortion field?" Just then the Chimera flew over the roof, and its shadow passed over Rassilon and the Doctor. Who abruptly vanished. "Apparently she did not."

The Doctor immediately reappeared, and slammed against the wall of some capital alleyway. He was able to stand, only to see the Chimera and two other monstrous, enormous forms towering over him laughing with gleeful malice.

Act Two

The three enemies were literally Brobdingnagian in size, being twelve times taller than the Doctor. The Shadowy Chimera was on the right, a Crocodile-like creature in the center, and a more conventional demon that vaguely resembled the demon Chernabog from Fantasia was on the left. "Why if it isn't the Doctor, the savior of the universe," "Chernabog" sneered. "I've been told that saviors do their best work after they're dead!"

"To whom am I speaking?" asked the Doctor.

"I am… THE GREAT BEAST!" bellowed "Chernabog."

"No, I am the Great Beast!" declared "Crocodile."

"Guys, and I mean that in the most gender-inclusive sense, could we really not do this right now?" Chimera pleaded. "Could we at least wait until Rassilon is actually dead?"

"You dare to challenge my wrath!?" shouted "Chernabog."

"I was the master of the South-East Sixteenth Quadrant!" screeched "Crocodile."

"Never smile at Mr. Crocodile/Never tip your hat to stop to talk awhile," Chimera gently sang to appease the others.

Something caught "Chernabog's" attention. "Now what do we have here?" And he telekinetically yanked something from the Doctor's pocket. "Why if it isn't one of the Doctor's famed technological devices, which has magically saved him and whole planets with the touch of a button! And now I have it!"

"That's his cellphone," "Crocodile" pointed out. "You dumb schmuck."

The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and directed a sonic wave at the three beasts.

"I don't get it," "Crocodile" said. "All you're doing is just making silly little noises. People your size may find this impressive but you just look like a ridiculous toy. It's not a good way to…" But just then "Crocodile" was attacked by a horde of Reapers who swarmed over it.

"Let's just squish the Doctor," said "Chernabog." But as he raised his right knee to do so, a powerful blast struck him down. The Doctor realized it came from the Cathedral and from Rassilon's weapon. He quickly dashed over, and caught his cell phone as "Chernabog's" body crashed on a building. As it happened the phone was ringing.

"Hello?"

"It's Rassilon. Run."

"I am running!"

"Well run faster! I can't stop Chimera right now, we're dealing with a Fendahl infestation. Get back to the Cathedral, I've sent someone to meet you."

BBC One had decided that its morning program would shoot its Tuesday show from Milton Keynes. The female host was introducing her next guest. "We all know that Liverpool has the Beatles, Manchester has Oasis and the Smiths, and Sheffield the Human League and Pulp. And Milton Keynes has Joyale Royale. In her fifteen-year career she's had seven top 40 singles and two top ten ones. And her latest album promises to be her most successful yet. So let's all welcome Ms. Royale."

The studio audience heartily and sincerely applauded the singer, who appeared from stage left. She was attractive, appeared younger than her forty years, and wore a long-sleeved blue dress and high heels. But as she was taking her seat a black-helmeted assassin appeared right behind her. The assassin shot her dead, and then vanished.

Petronella gulped, paced nervously, and almost wished she would have an asthma attack so she could take her mind off the countdown. But she couldn't prevent herself from taking another look: 53:34.

Just then a Reaper landed right by the TARDIS. Realizing that its cameras could see it, it roared at them, terrifying Petronella out of her wits. Even worse, it rushed right to the camera, so it entirely filled the scanner screen. Just then another Reaper deliberately crashed into it and the two started fighting.

Petronella panicked and reached into her purse. She extracted her phone, though she nearly dropped it three times out of sheer nervousness. Almost hyperventilating she managed to call the Doctor.

"Hello?" he replied, still running away from the Chimera, and aiming his sonic screwdriver at it, so far with completely no effect. All around him, desperate Time Lords were fleeing the many monsters.

"It's me, Petronella! I'm in the TARDIS! It's going to be destroyed in less than an hour! Get me out of here!"

"How did you even get here? Don't answer that!" The Doctor quickly called Rassilon. "Rassilon! Petronella's on Gallifrey in the TARDIS!"

"Didn't I tell you that?"

"Get her back to her own time! I'm willing to die to save Gallifrey, but Petronella shouldn't have to."

"I can't do that! It's not possible."

"You sent Clara's body back."

"That process worked because Ms. Oswald was already dead. I imagine Ms. Osgood would prefer to return to 2022 alive."

Petronella piped up, or more accurately peeped up. "Uh, yeah, I really would."

"Then let the TARDIS go back!" the Doctor demanded.

"The TARDIS, in care you've forgotten, is considerably heavier than a human," Rassilon coldly explained. "When it landed, it became part of our energy/security system. I couldn't divert the energy to allow it to leave even if I wanted to, and certainly not while we're under siege. It would be as pointless as having your TARDIS travel the void."

Just then the Chimera swooped down near the Doctor. "I've got it," it declared in triumph. "Oh wait, it's just the silly cell phone." The Chimera crushed it, and tossed the pieces aside. The Doctor quickly rushed into an underground access tunnel. Meanwhile in the TARDIS, Petronella heard a message. "The device you have been calling has been destroyed. The system you have been using no longer works. Goodbye, and have a nice day." Petronella crumped to the TARDIS floor in shock.

Lister was waiting where Phrropox had directed him to, when he got a message. "We're getting a transmission, Lister," said Greenman from the Munster room. "It looks like today is your lucky day." An alarm sounded, and in the "open" section of Spencer and Associates, Raskolnikov, head of "ordinary" security Mandler, and Mandler's subordinates quickly ordered everyone to leave the building.

In front of Lister seven forms began to materialize. They appeared vaguely humanoid in form, but they looked very strange. One was covered in neon lights. Another was awash in banners, and had a decidedly anime look. A third was flickering in and out of space as if it was not quite in phase. Two more looked like very muscular and energetic turtles. Only the sixth, as the shining light that covered its form slowly faded, showed its true origin.

"Cybermen," Greenman noted.

"What are they doing here?" Jack Robertson asked from his bedroom, where Lister's three security men and one extraordinarily ruthless and able security woman surrounded him. "I thought the whole point of the Array was to purge them from existence."

"Not quite. Their recent encounter with the Array meant they could no longer cross the Doctor's timeline," Greenman explained. "But since the Doctor is, most inconsiderately, not here, they can still update and download into forms that evade the Array's sentence."

The seventh form now materialized. With a smile like a soon-to-be well-fed lion, it appeared to be a woman almost, but not quite, like Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box. It was "Myrtle," the former deputy Cyberleader, now in charge of the operation. She strode forward with the "shining" Cyberman by her side to meet Lister.

Lister, in turn, spoke clearly and calmly. "Good morning. You are in the section of Spencer and Associates that is closed to the public. As such, you are trespassing. Please vacate the premises immediately. If you wish to make use of our services, we can be contacted by both telephone and email."

"Myrtle" sneered a smile back. "How sweet." She turned to her servant. "Kill him."

The Cyberman fired a shot, which bounced off Lister's force field and smashed a nearby vase. "How odd," "he" said. "I should have detected that force field. I will recalibrate the weapon and try again."

Lister sneered a smile back. Suddenly one of Spencer's special features, invisible force fields that could be used to attack people, knocked both "Myrtle" and her servant down. "Recalibrate this, you son of a bitch!"

The other Cybermen drew out their weapons. But Lister's four security guards, from the safety of Robertson's bedroom, joined in the melee with their own invisible force field suits. As the brawl continued, Phrropox, Greenman and Turlough watched from the Munster Room.

The Munster Room's walls and carpeting were entirely in Red. The décor of furniture and embroidery would have gained the unequivocal approval of Henry James and Edith Wharton, were it not for the 21st century and beyond technology the three were using.

"Lister's men are acquitting themselves well," Phrropox noted. "But the Cybermen will soon get updates."

"I'm monitoring their subspace and temporal connections," Greenman responded. "What are you doing, Mr. Turlough?"

Turlough was monitoring the entire building. "Gentlemen, Spencer is many things. The most powerful conspiracy the universe will ever see. An unbelievably profitable concern lasting many centuries. But right this minute, it is also a law firm. And the one thing a law firm must do is serve its clients' best interests. As such, I am teleporting all the paper files to another location."

"Why can't you move us as well?" Robertson asked from his bedroom.

"The Cybermen are quite indifferent to the details of our litigation, Mr. Spencer. But they would not hesitate to follow us if we sought to leave. No, we must make our stand here."

Petronella gulped and got off the floor. The countdown read 45:57. "All right, I still have plenty of time. It's not time to give up hope just…"

And then suddenly something knocked Petronella down and rushed past her. She got up again, and looked around to see nobody around her. But the door to the TARDIS was open and Petronella realized that whatever had nearly tramped her had somehow taken her purse. And there it was, lying twenty feet outside.

Suddenly Petronella decided to do something. "I am not going to spend the last hour of my life sobbing and moaning! I am going to get my purse!" And so she quickly dashed out and grabbed it. Unfortunately, a Reaper noticed her and swept down towards her. Had this section of the Gallifreyan capital been a little less cluttered, it would have easily snatched her or killed her. But the slight architectural awkwardness around forced it to land, and Petronella dashed down an alleyway. The Reaper took flight and followed her. Petronella noticed about forty feet down the alleyway a hole in one of the buildings. It was just small enough to leap through, and so Petronella did. The Reaper followed, and found itself stuck.

As it tried to wriggle itself free, a soft voice could be heard. "Who can take a sunrise?" A harpoon of pure adamantium impaled the Reaper. "Sprinkle it with dew?"

Meanwhile, back in the TARDIS, the countdown had reached 44:36, when the console motor started moving up and down. Unseen by anybody, the TARDIS dematerialized.

Also meanwhile the Chimera had overtaken the Doctor and now loomed over him. The Doctor still pointed his sonic screwdriver up at the malevolent creature.

"I'm a bit curious, Doctor," the Chimera said. "Reapers don't notice my particular form, so your screwdriver isn't attracting them to me. What is it supposed to be doing?"

"Ah" the Doctor replied, as the Chimera slowly lowered itself down with an imposing frown. "Well, you see it's part of a two-step process. I do one half of the job of my screwdriver. Partly because it's literally the only thing I can do with my screwdriver against you."

"And what about the other half?" the Chimera queried sternly.

"Well, my only hope is that another person just happens to have the right tool that would do that other half." Just then a powerful force knocked the Chimera back a couple of kilometers, causing it to howl in rage and pain as it did so. The Doctor turned around, expecting to see the someone who Rassilon said was coming to meet him. And indeed that someone was there, dressed in brown and standard military khaki, wearing a green jacket. She was thin, but clearly strong, and carrying a combination of an assault rifle and blaster with the strap over her shoulder, while she held the lasic-sonic screwdriver that had repelled the Chimera in her right hand. She had blonde hair, and was quite pretty, though in appearance she had aged at least a decade from when the Doctor had last seen her on Messaline.

"Jenny!"

"Hiya, Dad!" The Doctor rushed to embrace the woman who was not, strictly speaking, his daughter, but actually a newborn adult raised from a tissue sample taken on Messaline. He rushed to embrace her, but Jenny halted that when she tossed him something the size of a pack of cigarettes.

"What is this?"

"It's a communications device. It allows us to stay in touch."

The Doctor looked at it more closely. "I'm not seeing anything that allows me to contact Petronella."

"No, there wouldn't be. Just us two I'm afraid."

The two did not see something in the shadows whispering. "The Doctor's daughter! This is perfect!"

Just then a flying pyramid roughly the size of Nelson's monument swooped down from the air and fired at them. A rabid space whale crashed into it before it could deal the killing blow, but it did make the Doctor and Jenny run very fast.

"We need to get back to the Cathedral," Jenny implored, as the Doctor desperately looked around as they ran. "What are you so concerned about?"

"All this time, there's clearly been a strong power build-up. And I've been noticing the occasional computer while running for my life. Something's about to happen very, very soon." Then the Doctor noticed some rubble in what had yesterday been a small Gallifreyan garden. "And look at that," as he dashed over to it.

"It's rubble, Dad. In case you haven't noticed, there's a lot lying about."

"Yes, I know, but see these lines? It's as if whatever was here was some sort of chrysalis for something."

"Huh. Well there are more than two dozen entities attacking the capital. But I don't think any of them are insects, or things that need chrysalises, or silicon based life forms."

But before the Doctor could examine things any closer, he noticed something, or more accurately somethings, hovering in the air about thirty feet away and thirty feet in the air. They were three radiant figures, looking human, but dressed in High Renaissance clothes. There was a distinctly unpleasant musical tone as they approached the Doctor and Jenny.

"Jenny, do you know those beings?"

"Not really. We call them the Holbeins, because they vaguely look like his paintings of Tudor figures."

The "Holbeins" had not only noticed the two, but were now scowling at them. "I encountered one of them many years ago," the Doctor explained, as they slowly backed into a nearby two- storey building. "He was called Light, and he was very angry at humans for evolving. Genocidally so, in fact." The three Lights blasted something very powerful at them. The two ran away from the exploding ground. "And they haven't changed! But they're now more powerful!" The two dashed into the building. Rather than following them, the Lights attacked it with their power. As they ran down a corridor in the dark, the Doctor and Jenny were separated, and had to race out apart when the building collapsed.

Somewhat unusually, it was chaos in the Milton Keynes police department. "Four murders in all of last year," yelled a police superintendent. "And now we have six in the last half-hour alone! And they're all caused by figures in black who keep vanishing!"

Sitting at a desk was a policewoman of Hong Kong descent who answered the phone. "Milton Keynes police department. How may I assist you? And given today's circumstances, please don't waste our time with trivial matters."

"This is about those Black Assassins."

"Really?" the policewoman asked very skeptically. "Do you really have anything useful to say?"

"You bet your life I do," said the angry blonde woman in her mid-forties who was running down the sidewalk. "My name is Nova Osgood, and I am the only person who knows exactly why this is happening!"

Meanwhile, or meanwhile separated by all the time remaining for the universe, Petronella had left the building the Reaper had chased her into. She looked around and, not hearing any Reapers, quickly dashed down the street. Then she ran down another street. But she couldn't see the TARDIS. She doubled back the way she came from, and ran down yet another alleyway, while hearing more alarming noises of the chaos over the city. Now a very frightening feeling indeed came to her. She was lost.

"Petronella?" a familiar voice spoke to her.

"Romana!? I'm so glad to hear from you!"

"I'm just about to meet my contact," Romana said. She was in a strange room that seemed to be filled with pre-Bill Gates massive computers. But instead of rolls of tape, there were gray metallic discs. And when one looked at them, they seemed to detach from the wall and flow in columns moving up and down in space.

"Where are you exactly?"

"I'm in a data storage room. Considering that humans have only had writing for five millennia and most only became literate last century, while Time Lords have been had writing for hundreds of millions of years, there's a lot of data. And really cool ways to store it."

"Uh, Romana, I have a really big problem."

"Could it wait? This contact is really vital to whether any of us survive the hour."

"I just stepped out of the TARDIS. Then one of those winged flying reptiles…"

"They're called Reapers."

"Regardless, one of them chased me and by the time I got away from it, I couldn't find the TARDIS."

"Really? According to my readings, all my contacts with the TARDIS are working. It can't have gone far."

Just then a space whale flew over Petronella. A passing swish of its tail hit a building, and a cornice crashed to the ground just three feet away from her. "Romana! It's not very safe outside! I'd like to not be crushed."

"Just follow standard earthquake precautions."

"Romana, I've lived almost all my life in Milton Keynes, London and two university towns. Not a lot of earthquakes there!"

"Well, you know the safest place in an earthquake is in a door frame? And Gallifreyan buildings have special little alcoves. Every fourth building should have them on one of the corners."

Petronella looked around. "I see one."

Just behind Romana in the strange data room a panel silently opened above her head. "Go over there and hang tight. I know this is stressful. But everything is going according to…" Two small phasers appeared. Each shot a laser blast at Romana, once into each of her two hearts. Romana gasped and staggered. Then another shot administered the coup de grace, and Romana's corpse fell on the floor.