20
There was something vaguely familiar about this, Rose thought to herself, as they trudged once again toward Balamory town. Except this time she wasn't expecting to find something exotic and rare, like say a sleepy Scottish town. This time she knew she was in for a run-of-the-mill town under alien mind control.
Was he an oddness magnet? She glanced across at him as he adjusted controls on his sonic screwdriver, his face a mask of concentration, but those eyes as calm as ever. There he was. Her…what? Her best friend? Her thousand-year-old-plus, enigmatic time-travelling extra-terrestrial best friend.
What did she know about him?
Did it matter?
He had come along, saved her life, plucked her from council estates and deposited her on alien shores bare moments later (or so it seemed). He had taken her from her family, her boyfriend, her whole world. All she knew about him, all she knew for sure, was that he radiated goodness in a way totally unlike anyone else she'd ever met. An alien with more humanity than any human. And that went a long way toward overlooking the mysteries and the questions avoided.
"Do I have something on my hair?" the Doctor asked easily, without looking up from his machinations with the screwdriver.
She snapped out of it. "Just wondering what you were doing."
"Recalibrating."
"Can you get Radio 1 on it?"
He sighed. "I can open security doors. Defraud ATMs. Detect emissions in any spectrum you'd care to name. Create force-fields. Given the proper conditions, I can affect the fabric of space and time itself."
"But can you-"
"No!" he muttered, annoyed at the admission. "It only gets AM," he muttered.
"FM model was extra?" she continued, knowing full well she was teasing him mercilessly. If there was one thing the Doctor was fiercely protective, it was his technology. If she ever wanted them to break up, she'd probably just have to look at the TARDIS and say did I just use the term 'break up'? Oh my God-
"Ah! Our chariot awaits!" the Doctor grinned. "Look!"
She looked, grateful for the distraction. Sure enough, winding its way toward them down the final hill before Balamory bay, was a bright yellow bus that was becoming a very familiar sight.
"Over here!" the Doctor waved. "Come get us!"
21
Spencer huffed and puffed as best he could, but it was no use – his big tricycle, complete with side-baskets for his art materials and his instruments, was just too heavy for him to keep up with the Daisy Bus. He watched it crest the hill ahead of him.
"Wait up guys!" he called, pumping the pedals faster. Boy, was this going to be good! He sure hoped he'd be the one to tag them first!
From over the hill came the sound of assault rifles firing. "Awww!" Spencer said aloud, disappointed. He got to the top of the hill and saw everyone else spilling out of the Daisy Bus in all directions. He heard the faint voice of Penny directing everyone to split up. Of the Doctor and Rose, nothing was to be found. They must be hiding still! Spencer smiled. Penny thought up the best games!
His trike accelerated down the hill. He cupped his hand to his mouth as he called "Wait up, gu-"
That's when he was tackled from the side.
"Get him!" the Doctor cried, holding his legs as they came to rest in a jumble of limbs.
"Hey, you guys! That was kinda rough!" Spencer said, rubbing his head. He felt behind his back for the AK-47 slung there. They must have been hiding in the hedge running alongside the road!
"Hey, good trick!" he said admiringly. "Boy, this is gonna be – "
"Oh shut up," Rose said, and punched him in the head. Hard.
Spencer did just that. His head lolled to the side. Rose rubbed her hand, muttering little ow noises to herself. The Doctor scrambled to his feet and grabbed her by the arm, propelling her unceremoniously to the tricycle as, with two expertly placed and powerful kicks, he dispensed with the side-baskets, leaving just the trike itself.
Below them, there was an upper-class twang to the "There they are! Jolly good!" shout that went up. Seconds later, bullets began peppering the roadside where they stood.
"Get on!" the Doctor hollered, jumping onto the trike. Rose didn't have to be told twice – hell, she'd been halfway there before being told once – and within seconds, they were racing away, the Doctor's legs pumping powerfully. They crested the hill and were flying down the other side in seconds.
Behind them, she heard the unmistakable putter-putter-voom of the Daisy bus' engines starting up.
"They're trying to shoot us!"
"Yes, I did notice!" the Doctor shouted back. They were eating up ground at an incredible rate. Whether they were eating it up faster than a bus could drive, though...
"Why are they trying to shoot us?!"
"It's not them! They don't know what they're doing!"
"Well, that is such a comfort, innit!"
They were almost at Balamory town proper now. Rose risked a glance behind them.
"Doctor...!!!"
The Daisy Bus had crested the hill and was closing the gap between them with sickening speed. Rose couldn't take her eyes off it. It was the most unlikely harbinger of doom imaginable.
Her eyes bulged in disbelief.
"Doctor..."
His legs were a blur. They were almost in the town. "A little...busy..." he answered, between breaths.
"Doctor..." she said again, and something in her tone made the Doctor's head turn almost of its own volition. He took in the scene.
"Oh," he said, and impossible though it seemed, increased his pedalling speed yet further.
"Steady as she goes!" Archie bellowed, leaning out of the side window and trying desperately to keep the rocket launcher on an even keel.
"What are you waiting for Archie!" Edie cried, exasperated, flooring the accelerator. "They're right in front of us!"
"Trying my best, Edie!" Archie replied, getting a good lock on the cycling pair now no more than fifty yards ahead.
"This is the best game of tag ever, PC Plum!" Miss Hoolie stated, positively glowing with excitement.
Archie launched the missile.
The Doctor threw the trike into a sideways skid, and the missile impacted a red building dead-centre instead. There was a very brief pause, like the cosmos taking a breath, and then –
Boom.
The explosion fanned outwards, the windows of the shop / cafe disintegrating from within. Glass spewed out, covering Balamory Main Street. The roof of the building simply lifted off from below, flames fountaining from every opening.
"My shop!" Penny Pocket wailed.
"My cafe!" Suzy cried.
"Oh well never mind," Edie said cheerily.
"Yes, chin up," Archie said, now back within the bus again. PC Plum was helping him to reload the rocket launcher. "I'll soon invent a new and even better shop and cafe from – "
"Yoghurt pots!" everyone chorused. Archie blushed red.
The bus had come to a halt as the explosion burst out into the street in front of it, lest it be swallowed up whole by the fireball. Now, the flames dying down, Edie carefully circumnavigated the outskirts of the explosion.
"Och, would you believe it," she said, "they've hidden again!"
Indeed, the Doctor and Rose and Spencer's tricycle were nowhere to be seen ahead of them. The Daisy Bus crept forward and everyone looked intently out of their nearest window, scanning Main Street for any sign of the two 'it' players.
"We'll never find them now!" Josie Jump said.
"We need someone who's good at solving mysteries," Miss Hoolie said, confiding this to an empty space beside her on her seat. "Who in Balamory is good at that...?"
22
"Stay down," the Doctor hissed.
Rose kept her body pressed hard to the ground. There was a small garden just up the Main Street a little with a wooden fence. They had been thrown off the trike by the explosion behind them, and one of its wheels had buckled on impact. Barely had they had time to leap behind this fence when the Daisy Bus was seen to creep forward through the cloud.
"PC Plum!" came the cry from within that yellow killing machine.
"They'll come looking for us," Rose whispered. "They've got guns. They've got rocket launchers! How the hell did they get – ?"
"They think they're playing a game," the Doctor replied, desperately. "He has complete power to rewrite how they think. They'll shoot us on sight."
"Right, so which part of that was meant to be comforting?" she returned hotly.
"The part where I lead up to my plan," he said.
"Which is?"
He licked his lips and glanced over at her. "Stay alive until the episode ends?"
"Great plan. I like it. Little vague, but whatever."
"Only one problem."
She closed her eyes and bit her top lip. "Which would be...?"
"Well, from what we've seen, mind-control 'episodes' don't end until the game is played or the problem is resolved. And in this case, shooting us dead would seem to be the game. So you might conclude that this will only end – "
"When we're dead," Rose completed. She was definitely beginning to develop a headache.
"Yeah."
They stopped talking. PC Plum, Miss Hoolie, Penny and Suzy had all disembarked from the Daisy Bus. All were armed with semi-automatic rifles which, in Rose's admittedly gleaned-from-watching-action-movies view, each seemed to be wielding with a distinctly unfair level of expertise.
"Right," PC Plum said. "Miss Hoolie and I will look – ahhh...that way," and he pointed further down Main Street, "and you two go that way," and he indicated back the way they'd came, toward the smoking ruin of the two women's former home.
"Right you are PC Plum!" Suzy saluted smartly with her rifle, bonking herself on the head. Penny shook her head in a long-suffering way.
Rose allowed herself to breathe a little. Both sets were moving away from she and the Doctor's hiding position. Even better, the Daisy Bus was puttering up the hill.
"Shouldn't we search the gardens?" Penny asked suddenly. Rose stiffened in alarm. The four of them were less than ten feet away. It would be all over in seconds.
"Penny..." PC Plum laughed in quite a condescending way. "I don't really think they would have stayed so close. They're probably looking for a really good hiding place somewhere else!"
Penny hesitated. From a tiny crack in the fence, not daring to move, Rose saw her suspicious look directly at their sanctuary and thought I know you. You're the bossy girl in the playground who has to organise every game, referee every sports event, be question-master of every quiz. And right now it kills you that you're being led around by an imbecile…
"Penny!" chimed PC Plum, right on cue, "we're not going to win this game with you sitting around now, are we!"
"Ooh PC Plum," Miss Hoolie giggled, "I'm glad you're on my side!"
They went their separate ways. Rose and the Doctor waited until they were out of sight. The Doctor made as if to move beside her, and only Rose's quick arm tug pulled him back down again.
"They're gone," he said.
"Are they?" she replied. "Look over there."
He looked to the right, and saw what she had seen. Behind a little clump of trees about thirty feet, there was a faint hint of sky blue, and the tiniest bit of a wheel protruding.
"Well," the Doctor inhaled sharply, seeming to be on the verge of losing his patience, "we'll just see about that now, won't we…" and he pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, pressed and twisted…and aimed.
Nothing happened.
"Invisible ray?" Rose said hopefully.
"Non-existent ray," the Doctor said, puzzled. He fiddled with the controls a little more. The screwdriver began to glow. A low rumble started to build to a high-pitched whine.
"Turn it off! Turn it off!"
"I'm trying!" the Doctor replied. He twisted the panel around atop the device and the sound faded away. Rose risked a furtive look at the trees. The blue was still there.
Neither wondered where Suzy was. This was a mistake.
"What's wrong with it?"
Something was definitely troubling the Doctor now. She'd rarely seen him so worried, in fact. He looked at her with genuine fear in his eyes, one of the few times she'd seen him do that. "Nothing," he said, "nothing is wrong with it. I can't…I can't remember how to operate it."
Rose felt a chill go through her. "What?"
He fixed her with a stare. "What are nine eights?" he asked.
"What are nine…what are you talking about?"
"Just answer me!"
"Oh alright," she snapped back. Mental arithmetic had never exactly been her strong point, but if she was given a few seconds to think about it (and preferably, a calculator) she could do it. She concentrated. Okay…nine times tables…
Nothing. Nothing.
No…wait-
"Seventy….two?" she said, uttering each word as if it were a tremendous mental strain. Which, impossibly, it was. She could almost feel her brain hurting as it did the math…
He nodded, as if his worst suspicions had been confirmed. "We're falling under the Balamory effect, just like the townspeople. It's leeching off our higher brain functions."
"That's why you can't work the screwdriver?"
He nodded. "I'm having trouble with my tables. 943 x 174!" he snorted in disgust at himself, "It took me three seconds to get to 164,082!"
Rose blinked. "Yeah…let's get you measured for that big pointed Dunce cap now, eh?"
"You don't understand," he said, "if we don't reverse this effect – even if we do find the TARDIS, I won't be able to pilot it. Not like this. We'll be stuck here. Forever."
"Surprise!!!" Suzy Sweet cried out suddenly, popping up from behind the fence. "You're it!"
Before they could move, she took aim and pulled the trigger.
23
I watch as the old one pulls the trigger. Typically for her, she has forgotten to remove the safety on the rifle. The Doctor is able to leap over the fence and remove the rifle before she can correct the error. His companion tells him in no uncertain terms that she's not going to punch an old lady in the face. The Doctor, however, is clever. He tells the old one that as part of the game, she has tagged him through their touch and she is now 'It' and must hide. She scampers off merrily to do so. Old fool.
No doubt when my strength wanes and she regains her 'real' self – such as it is – she will wail endlessly on the loss of 'her Jim' until my strength returns and I replace her personality with a more agreeable sort. Is it my fault that 'her Jim', the old moonshine-brewing pipe-smoking rabbit-shooting ingrate, could not be a suitable citizen of my world? How could a child have been around this man? Perhaps if she fails me again, I will reunite her with her lost love.
Now armed, the Doctor and his – companion? mate? servant? – move from cover, giving Penny a bead on their position. She fires on them with astonishing accuracy, coming within a whisker of removing the top of the Doctor's skull. Penny, reliable as ever. If only more of my citizens were like her. But the Doctor is not to be denied. He lays down covering fire – accurate enough to suggest that, were he of a mind to do so, he could have quite easily hit Penny – and buys enough time for he and his…other…to make an escape.
It will be but a temporary reprieve for them. They are succumbing ever quicker to my control, and I have his ship…
His TARDIS…
It sits placidly to my right. I do something I have not done in some years. I move. I move at first with great difficulty, then with only a little less difficulty. Moving is not my strong point now.
The door will not open. I know that. Only with his key can I hope to open it. And once inside…an entire universe, an entire timeline, at my disposal.
Play time will begin.
24
He was losing. The Doctor had faced dangers before, but never had he felt so helpless. He had always been able to call on his mind, his experiences, his uncanny ability to survive to pull him out of trouble. But here, that was failing him. He was losing himself, piece by piece, minute by minute, and unless something could be done quickly he would join the citizens of Balamory in properly existing for only bare moments out of each day.
Of course, at least he had hundreds of years of adulthood to be chipped away. The process was bound to take quite a while longer than normal. As for others…
"But I want it!" Rose pouted.
"No," he repeated wearily.
Rose was getting more and more…devolved? No…unsophisticated? No…stroppy? Yes. There was only one word for it, and that was it. She was becoming a right stroppy cow, a fact she ably demonstrated now as she folded her arms and scowled at him.
"You think I'm a kid," she said.
The Doctor chose diplomacy. "Have you ever handled a semi-automatic rifle before?"
"No. But I could. I'd be brilliant."
"No doubt about it. Tell you what – the next one we find, it's yours."
"Yeah right," she drawled sarcastically, inspecting her nails. Boredom descended upon her in a microsecond. It was astonishing to watch. "Where are we going again?"
The Doctor pulled her aside, behind cover. Further up the hill, a bright yellow jumpsuit flashed into view between the rows of begonias like a lioness in the long grass. "Ssh," he admonished her.
"Don't you ssh me!"
"Oh for…we're being hunted by people with big guns, if it had slipped your mind, so I'd appreciate it if you muttered your sulks under your breath, like any good teenager should. We're going to the nursery," and under his breath, "appropriately enough..."
"What for?"
As they inched closer to that very destination, during two distinct sets of explanations to Rose, the Doctor slipped from his 600 times tables to his 500. He was no longer confident he could field-strip a proton inhibitor and rearrange it to be a passable instant coffee maker (something that had proven useful during many a war shortage).
One thing he did know for certain. They had to end this episode, get everyone's faculties back. And there was only one place each episode ended.
The only trick would be ending it without getting extremely dead in the process...
25
"Gotcha!" PC Plum cried, jumping around the corner of old Mr McTavish's house, spraying bullets.
Safely still behind the corner, Miss Hoolie stood there timidly. "Any luck PC Plum?" she called.
His head poked sheepishly around the corner. "Not as such," he replied. "But I did tag the flowers!"
"I don't think they were playing the game, PC Plum," Miss Hoolie reminded him.
He deflated a little more, if that were possible. "No," he admitted.
"Any luck Plummy?" Edie called. She was prowling the opposite side of the street, flattening herself up against the walls of houses merrily before creeping along. She had originally been doing this with Archie, but after several frustrating attempts to explain the subtleties of hand signals to Archie, she had 'suggested' they split up. Archie had gone off in the direction of the nursery, to her relief.
"Not yet. I'm beginning to think we'll never find them," PC Plum replied.
"Oh chin up, Plummy, there's a good fellow!" Edie replied heartily.
Miss Hoolie offered him a supportive smile as well. At least, she meant to. Something caught her nose – a smell, and not a pleasant one either. She wrinkled her nose and pinched it between her fingers. "Phew, PC Plum! Something stinks in Mr McTavish's!"
PC Plum sniffed the air experimentally before wafting the air away from him as best he could, coughing. "My goodness! You're quite right, Miss Hoolie!" he agreed.
"Do you think he's gone on holiday and left the milk out on the table again?" Miss Hoolie suggested.
"Could have – you know him!" PC Plum laughed. He became serious in an instant. "Hmm – I should probably go in and investigate. If there is a cause of the bad smell-"
There was.
It was Mr McTavish's body in the bath, pale and dead, bloated and floating.
PC Plum and Miss Hoolie stood at the bathroom door, looking down at the scene. There was a tension in the air, as if something invisible were being put under tremendous strain. Sweat beaded out on the foreheads of both. Miss Hoolie's free hand shook. Almost unconsciously, it found its way into PC Plum's grip.
He squeezed. The guns they were holding clattered to the tiles below.
Downstairs they walked, with not a word passed between them. Miss Hoolie picked up the piece of card from the kitchen table with the horse and SRRY written over it.
Her vision blurred.
They walked out of the house.
"There you are!" Edie called. She pointed to the skies above. "Have you seen the weather?"
They looked. It had been another perfect sunny day not ten minutes ago. Now, dark clouds were gathering apace above the town. Out to sea, there was a flash, followed by a rumble of thunder.
He was losing them, and he knew it.
"I need to get…" Miss Hoolie said, each word a Herculean effort, "…to the nursery."
"Where's your tag stick?" Edie asked, approaching him curiously. Something was amiss, she could tell. Miss Hoolie dabbed at her eyes furtively, as if afraid anyone would see. "Plummy, you're missing yours too. Do you want us to lose this game?"
PC Plum fixed her with a stare that didn't belong. His eyes were bloodshot, his voice hoarse.
"Game's over," he said.
26
Spencer was bored. He'd wanted to stake out the beach, or maybe the ice-cream shop (in reality it was a cake shop, but when he went in good old Mrs Canvey always got him an ice-cream from the freezer), but no – they'd stuck him in the nursery.
Not that the nursery wasn't fun. He had played games with the children, of course. They seemed a little off today, a little quiet. Spencer attributed this to Miss Hoolie being elsewhere – only natural. After all, normally the children were fantastic fun, weren't they?
He shook his head. Something had seemed to tickle his brain there for a second. Spencer chuckled wryly to himself – maybe he was getting thirsty for a cup of tea!
He set down the tag stick on the play area and wandered off to the kitchen to get the kettle. A nice cup of tea would get him thinking straight, that was for sure!
He'd barely left the entrance area when a figure appeared through the glass. It mouthed something to its companion, who achieved new heights of eye-rolling in response.
Spencer flicked the kettle to boil and checked the tea caddy. No tea bags...ah! They'd be in Miss Hoolie's cupboard! He strode there now, walking across the entrance area just as the two figures outside were engaged in a intense debate with each other. Neither party saw the other.
The Doctor pushed open the nursery door as silently as he could. None of the children looked up.
"Coming?" he whispered pointedly.
"Wouldn't miss it," Rose intoned, slinking in.
"Sit there and...stay out of trouble," the Doctor said, giving her a warning look. He looked at where the children were playing, inhaled apprehensively (completely missing the gesture Rose aimed at him) and moved over to them.
Rose flopped down on one of the play tables, sighing massively. Her eyes darted...and alighted.
Right next to her was one of the rifles.
"All right..." she said, delighted, scooping it up.
The Doctor heard this, turned. Saw. "Where did you-" he began.
The kettle began to whistle as it boiled.
A cupboard door slammed shut.
Spencer stepped from the cupboard alcove, to face the Doctor and Rose. He had a box of tea bags in his hands. There was a moment of shock as both parties reacted to the appearance of the other. Rose swung the rifle up to cover him, took a step back. She'd been shot at. She didn't like being shot at. She didn't plan to have it happen to her again.
The Doctor's eyes widened.
"Rose," he said carefully, "give me the gun."
"Rose! Doc!" Spencer said ruefully. "You two are so sneaky! Guess you got the drop on me, huh!"
Rose's nostrils flared dangerously. She stopped retreating and began to advance, the gun barrel never wavering from being pointed directly at Spencer's chest.
"You shot at us!" she said softly. "You're all crazy. I could have been killed!"
Spencer's mouth opened and closed. The Doctor could see Rose's words bouncing off the strange thrall he – and increasingly, the Doctor and Rose – were under. They didn't compute, and so somehow they were rewired, reworded, into words that did. By the time they reached Spencer's brain, they were vastly changed.
"Aw, you guys don't have to rub it in!" he said. "So I didn't get to tag you. I'll do better next time, you just wait and see!"
"Spencer, this might be a good time to stop talking," the Doctor said, increasingly concerned.
"Next time?" Rose said, her voice shrill. She was building to a crescendo-
"Rose," he said desperately, "you've got to listen to me. We're both falling under the mind control effect. It's making you behave like a child."
"Oh no it isn't," Rose retorted.
"Oh yes it is!" Spencer responded automatically, and chuckled.
Rose blinked. The Doctor saw his chance.
"Rose Tyler," he pressed again softly, "you're not a child. You left your home, everything you knew, your entire world, and you agreed to come away with me and face dangers and worlds like few humans have ever known. And you did it blind, yes, but when you saw everything the universe had to throw at you – you didn't run back to Mum. You didn't wimp out. You chose to stay. You're one of the bravest people I've ever known," he spread his arms wide and laughed, "Rose Tyler, who had the power of Time itself coursing through her veins! Are you really going to let yourself shoot this man because you're feeling stroppy?"
The fog behind Rose's eyes seemed to clear. The rifle stopped pointing at Spencer's chest. She looked over at him, grinning with gratitude and pride at his words. "Not likely," she said, and he could have hugged her.
Did hug her.
Saved her life.
"Got you!" Archie called merrily, unseen and unheard entering the nursery front door.
He fired. It was a short burst, but it was accurate. Three bullets tore through the Doctor. Rose saw his face register its surprise before his body became a deadweight against hers.
"NO!" she screamed.
"NO!" Miss Hoolie echoed from the door. She flew at an astonished Archie, knocking him to the ground before he could fire again.
Rose could only let the Doctor's body concertina slowly to the nursery floor as chaos unfolded around her. Blood was beginning to seep through his shirt and jacket. She put her ear to his chest – heartbeats. Strong, if incredibly fast. He was alive.
Archie was trying manfully to reach his gun. He was laughing, clearly imagining Miss Hoolie to have instigated some side-game of wrestling. He had called to Spencer for assistance and Spencer had responded with (a little too much) gusto, preparing to throw himself at Miss Hoolie-
-and had instead been rugby-tackled mid-leap by a PC Plum howling like a warrior chieftain.
"Leave her alone!" PC Plum roared.
"Doctor? Doctor...Doctor?" Rose kept repeating his name. Alive he might be, but he was unconscious. Her hands were now covered in blood. She felt dizzy. She had just gotten used to him this way. Was he about to change form again? What would he become this time? Blonde? Six foot? Ginger?
A woman...?
She shook her head free of such crazy thoughts. "Doctor!" she tried again.
"Whoa, Plum! Take it easy!" Spencer grunted, using his surprising physical strength to wriggle free of Plum's grasp. "We're all on the same team here!"
"Are we hell, perv," Plum growled, and thumped him in the face. He went down like a stone. Plum shoved him aside and advanced on Archie.
"Er...steady on, old chap," Archie said, a look of concern manifesting in his face as something about Plum's expression managed to pervade the mind control. He released Miss Hoolie from his grip and then made a pretty good show of pretending he'd never had her there in the first place.
"Look," Miss Hoolie pointed outside the nursery. The remainder of the Balamory contingent – Josie, Edie, Penny and Suzy – were advancing quickly on the nursery entrance.
"Finish it Kerrie," Plum instructed her, "finish it quick."
Miss Hoolie dashed to the special chair.
"Help him!" Rose cried desperately. "Somebody help us!"
"We are helping," Plum replied coarsely, "c'mon pinkie, let's go meet and greet."
He grabbed a flabbergasted Archie by the scruff of the neck and thrust them both outside to face the crowd just about to break upon the nursery.
"Well," Miss Hoolie began to intone in a sing-song voice, sweat dripping from her forehead, "what was the story in Balamory today? Well…!"
Rose wept.
"Hello everyone," PC Plum said, releasing Archie. Strong winds swept around the nursery driveway, bringing it with the first rains of the approaching storm and forcing Archie into some emergency hand manoeuvres with his kilt.
"Plummy," Edie returned his greeting with a curt nod. "We heard-"
"Yes," he interrupted her, "it's over. Archie found them and tagged them. So...big well done to Archie, and I daresay that's the end of the game."
"Ooh, well done Archie!" Suzy bubbled.
"…it all began when everyone came to the nursery and Archie told me he and Penny had had the most wonderful idea for a big game of tag!" Miss Hoolie continued, not taking a breath to pause, her face going red, her voice dropping an octave and rasping with hoarseness.
"Oh, well..." Archie blushed. "You know, trying my best and all that. But I say Plummers, I wasn't sure I got bot-owwww!" and the sentence dissolved into pain as he began to hop madly.
"So sorry Archie, did I step on your foot?" PC Plum inquired. Rain had begun to lash down from the black clouds above, which seemed to hover about twenty feet above their heads.
"Something's not right about this," Penny remarked, fixing Plum with a disconcertingly piercing stare. "Are ya absolutely sure the game is over, PC Plum?"
Quite by accident it seemed, her gun had raised to point at him. Plum looked at her and realised something that froze the pit of his stomach. She was free of the control, just as he was.
She had been free for ages...
"We had a great time searching all over the island for the Doctor and Rose – but it was Archie who eventually tracked them down to right here at the nursery! Afterward everyone agreed that it was the best game of tag ever!" Miss Hoolie croaked.
"This has been the best game of tag ever!" chorused everyone outside.
"...and it's not over yet," Penny alone continued, her eyes still calmly fixed on PC Plum. "Cos I think we really have to choose someone else to be it now, don't we?"
"And that was the story in Balamory-"
"How about you, PC Plum?"
Plum swung his rifle up in response. "How about both of us?" he replied evenly.
"-I'll see you next time. Goodbye!"
Lightning struck.
Penny and PC Plum fired at the same time.
Miss Hoolie vanished.
So did the guns, and the bullets with them. Plum had the awful, fleeting impression of a bullet losing all sense of solidity at the exact microsecond it was due to pass right through his head.
Six people, four newly restored, stood in a circle in the pouring rain.
"Oh my God," Archie said, as memories came flooding back of 'tag sticks'. "What have I-" and he turned and ran back into the nursery, leaving five in the rain.
Without a word, four of those five converged on the fifth.
"I think it's time we had a word, Penny," PC Plum said.
27
I must rest. Extending myself over the island as I do is not easy. The people here will have twenty of their minutes in which to act like the animals they are before I have the strength to return.
In that time, I am vulnerable.
But he is wounded. And they are at each other's throats. They will never be able to reach me in time. And when my control returns, I will have them bring me the key, and I will have access to the unlimited power a TARDIS offers.
There will be no need to hide anymore. I will emerge. Balamory will emerge, and act as a blueprint for this entire world.
Oh, we will have such adventures.
28
"Which one of you hit me?" Spencer moaned, rising to his feet. He registered the sight of Archie and Rose crouched over the Doctor's prone body. "Whoa…never mind," he added hurriedly, and wandered over to Miss Hoolie's cupboard. He returned a few seconds later with a bottle of whiskey. It was amazing what that cupboard contained if you knew where to look.
"Two hearts?"
"Don't ask," Rose told Archie. "Just help me get him to a doctor."
"Here?" Archie raised his eyebrows. "Out of luck there I'm afraid."
Spencer tossed them a package he'd retrieved with his non-whiskey-grabbin' hand. It was the First Aid kit, emblazoned with a big red cross lest anyone miss it. "Here," he grunted, taking a huge swig from the bottle. He had twenty minutes to get rat-assed and it would be his wussy alter-ego which would get the roaring hangover. Which coloured house will I be throwing up in? Tell me, what do you think?
Archie began to unroll bandages. Together he and Rose managed to stop the bleeding. "The bullets have gone," Archie observed. "Vanished like the others. That's something, at least."
He was looking at her with lost eyes. Her initial reaction – to tell him where to stick his that's something – died in her throat, the Doctor's little speech about Rose Tyler, young woman beyond her years echoing in her mind still.
She placed her hand on his arm, gently. "It wasn't you," she said.
He looked away, unable to meet her gaze. His eyes flicked to the nursery clock. "Eighteen minutes left," he said, urgently. "You have to get as far away from the rest of us as possible."
"Hey!" Spencer spluttered, a quarter of a bottle down and showing no signs of slowing down. "That's my job! I'm countdown guy!"
Ignoring him, Rose shook her head at Archie. "It's affecting us too now. Next time it begins, we'll be as caught up in it as the rest of you. We'll probably decide to play catch off a cliff somewhere."
"Then what do we do?"
"We finish it," Plum interrupted. Framed in the doorway, his jaw set and his eyes gleaming with purpose, Rose found it hard to reconcile him with the bumbling chinstrap-sporting PC who had greeted them to the town. "We finish it, right now."
29
"Godspeed," Suzy whispered, as she watched the Daisy Bus drive away. As it vanished down the hill, her attention shifted from it to the person sitting next to her in the nursery. Suzy trembled with anger as she did so.
"What are you looking at?" Penny demanded.
"I haven't a clue anymore," Suzy replied, but she had to ask. She simply had to. "Why? Why the hell would you help this…this thing? After what it's done to us?"
Penny's defiant expression evaporated somewhat. "You want to know?" she replied bitterly. "Who was I, Suzy? Before this?"
"You were the Sweeney's wee daughter. You used to come into the shop with your Mam after they moved here. We all clubbed together and had that fun run in '97 to get you the fancy new wheelchair!" Suzy replied indignantly. Her legs had ached for three days after that run.
"What was my name?"
"Your name? Well it was…och, I do know, I remember it was up on that big banner above the start and finish line! Let's see now…"
"Was I there, that day?"
"Yes of cou-"
"No I wasn't!" Penny fired back, incandescent with rage. "I was at home because I was in too much pain to be there! And not a single one of you noticed, or if you did you were so pleased with yourselves for being such charitable souls you didn't care!"
Tears were running down her face now. "I was the poor Sweeney lass who people held open doors for and clucked sympathetically when I went past and raised money for. I was a rallying point for the community. I made people feel good for running for charity for me. But you know what? I didn't want any of that. I wanted people to be friends with me cos they'd met me and they liked me, not cos I looked so brave in my chair."
She trailed off. Suzy couldn't find words to reply.
"And when he – it – took control, it all changed. I was Penny Pocket. I was in charge of your shop. I had a job and you worked for me and everyone knew who met us that I was the brains of the operation, because you were just a silly old biddy and I was always having to fix your mess ups. Penny Pocket was gonna organise ya! Supervise ya! Super surprise ya!" she smiled weakly. "Yeah, it might have been for stupid, simple problems that a moron could have solved in five seconds…but I didn't care. People needed me."
"And you think if everything goes back to normal, that will change?"
"Won't it?" Penny asked despondently, her head hung.
"I don't know," Suzy replied truthfully. She looked out over Balamory bay, and saw the yellow flash of the Daisy Bus vanish at top speed into the surrounding countryside. "I don't know if we'll ever get the chance to find out."