CHAPTER 3: Time and Tide
"I think I misjudged knock-knock jokes," said the Doctor. "Compared to you, they're a riot."
"I've never been more serious," said the Shadow Architect. "To relieve the universe of its extraneous stress, we need to remove the anomaly - that is, two humans who should not exist. Now enough delay. It's time for what needs to be done." She looked at Amy. "Come."
Amy backed away into the cell. "No, you stay away from me."
"Come with us or we'll move you by force."
The Doctor stepped forward. "This is... this is a lot for us to process. I'm sure you can understand that. And I don't agree with your methods. I find them extremely humourless and excessive. But I respect that the greater good makes them necessary."
Amy looked at the Doctor, aghast. "What are you doing?"
"Give me five minutes with the humans," said the Doctor. "Enough time to say goodbye. After that, you may do with them as you wish."
Rory lunged at the Doctor. "You snake!"
He tried to land a punch, but the Doctor grabbed his wrist and deflected the blow. The Shadow Architect spoke sharply. "Enough!"
Both stopped in their tracks.
"I don't understand your sentimentality for such a volatile species, Doctor, but I'll grant your request. Five minutes. After it's done, we'll deal with you next."
The Shadow Architect turned and walked into the shadows. The sound of her heels clacking on the concrete faded into the darkness. The Doctor waited until they were totally gone and, satisfied that they were alone, he let go of Rory's wrist and turned to the group.
"We're getting out of here. All of us."
He spoke with urgency. A noticeable sparkle danced in his eyes. He was alert - more alert than ever. "Her Majesty is right. There's a problem with the universe. But she's got the fundamentals totally wrong — it's much worse than she realises." He darted around the cell as he tried to distill the torrent of information racing through his head into a serviceable explanation. "Things happening when they shouldn't. Things living when they shouldn't. The temporal fabric of time and space has ruptured. Stuff is bleeding into our universe from... oh, look, let me show you."
The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket and produced a black marker. He darted to the back cell wall and drew three simple circles, side by side, onto the grey concrete surface.
"Um," said Miranda. "Graffiti adds an extra five years to your-your sentence."
The Doctor pointed to the middle circle. "This is us," he said. "This is our universe. These two beside us, they're parallel universes. And between them is nothing. There's no contact. Just three lovely self-contained universes."
He drew again, three more circles. This time he drew them with a clear overlap, where the edge of one circle was drawn over its neighbour.
"This is what's happening now. This middle circle is still us, but look here. The edges are overlapping. They're bleeding into each other. Stuff from one universe is filtering into the next. Go back to those giant scales - that extra stuff is causing the weight of each universe to increase."
"What extra stuff?" said Rory.
"Anything. Anything and everything that's sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. It can be physical, like you and Amy. You're existing in an overlap with our universe that says humanity is alive and another that says humanity is dead. That's added pressure onto the fabric of space and time. And up here..." The Doctor tapped his head. "I'm overlapping between two sets of conflicting knowledge. The laws from one universe are battling with the laws of another. And Miranda — I'm sorry, but I knew there was something amiss with you, too."
Miranda looked confused. "Me?"
"You. Wonderful, perfect, complicated you. You're from the Shadow Proclamation alright, but not from the one in my universe. The Shadow Proclamation I know simply doesn't have the capacity to create something as amazing and advanced as a self-contained biodroid."
"How did you..."
"You're here because you've bled in from another Shadow Proclamation. Another universe. Same goes for that stupid space train. And — oh my goodness — Space Florida." The Doctor slapped his forehead with the heel of his palm. "Why didn't I notice before? Stupid Doctor, in front of you the whole time. They're not part of our universe. We're not part of theirs. All this, all of everything, from universe to universe, every single out of place thing has been bleeding together since the beginning of time."
"But how?" said Amy. Her voice quivered. "Because of me? Because of us?"
"Oh Amy," said the Doctor. "No. Not you. Her Majesty Architect was right about the problem, but not about the origin. You're a symptom, not the cause. Believe me when I say this has got less than nothing to do with you." He looked at Rory. "Both of you."
"Then what? Stuff's bleeding into our universe, but bleeding in from where?"
The Doctor inhaled, long and deep. He went to the heavy stone bench and, with great effort, moved it away from the wall and into the middle of the cell. In position, he stood on it and reached upwards so his black marker touched the ceiling. He began to draw along the faint concrete crease — the crease that had occupied his attention earlier — and as he did so, its formation was instantly recognisable. That distinct line. That distinct shape. It could only be one thing.
The crack.
The crack in the universe.
Amy look up in fear. "No," she said.
"Some erased their contents from time," said the Doctor, stepping down from the bench. "Some lead to other worlds. And evidentially, throughout all history, some opened leaks into adjoining universes."
She shook her head. "But those things are gone. You rebooted the universe. They never happened."
"Repairing a hole in a ship that's already taken on water is useless," said the Doctor. "That ship's still going to sink. And our universe has taken on a whole bunch of water. You, me, Rory. We're time travellers. We see things differently. We still have knowledge of the cracks, Prisoner Zero, Rosanna Calvierri, the Pandorica. We still remember a version of events that our universe says didn't happen. And knowledge is a very powerful thing." He pointed at the line on the ceiling. "The cracks have closed, yes. But they've left scars. And those scars are signs that the fabric of space and time hasn't fully healed. The water we've taken on board, and the water that's flowed into every other parallel universe, is enough to sink everything."
"Can we sail away from the boat metaphor?" said Rory.
"Fine, how about dimensional death by a thousand paper cuts? It starts with a few conflicting events like, say, space trains or advanced technology. They're non-sensical, they're curious oddities. But then they start to grow. And each one adds momentum to a downward spiral — that extra weight is causing those circles to move closer and closer until they're all right on top of each other. Except it's not just three universes, but an infinite number. Every universe that has ever and will ever exist will be overlapped and mixed together. The fabric of time and space is going to collapse into itself. Reality will be crushed. Time will be destroyed."
"Right," said Rory. "I think I preferred the boats."
"This is serious. This will happen unless each universe is returned to its original position. But to do that..." The Doctor's mental flow stopped; he'd reached a wall that even he struggled to find a way around. "Well, to do that you'd need a force of unimaginable power. Unbelievable power. To blast things back into place, you'd need a force massive enough to move universes."
"What could do such a thing?" Amy said.
"I don't know. But we won't find it in here." The Doctor turned to look through the red laser bars, right at Miranda. "You've got to let us out," he said.
She averted his gaze and stared down at her feet. "I can't..."
"You can," he urged. "You must. We sit here and space and time collapses. Besides..." The Doctor took a moment to regard Miranda's sad expression. "You wouldn't have sent that message to the TARDIS if you didn't want to help."
Miranda said nothing. If she was processing the Doctor's words, she showed no sign. A tense moment passed as the three inside the cell wondered what their next move would be should this one fail.
"They called it cluster analysis," she whispered. "But really, it was just their way to keep-keep me busy before decommission. They wanted me as far away as possible. They said low traffic areas, and they meant it. The lowest of the low. Sectors where only a handful of microbes pass-pass through every thousand years. It was a desk job created for the sole purpose of humiliation, but I did it anyway. What else could-could I do? For the longest time, it was just me keeping out of their way, until I found a trace of human life in the Quercon cluster. And it wasn't long-long after that when the Architect noticed. My data was taken away for secondary analysis. I didn't hear much about it, just enough to piece together their plans. When I found out that they wanted your humans dead, thinking it would solve-solve the anomaly..."
Slowly, very slowly, Miranda reached up with one hand and pressed it on a palm scanner positioned on her side of the bars. The laser mesh flickered and disappeared. Deactivated. They were free.
"...I knew you could help."
The Doctor stepped over the threshold and into the dark hallway. "I can. And you just did. Miranda, thank you. Now if you could point me in the direction of the TARDIS, that would be a supremely grand way of saying 'you're welcome.'"
"They'll have moved it," she said. "It'll be locked-locked up in the evidence bay."
"That's great."
"The evidence bay is guarded by a Judoon squad at all-all times."
"That's not so great."
An uncertain moment hung among the group, and the Doctor shook it off by leading a confident march down the prison hallway. The rest followed in his wake; Miranda caught his pace and followed alongside him.
"You're going anyway?" she asked.
"By way of a slight detour," he said. "What's in there?"
He was pointing to a nearby room, and Miranda looked at him with a bewildered expression. "That's the sentry quarters. But there's nothing in there."
The Doctor stuck his head in. A simple, spartan room greeted him, housing not much more than a table, some chairs, and a tall cabinet secured to the back wall. "There's no-one in here," he said, "but there's most definitely something in here."
He went to the cabinet and flung open the doors. Inside was a rack of firearms — the same type of equipment that the Judoon squad was wielding upon their arrival. Thick, angular, bulky devices they were, about the length of a rifle and emitting a constant electrical hum. The Doctor took one, felt its hefty weight with both hands and held it out to Miranda. "Here."
She hesitated, then took the device. She cradled it awkwardly. "What's this for?"
The Doctor brushed past her as he lead the group out of the room. "There's no time," he said. "And unless we keep moving, there'll be no time ever again."
They advanced along the hallway. The shadows began to recede as a distant light shone ahead, becoming ever brighter with each advancing step. Eventually, the group reached it and faced a simple sliding steel door set into the wall. A lone button was positioned to its side, and Miranda promptly leaned in to press it. A pleasant "ding" sounded.
An elevator.
The doors slid open, and...
...and standing behind them were two Judoon. They looked at the group in surprise, in shock. Their shocked expression was returned. No-one moved. No-one dared.
It felt like an eternity. Miranda fumbled for an explanation.
"I... err... we were just... well..."
The Doctor stepped forward. "Don't worry about us, we're being kept in line by our captor here while she forcibly marches us to our slow, painful deaths. She said something about brain vacuums. Horrible stuff. Tell me, how often do they replace those nozzles?"
The Judoon looked at the Doctor. Then at each other. Then back to the Doctor.
"TRO FO TRO."
And they exited the elevator, leaving it free for the group to enter.
The four piled in, and Miranda selected the appropriate floor. The doors slid closed, and once the compartment started to move, Miranda's shoulders crumbled. Her body, held rigid from shock, began to shake. "I-I'm sorry," she heaved through gasping breaths. "I didn't know what to say. They were-were just looking at me... I froze... I didn't... I couldn't..."
The Doctor smiled at her. "Never mind that now. They're gone. We're halfway out of here. You're helping, believe me. You're saving us."
She looked at him with pleading eyes. "Why do you keep tormenting me? I didn't save anyone! Back on Earth, I let them-them die!"
"Not in my universe, you didn't. In my universe, you saved them. You saved everyone. You were amazing, brave, selfless, and absolutely wonderful."
"But... but how can that be?"
"Because it's what happened. You, right here, right now, are a parallel possibility. But it doesn't mean you can't also be amazing and brave and selfless."
Miranda paused. She took a moment to consider the Doctor's words. "How did I do it?" she said. "I mean, your-your version of me. How did I preserve humanity?"
"By being brave and—"
"Doctor. The straight truth. You said you watched me die."
He looked away, searched for the right words to explain what happened. "You sacrificed yourself. You stood in place of Amy at the resonator. There was an overload, and you..."
Miranda didn't respond. Couldn't respond. It was clear how that sentence was going to finish.
The Doctor gave Miranda a playful nudge. "You want to know a secret? According to the TARDIS, I'm an anomaly too. More than an anomaly, in fact. A actual paradox. Something happens to me that makes my presence here right now an impossibility. I shouldn't be here." He put a finger to his lips, the sign for shush. "Don't tell your boss."
Miranda managed a smile.
The elevator door slid open, and the group stepped into a small room with a laser grid barrier. The tight confines were small, almost comical. "This is the evidence room?" said Rory. "Seems a little cosy. Where's all the evidence?"
Miranda pressed her palm onto a nearby wall scanner and the barrier faded, allowing further access. They ventured forth, and were immediately dwarfed by the sheer scale of what had opened out into a vast warehouse. A massive concrete floor was lined by rows upon rows of shelving that climbed up to a ceiling which seemed impossibly high. Distant lights shone down from overhead.
"Ah," said Rory, noticing the echo of his voice.
"This place is huge," said Amy.
The Doctor straightened his bow tie. "No time for the obvious. Big blue box. Miranda, I don't suppose they've got it filed under B?"
She shook her head.
"Of course not. Time to find it the old fashioned way, then. Come on. Can't be hard to spot."
They proceeded up the central aisle, turning their heads left and right to scan down the length of each secondary aisle.
"I feel like I'm in the world's biggest supermarket," said Amy. "And I can't find the tinned peas."
"They're always in the last place you look," said Rory.
"The last place!" exclaimed the Doctor. And he pointed.
Down one of the aisles was a large structure covered in a dirty canvas sheet. The telltale shape had the group racing towards it, and the Doctor picked up a corner and pulled it off. There it stood: the TARDIS.
"BO RO TRO FO!"
A deep booming voice caused all four to turn around in alarm. Standing before them were two Judoon — and despite their limited range of expression, a look of anger and annoyance was evident, enough to suggest they were the same two Judoon that had passed them by at the elevator.
And standing between them was the Shadow Architect.
"That's the last five minutes you'll ever receive," she said.
The Doctor spread his hands. "We're just getting the grand tour before our slow, painful deaths. Nice supermarket you've got here."
The Shadow Architect's face remained unmoved. "You're not leaving. Hand over the humans and your punishment need only extend by fifty years."
One of the Judoon clenched its fists. "BO TRO FO!"
The Doctor attempted to maintain the facade. "It was our last reque—"
"BO TRO FO!"
No dice. The jig was clearly up. As the Doctor bit his lip, weighing up his next move, Rory sighed in annoyed exasperation. "Oh, let me."
He grabbed the firearm from Miranda's grasp, pressed the stock into his shoulder, and looked down its sights. The weapon clicked into action; a high pitched hum emanated from the device, and a brilliant blue light shone from the barrel. Armed and ready.
"Time for a blast from the past," he said.
"Rory, stop!" said the Doctor.
Rory pulled the trigger, and a thick pulse of electrical energy exploded from the barrel. It hit the armed Judoon square in the chest, sending thick blue sparks coursing around its body. There was a tense moment. Everyone looked, transfixed.
The Judoon looked down at the point of impact. It looked up at Rory.
"BO TRO FO!"
Rory looked puzzled. He examined the gun. "What?"
The Doctor grabbed his arm. "Come on!"
"But I—"
"Now!"
The Doctor dragged Rory into the TARDIS; Amy and Miranda quickly followed behind. The Shadow Architect's face contorted into pure anger. "You've marked your own death warrant, Doctor!" she boomed. "As have you, Miranda. You've sealed your own fate. The ends of the galaxy won't get you far enough from us. We'll find you. You know we'll find you!"
Amy closed the TARDIS door. "That's quite enough out of Her Majesty," she said. As the Doctor sprinted to the console and launched the craft into motion, Miranda looked around her surroundings, amazed.
"I'd heard, but I never imagined... this is..."
Rory approached the Doctor, still holding the firearm. "You picked up a dud," he said. "I hit that thing square in the chest, but nothing happened. It didn't faze him."
The Doctor produced his sonic screwdriver and scanned the weapon from end to end.
"I even said a cool tough guy line and everything," Rory mumbled.
The Doctor's scanning lead him to a panel on the side, and he flicked it open to reveal a small panel of buttons and dials. "No wonder it didn't work. It was on the wrong setting."
"The wrong...?"
He sighed. "It's a genome blaster. Different settings for different species. You're an intergalactic enforcer of law — if you're taking down a target in a crowded area, you want to make sure you don't kill the wrong one. Setting the gun for your desired species means no accidental deaths, even if you miss. And this one, for obvious reasons, wasn't set to Judoon. It was set to..."
The Doctor trailed off. "It was set to Time Lord."
They all stared at the device. Rory, his mouth agape, looked between it and the Doctor. He was holding it gingerly now. The Doctor rescanned the gun with his screwdriver and inspected it for the results. "Instantaneous cellular shutdown. No regeneration. Can't say they weren't prepared."
He stood up, stowing his screwdriver back in his jacket pocket and eyed Rory with severe regard. "You be careful with that, tough guy." And he went back to the central console.
The Doctor rested his weight on the TARDIS controls, sighing heavily. He closed his eyes, giving himself some semblance of solitude as he worked through what had happened. What was yet to come. It felt heavy.
"I shouldn't be here," he mused.
Miranda approached his side. "You've just made a powerful enemy, doing what-what you did."
"So have you," he noted. "Blacklisted from the Proclamation, no doubt."
She nodded. "I'm now wanted by them as much-much as you. As all of you."
"So no-one would mind terribly if you came with us for a spell?"
"Where else would I go?"
Amy examined the monitor. "We're not going anywhere with this thing still on the blink. Look at it. It's frozen."
And it was. Still stuck on a screen of numbers that had swarmed its display. The Doctor frowned. "The TARDIS isn't in a habit of picking up HAM radio; these numbers have been detected for a reason. They mean something." He put a thoughtful finger to his chin. "But what?"
The Doctor peered in close, until his nose was barely touching the monitor's surface. He noticed something. The Doctor fiddled with a switch and a dial. Slowly. Delicately. Then with a touch more energy. Then he gave the monitor an almighty whack on the side. "Huh."
"Huh?"
He leaned back. "They're different."
"What?"
The Doctor pointed to the monitor. "These numbers. The signal has frozen, that much is obvious, yet the numbers have changed. Yes, yes, a photographic memory is a wonderful thing, I know. Saves you a fortune on photo albums. But these numbers are different to the numbers from before. As curious as the 'how' is, I'm more interested in the 'why'. Why would they need to change? They wouldn't. Unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Unless they needed to for us."
"I don't understand."
"Say you want to go to the shops. Your route there will change depending on whether you're leaving from your place or from the post office or from your third ex-girlfriend's brother-in-law's outhouse. Same destination, different directions."
Miranda looked at the screen. "The numbers are directions?"
"Galactic coordinates. Yes. But like none I've seen. I mean, look at them. Forwards, backwards, upside down… they're pointing to something that doesn't make sense. Even without the noise from parallel universes scattering the data, it's still data that doesn't compute. I can do some number crunching, but even with the power of the TARDIS it would take weeks. And we don't have weeks. If only we had some kind of..."
He looked at Miranda. "Some kind of super computer comprised of self-contained cell CPUs that communicate in a body-wide network via the brain core." The Doctor stepped towards her. "I need you to look at that screen. Examine those numbers. Tell me what you see."
"I don't know how-how I can..."
"Relax. There's no low-traffic anything here, trust me. I believe in you."
Miranda inhaled deeply and nodded her understanding. She turned and stared directly, intently, at the monitor. The irises of her eyes expanded, her expression remained blank. Passive. She blinked. Then again. Then faster and faster, until the movement of her eyelids became a blur. Miranda gazed at the screen as she took in the information before her, processing it via some unseen means. Amy and Rory looked on in disbelief. The Doctor steepled his fingers. Waiting. Not knowing when or how long it would—
A deep, heavy gasp. Miranda's mouth opened agape as her lungs scrambled desperately for air, like she'd just surfaced from deep underwater. She looked around at the Doctor, panting for breath, her face wearing an expression of what could only be described as pure wonder. Enlightenment. Her mind, it seemed, had been awoken to something entirely new.
Her fingers moving at a rapid speed, Miranda typed on the TARDIS keyboard embedded in the console. A new ream of information raced up the monitor, overlaying the old information. The display was cluttered, but the Doctor examined it.
"Are you sure this is right? These coordinates are way off. It's like they're pointing off the map."
"They're correct."
"But the velocity, the temporal flux it causes…"
The Doctor forced himself to pause. He took a moment to take in the data more fully. His eyes darted from left to right, then back again as he read the screen twice, three times. Almost imperceptibly, his mouth moved as he disassembled the data in his mind, considered what it meant. He pursed his lips. Something had sparked.
Something.
Out of the blue, he looked at Miranda and put an arm around her shoulder. "You don't look great. Let's get you out of here and sitting down somewhere."
"I'm alright, Doctor. Just a bit out of breath."
"I insist. You need to rest. Come on, let's go."
The Doctor walked Miranda away from the console and up the stairs, and the two disappeared beyond one of the TARDIS hallways. Rory sidled up to Amy.
"He's got a thing for her."
Amy smirked. "I don't know about a thing, but he certainly seems to care. You should have seen him when he first laid eyes on her. There she was, fumbling with a stapler, and there he was, forgetting how to close his mouth. It would have been cute if it wasn't so obvious."
Rory looked at Amy, gauged her passive expression. "You're not a fan, I take it."
She sighed. "It's not that. It's just weird, you know? Miranda nice and all, but shouldn't be here. She died. I saw it happen. This version is like, I don't know, an alternate Miranda. It's not the Miranda we met. And I'm not the Amy she met — according to her version of events, I'm the one that died. It all feels a bit strange."
"I know the feeling," said Rory.
"Which universe is the right one?" said Amy. "Ours? Hers? Neither? How can we ever make sense of our lives when they're made of infinite possibility? How can we be expected to believe that the choices we make are the right ones, when others choices are made outside of our control?"
"Maybe that's the key," said Rory. "To understand the chaos. Or to attempt to make some sort of order from it. Maybe simply being aware of it is what makes us human."
Footsteps. The Doctor flittered down the stairs and skittered back to the console. He bypassed Rory and Amy completely and trained his focus directly at the monitor.
"Is she okay?" said Amy.
"She'll be fine," said the Doctor. "Leave her be."
"Okay, no need to get snippy."
"I wasn't snippy. Was I snippy? I didn't mean to be snippy. What I did mean to be was thinky. So here's me thinking. And you know what I'm thinking?"
"What?"
"It's outside of time."
He pointed at the screen. "It's the only explanation. A delivery of ever-changing numbers from a frozen signal; numbers that form coordinates that extend far beyond the limits of our universe in terms of both space and time. Whoever or whatever sent them knows the workings of the TARDIS and wants us to come in for a visit."
"For a cup of tea and a chat, naturally," said Rory. "Come on, Doctor. How is this not a trap?"
"I think it's an invitation. And it'd be rude of us to ignore it."
"But you're not—"
"Rory, the universe and every universe around it is on the brink of total collapse. Space and time is going to end. Reality will be no more. This will happen if we don't do something to stop it. And you're suggesting we ignore the only lead we have?"
Silence. Rory didn't respond.
"It's this or nothing. These numbers, these directions, are going to send us over, under and through our little circle universe. These directions are designed to burst us through into an isolated plane of existence - a realm unto itself. We've got to go."
The Doctor rolled up his sleeves and frantically worked the controls of the TARDIS. "Hold on to your bedsocks," he said. "We're going beyond our universe. A spaceless space. Ladies and gentlemen, we're breaking through time."
CHAPTER FOUR COMING SOON!