Chapter 6 – Pretty Reckless
Despite Clara's protests of walking, The Doctor insisted that they proceeded into Central London on foot. Occasionally the Time Lady would pause and observe the destruction that had been caused by just a few rampaging Daleks. Near the entrance to an underground station, Clara spotted a small group of bodies in close proximity to each other. They had attempted to huddle together for their own protection but it had been in vain, the Daleks had exterminated them without mercy. The pair approached the mound of humanity, Clara had a strong stomach but even she gagged slightly at the sight of the bodies tangled together. The stench from the decomposing remains irritated her nose and the back of her throat. Eventually it became too much and she had to back away.
The Doctor though was different. She crouched respectfully over the bodies, gently closing their eyes and lowering her head. When Clara finally worked up the courage to turn back around, she could hear the Time Lady muttering something but she was too far away to identify the words. Eventually the Time Lady stood up and rubbed the corner of one of her eyes with a finger. For a brief moment the pair were connected in their grief for the deceased. There was no need for words, a simple look at each other was enough to know what the other was thinking. The Doctor nodded slowly and continued her brisk walk through the city.
As the school teacher tried to keep up, she realised this was all very different from the man she had known. Of course her Doctor had taken the deaths of civilians hard but she never remembered him shedding a tear before. The Time Lady tried to cover it up but Clara was positive that she had been crying over the bodies near the tube station. Clara was trying to piece together the mystery that was this new Doctor, one minute she was very alien, uncaring almost to the point of callous but the next she was crying over the victims of the Daleks. The pair continued to walk in a deafening silence until the bruntte decided to speak, "It wasn't your fault", she said softly.
"Hmm", The Doctor turned her head slightly towards the school teacher, "did you say something?"
"It wasn't your fault Doctor", Clara repeated, "you couldn't have prevented the Daleks from attacking the city".
"I know", The Doctor sighed in response, "but a small part of me wishes that I had got here a little quicker". She paused to wipe her eye again, the memories of the people destroyed at the hands of the Daleks flooding over her. Not just the people of London in the twenty first century but the billions across time and space. Memories of the Time War drifted into her head, her fellow Time Lords, Ladies and ordinary Gallifreyians shot down in their prime. "Must be this female body, I'm reacting differently than I used to", she added, trying to shake off her emotions.
"Probably hormones", Clara shrugged, "if Time Lords have hormones that is?"
"Time Lords don't have hormones", The Doctor brushed her comment off, "we're not slaves to an internal chemical reaction thank you very much". The pair continued to walk in silence for another couple of minutes until the Time Lady added, "I could've stopped them you know, before they were even created". The Doctor could see Clara looking in her direction but the Time Lady continued to look straight ahead, "The High Council sent me to Skaro to prevent their creation back in my fourth life but I couldn't do it".
"Why not?" Clara asked softly.
The Doctor ran her hand through her dark hair and let out a loud sigh, "That's a question I've been asking myself ever since". Prior to the Time War, The Doctor hadn't really thought about that day much. Things changed after the Time War though, her Ninth self had spent a long time asking himself the very question that Clara just posed. The following two Doctor's hadn't dwelled quite so much but the thought still lingered in the back of their minds.
Another question flashed across Clara's mind but given the grim silence that the Time Lady had descended into, she was reluctant to ask. After a couple of moments she swallowed her fear and the question rolled off her tongue, "If you could go back, would you act any differently?" The Doctor froze in her tracks and her shoulders tensed the moment the words came out of Clara's mouth. She glanced briefly at the school teacher with a pained expression before continuing to walk, this time at a slower pace. Clara wasn't completely sure how to take the Time Lady's reaction but the lack of response told her a lot. The Doctor wasn't sure if she would show mercy to the Daleks again and that terrified her more than the mutant creatures themselves.
Their journey continued in an uncomfortable silence for another few minutes. Clara was desperate to break that silence before the oppressive atmosphere engulfed them. She decided to keep her conversation away from the Daleks as much as she could, "You were at the memorial service earlier", she began, "how did it take you so long to get here?"
"What service?" The Doctor replied, "I've spent the time since my revival trying to get the TARDIS working again. The moment I did, I locked onto the temporal energy reading and came straight to Earth". She paused briefly to get her bearings in one of London's narrow back streets, "The TARDIS landed in Trafalgar Square and I was exploring when I heard your car crash". Suddenly The Doctor slapped herself on the head, "Trafalgar Square, of course", she said and took off running.
"Doctor, you're doing it again", Clara warned the Time Lady, sprinting to keep up with her. She wasn't that annoyed with The Doctor though, at least she had snapped out of her morose mood.
"The temporal bubble needs some kind of transmitter, a ground zero if you will", she replied. The Doctor skidded to a halt and turned sharply to the left and continued running, "Nelson's Column would be an excellent aerial to establish the bubble".
"Wouldn't metal be a better transmitter?" Clara asked, struggling to keep up with The Doctor, "there are plenty of those in London as well".
"You'd think but temporal bubbles need something earthy as their focal point", The Doctor stated. She paused again as Nelson's Column appeared in the distance. The Time Lord suddenly felt a little light headed and stumbled backwards into Clara's waiting arms, "Thank you Clara", she stated, "whatever we're looking for is definitely in the vicinity of the Column".
Clara looked at the Time Lord, who was slowly regaining her footing. Her skin was already quite pale but The Doctor was looking whiter than usual, "You okay Doctor, you don't look so good".
"Yeah I'm fine", The Doctor straightened out her coat, "the temporal bubble is giving off a lot of time energy, so much so that it overwhelmed my natural time sense".
"So the superior Time Lord biology let you down then", Clara smiled and The Doctor laughed in response. It was probably the first time that the pair had shared a laugh since the Time Lord's unexpected return just a few hours ago. The school teacher's heart warmed slightly at the shared moment between the pair, "Right we should probably take care of that big bubble", she continued.
"Yes absolutely", The Doctor stated in response and pulled out her sonic screwdriver, "do you have your mobile phone with you?" Clara nodded and handed the device over to The Doctor, "This should give you access to UNIT's secure phone lines", she added and zapped it with her screwdriver. To her frustration, the screwdriver sparked and fell out of her hand, "That's not good", The Doctor said and handed the phone back to Clara.
"Performance issues", Clara attempted to joke but The Doctor glared in response, "right, not the best joke to make".
The Doctor picked up the remains of her screwdriver up off the ground and held it by the tip, "Well looks like I'm going hands free for this next part". She stuffed the bundle of metal and wires into her jacket pocket, "I used to like going hands free you know but then again I also used to decorate my coat with vegetables", she added, confusing her companion. The Doctor grabbed Clara's hand and pulled her towards Trafalgar Square, "Come on, we don't know how long we've got until the bubble is completed".
The pair completed the short sprint to Trafalgar Square, passing the remains of the UNIT car that Clara had crashed in the process. The Square had been cordoned off by UNIT soldiers and it was totally deserted. The Doctor spun around a couple of times, trying to pinpoint the exact source of the temporal bubble, "Clara, call UNIT and get the status of the bubble", The Doctor called out without looking at the teacher.
"Yes boss", Clara sighed and found a new contact in her address book. She pushed the call button and slightly to her surprise, it began to ring. After a few seconds it stopped ringing, "Hello, anyone there?" Clara asked.
"Clara?" the voice of Kate Stewart replied, "how did you get this number, this is a secure line?"
"Three guesses", Clare replied and she heard Kate sigh loudly, "The Doctor wants to know the status of the temporal bubble".
There was a brief moment of silence before Kate replied, "Almost closed and the Dalek, Cybermen and Sontaran fleets have begun to encircle the planet".
"They're going to fire the moment the bubble is closed", Clara stated. She lowered the phone and called out, "Doctor it's almost closed and we're running out of time". The Doctor was still glancing aimlessly around Trafalgar Square, "Now would be a good time for some assistance", she added impatiently.
"I'm trying to work out how this thing works", The Doctor shot back, "a little bit of quiet would be appreciated". Once again The Doctor sat down and rested her chin on her hands. She closed her eyes and stayed in that position for a few seconds, much to the clear frustration of Clara Oswald. "Got it", The Doctor sprung to her feet and moved towards the corner of the square, "As you know Trafalgar Square has four plinths, three of which are permanently occupied".
"Yeah we covered this in school", Clara replied, "three of them have statues but the fourth was left empty for a long time".
"It was suppose to have a statue of William the Fourth but before it could be erected, someone broke it", the sheepish look on The Doctor's face told Clara that one of the Time Lord's past incarnations was the someone she referred to, "Since the late nineties, the plinth has been occupied by various pieces of modern art".
The Doctor's voice trailed off slightly as they approached the fourth plinth, which today was occupied by a tangle of metal tubes, glass and wires. There didn't appear to be any pattern to how the various different objects were placed together. A couple of tubes pointed skyward and were wrapped in some blue wire. The remaining metal looked like it had been dropped on the plinth without any due care. "Ode to consumerism", Clara read the inscription, "I'm not an art critic but this is a pile of junk".
"You're not wrong Clara but this pile of junk hold a secret", The Doctor kicked the side of the supposedly stone plinth and it crumbled into dust, "this junk is the aerial and here's the computer that's powering it".
Clara crouched down and gazed at possibly one of the most advanced computers she had seen. There were a least four processers that were wired together by brightly coloured tubes. The far end of the plinth was lit up like a Christmas tree with various different LED lights. Everything was connected to the metal sculpture on top of the plinth with a bundle of cables at least two inches thick, "This looks far too advance for 2014", Clara mumbled.
"Oh it's definitely out of its time period", The Doctor joined Clara on the concrete floor, "probably at least a thousand years ahead of its time". The Time Lord gingerly pulled on some of the wires, "Whoever created this little beauty is an absolute genius".
"But how did it get here if it's from a thousand years in the future?" Clara frowned, "and can you stop it?"
"That's two very good questions", The Doctor stuck her head into the plinth, "how it got here is anyone's guess". The Time Lord continued to inspect the wires and tubes with a worried look on her face, "Can I stop it", she shrugged and tugged lightly on a couple of wires, "maybe".
"Maybe", Clara replied, "you think you can stop it?"
"It would be easier if my screwdriver wasn't fried", The Doctor snapped without removing her head from the plinth. She pulled one of the wires loose and the tubes began to glow, "Oh I didn't want to do that", she gasped.
"Do what", Clara asked but she could feel the heat and energy coming off the computer, "you've accelerated the process haven't you?" The Doctor didn't respond and turned her attention back to the jumble of wires. She pulled two more loose wires and tapped them together which produced a shower of sparks. Her action also blew out one of the glass tubes, forcing them to cover their faces, "Now you're just pulling random wires and hoping for the best", Clara cried.
"Ye of little faith", The Doctor replied and pulled a huge bundle of wires free, "I've just disabled the security protocols on this machine. It can now be accessed by any computer within a twenty mile radius". The Doctor smiled broadly but Clara just frowned in response, "What?" she asked, confused that Clara didn't understand the magnitude of what she had just done.
"That's very clever but I don't see a computer in your hands", Clara replied, "or one in the immediate vicinity", she added and indicated to the abandoned square.
"Ah", The Doctor bit her lip, "I'll admit that is the one small flaw in my plan". She looked around the area but there didn't appear to be anything helpful, "A flaw that I'm not sure if I can immediately overcome".
Clara retort was cut off by her phone ringing and she answered it whilst glaring at the Time Lord, "Hello", she answered.
"Clara whatever it is you're planning, you better do it soon", Kate called out with a hint of panic in her voice, "the bubble's almost closed and we estimate that Earth will be sealed inside within the next five minutes".
The school teacher looked at the floor before stared straight back at The Doctor, "Hold on a second", she said to Kate. She paused for a moment before stating to The Doctor, "UNIT estimate we've got less than five minutes before the bubble closes and we're stuck out here without a way of stopping it".
The Doctor frowned and snatched the phone away from Clara, "We're not beaten yet Clara Oswald", she stated and placed the phone to her ear, "Kate listen to me because we're only going to get one shot at this. Find the best computer person you've got in that room and sit them behind the keyboard". She then turned towards Clara and pointed at one of the circuit boards inside the plinth, "Don't worry, I've got a plan", she smiled.
Somehow Clara wasn't fully convinced by that statement because virtually nothing The Doctor had done in the last few minutes had reassured her that the Time Lord knew what she was doing. Either this new Doctor was supremely confident or a reckless idiot who was hoping for the best. The next few minutes would answer that question for her.
TO BE CONTINUED