Double Blind

1

There was a layer of condensation across the window exterior, dappling it with old rain-marks and dirty streaks. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran the length of that side of the corridor, a long, stretching passage filled with large signposts written in a dozen different languages. All the terms were engineering terms; 'water storage,' 'suction controls,' 'navigation room,' 'floatation centre.' None of the signs offered an indication of what the flying vessel they were on actually was, though, or why it seemed to be empty. It hummed faintly, hovered miles above a distant and an uncanny landmark – though its shape wasn't quite what she would expect from maps and Google Earth.

"Wow… we're so high up," Yasmin Khan said, leaning close to the window, which ended so abruptly she felt in danger of falling through it, all the way down to the scorched-orange continent below. It reminded her of the slow pace of the London Eye, the only time she'd been on it during a family holiday south a long time ago now. Or maybe it was like being in a hot air balloon, though she'd never been in one of those, either. Vastly different to an aeroplane though; about as high but moving so slowly it was like they were stopped in space, suspended. Ryan and Graham were also struck by the view, the blue-bordered landscape beneath.

"You see that?" the Doctor pointed over Yaz's shoulder at the island, "Australia. That little corner? There?"

"Where?"

"Just there," the Doctor nudged her head slightly until she spotted an ant-sized city on the distant coastline, "Sydney. We're not as high as we look, only five miles, lower than a jumbo jet flies. Above the rainclouds."

"On what? A plane?" Ryan asked.

"Not sure. Weird how it's empty, whatever it is," the Doctor mused, "Then again, if my watch is right-" Not that she was wearing a watch, "-we're somewhere in the 2060s. It's probably just automated. Like a self-checkout machine, but… bigger. I suppose that makes us unexpected items in the bagging area." Nobody laughed, still preoccupied with the view. "Nothing? Really? You lot just do not appreciate me."

"It doesn't look like Sydney," said Graham, "The outback's stretching out for miles, right to the coast."

"Climate change," she said, "Killing the planet, bit by bit. But from an engineering perspective, this structure is very interesting, reminds me of the Valiant. You remember the Valiant, don't you? Or maybe not. How old were you two again? In 2007?"

"Nine," said Yaz and Ryan.

"Forty-seven," said Graham, "The Valiant's that aircraft carrier owned by MI6, isn't it?"

"UNIT, before they went defunct," said the Doctor, "Not MI6. Not subtle enough for MI6. MI5, maybe, they're a lot less discreet. The Valiant was built by a friend of mine. Well, I say friend, more like… enemy. Frenemy. Best frenemy. Not that this is the Valiant, what would they need something like this for? And over Australia? Why would they need 'suction controls'? What's a 'floatation centre'? How do you think we're flying? I don't hear any engines, isn't that weird?" She turned to wander off in another direction, following the signs. Yaz, Ryan and Graham followed, lest they be left behind and lost. Then again, there were so many signs it was probably quite hard to get lost. "The thing is, you humans are so obsessed with the military industrial complex that it seems impossible for something like this to come into being without it having a military purpose… but then, they've never really had militarised airships. Very easy to shoot down, see, and flammable. Do you know I was on the Hindenburg?"

"Next thing you'll say you were on the Titanic," Graham joked.

"I was. Very cold. Didn't even find Leo in the end – disappointing. Ah-ha! Suction Room C! Let's have a look at the suction room. I wonder what's in a suction room…"

She pushed open the doors to the very clearly signposted Suction Room C, a swing door that didn't have any locks on it, digital or otherwise. It was vast, big as an aircraft hanger, and full of tubes. Colour-coded, labelled, easy to identify, all leading from the 'tubes' to the 'pumps' to the 'dispersal centre.' The tubes were probably big enough to walk in, and all coiled up until the room was full of them. They were on a large balcony overlooking it all with a complex set of controls. Panels with screens and readouts and buttons on them, which the Doctor found very exciting.

"Deploy tubes… what will deploying the tubes do, I wonder…"

"Should you really mess around with this thing?" Ryan said, "We don't even know what it does, what it's for."

"Messing around with things is all we ever do," said the Doctor, "Ah! Would you look at that, it's got an entire system diagnostics tool, didn't even have to sonic it. Which, retrospectively, is very disappointing, because I do love to sonic things. And the diagnostics screen says that this machine is called the… 'Rain-O-Matic.'"

"It's what?" Yaz asked.

"That's ridiculous, sounds like something out of Wallace & Gromit," said Graham.

"It does sound like that!" the Doctor exclaimed, "How weird. Maybe a nerd built it. Its patented name is the Mobile Precipitation Retrieval and Dispersal Device. MPRDD. 'Rain-O-Matic' is definitely catchier."

"This is a rain machine?" Ryan asked, "It makes rain?"

"Sort of, it sucks up seawater, filters it in the same way clouds do and then flies over countries and rains on them. To combat climate change and droughts… how ingenious! And completely non-military. I was right, it is automatic, that's why it's unmanned. But the thing is, I've never seen one of these before. It's definitely something I'd remember, and I've been to the 2060s before. When I went, everyone was just hot, and there were lots more wildfires. In Kent. Have you ever seen a Kentish wildfire?"

"There are definitely worse places you could have a wildfire," said Ryan.

"Harsh, but fair point… hang on… how can… have any of you ever heard of CyTech?"

"No," they all said.

"Are you sure? Founded in late 2012, quickly became the biggest supplier of security software on Earth? According to the company information page on this computer. I love the effort to make everything so much more accessible these days. The signs? Nice touch. But CyTech? Drawing a blank?"

"Yeah, why?" Yaz asked.

"That's strange… mostly because I haven't heard of them, either."

"I've just got that McAfee," said Yaz.

"Yeah, same," said Ryan, "Can't work out how to uninstall it."

"Why would a software security company build a big rain machine?" Graham wondered, "Isn't like corporations to be moral and help with climate change."

"No, you're right," said the Doctor, "Does seem out of character. Not much more information here, unfortunately. I'd love to Google it, but I don't think these computers connect to anything external, they're a bit weird. They're connected to a network, but not the internet, and not local – probably the company has its own way to control these machines remotely, it's the only reason they can get away with being unmanned."

"Is it safe to have nobody on them like this?" Graham asked.

"Well, most passenger planes in 2019 basically fly themselves. Fifty years later, yeah, it's probably fine," she shrugged, "Probably next to impossible that something would ever go wrong, too, the machinery isn't that complicated, just big. In fact, I'd even bet that a thing like this is safer than-" The rain machine jerked and they all wobbled, the lights above flickering, then dying.

"Safer than…?" Ryan prompted.

"Cars, I was going to say," the Doctor said quietly. The lights stayed off.

"Maybe… a fuse blew? Could be a leak, all the water."

"Yeah… or…" it wobbled again, more violently, and they grabbed the railings at the edge of the balcony. "I'm sure there's a backup power supply somewhere, auxiliary generators, it'll kick in right about…" The Doctor paused to wait, Yaz hoping beyond hope that she was right about backup generators. Everywhere had backup power, though, so surely things were even safer in the future? And yet, nothing happened. They stayed in darkness, and then began to descend. It was gentle at first, like going down in a lift, but Yaz knew what that meant: their suspension had gone. They were falling. "Typical!" the Doctor exclaimed as the thing began to tilt sideways, throwing them all towards the back wall. She began feeling her way out of the room towards the doors, the other three still following, panicking and desperate. "You know, I think by this point the really exciting thing would be us not in the middle of a disaster. But it's par for the course, really – big airship hovering pendulously over a densely-populated, major city? Us on board?" She looked over her shoulder, "Well come on, we have to save Sydney! What are you doing all the way back there!?"

"It's hard to walk and fall at the same time!" Yaz protested.

"How are we supposed to save them? Where are we going?" Ryan asked.

"Generator Room, see?" the Doctor pointed, "It's right there on the sign. I love these signs. Give my thanks to whoever it was who invented signs. Very odd how we could lose complete power, though, surely there's a billion security features? The software must be impeccable to be the biggest security company on the planet, right? Well, maybe not impeccable for me, but for a human to crack – you'd need a supercomputer. Why would a supercomputer want to break a rain machine?" The Doctor kept talking to herself, but luckily the generator room wasn't very far from Suction Room C.

"Just stop speculating and start doing!" Graham implored.

"Right! Yes! Good idea! Fix the problem! Where is the problem?" Probably nowhere easy to pinpoint, going by the size of the generator room. Four generators, three of which were marked by big 'auxiliary' signs. So there were three backup generators, and none of them was working? "There's the problem!" the Doctor declared, pointing at something. She ran down the steps towards the generators themselves, nearly falling over the railing as their collapse continued. "Quicker! Come on! We've got less than a minute to get these online before we crash and die! Do you know how fast something like this will reach its terminal velocity?"

What the Doctor had discovered was a big mechanical disc with a blinking light on it, some kind of device stuck right over the health and safety warnings.

"Whatever lunatic built this thing with its accessible systems and many-languaged signs would never obscure a health and safety warning," the Doctor explained, "Meaning this thing isn't meant to be here." Yaz could feel the weight lifting from her feet as they continued to fall and fall and fall. How long until she started floating? Until it felt like zero gravity? Would that only happen right when they were about to collide head-on with the Sydney Opera House?

The device was only slightly bigger than a DVD, but the Doctor was jubilant when she pulled out her screwdriver and scanned it. "Ha-ha! This is the problem! It's an EMP device, magnetic, stuck on here – one on all the generators, need to remove them. They've been placed here and remotely activated, the perpetrator could be anywhere-"

"Perpetrator!? This is sabotage?" Yaz asked.

"Definitely, for someone who hates rain, probably. Wants to burn Kent to the ground." She sonicked the disc until she could pull it off with her hands, throwing it to the floor behind her where it rolled away, slightly dented.

"Okay, now what?" Ryan asked.

"Well, we… uh-oh."

"What? Doctor, we need to stop this thing from crashing," Graham said.

"Yes, I know, it's just very tricky," she said. Only now was the Doctor's panic evident, "We need a jolt, a boost, a spark, to get the generator going, kick-start it. The TARDIS could do it – but I'm not sure I could get to the TARDIS in – and couldn't run the cables this far – maybe reverse the EMP device? Wouldn't have enough power to… it's a time machine, maybe just-"

A vivid, blue flash tore through the air, a bolt of lightning striking into the dark interior like energy bleeding from the wiring and the fixtures. In an instant, the blast had formed itself into a humanoid shape, a figure with blue sparks flying from an elaborate costume they were wearing. Yaz had seen people teleport before, but none so dramatic. The very air around them felt imbued with electricity. The figure didn't slow down, though. They moved so quickly they became nothing more than a blur, lightning streaking through the air and whizzing between all four of the large generators. If Yaz didn't know better, she would say the person was turning into living electricity as they dashed around faster than Yaz could keep track. They were muttering to themselves though, stray words about 'devices' and 'sabotage' and a slew of numbers that sounded like an on-the-fly calculation of the aircraft's terminal velocity and impact trajectory.

"Looking for this?" the Doctor asked loudly, taking change and picking the disc EMP up from the floor. The figure shot up in front of them and their mask lit up brightly when they saw the object in the Doctor's hands.

"Yes! Thank you, oh my gosh, here I was thinking we were all gonna die." Yaz was wholly taken aback by this stranger speaking to them in a bright, American accent, and being a girl. Then again, they were very short when they stood still for a few seconds. Electric currents danced across her fancy suit when she paused. "Okay, you need to help me; get that thing as far away from me as possible and get rid of the others."

"Others?" the Doctor asked.

"It's an EMP charge remotely activated to short-circuit the main and auxiliary generators," she explained, talking even faster than the Doctor on a good day, "There should be one on each generator. It contains a secondary explosive device designed to go off when an electrical current passes through it, which means I can't touch it because I passively emit, like, fifty-thousand joules of electricity."

"What do you mean when you say you 'passively emit fifty-thousand joules of electricity'?"

"I actively emit a couple billion," she said, making the Doctor's jaw drop.

"Doctor!" Yaz shouted, "We're falling!"

"Oh! Sorry! I already disconnected the device from that generator," the Doctor said, indicating the nearest one, "Is that enough to save us for now?"

"I sure hope so," said the mysterious girl.

"Do you think you could talk me through this 'actively generating'-?" she began, but the girl flitted away and placed her gloved hands on the generator, throwing out enough energy that Yaz had to turn away from the brightness. It was like being on the ground as a bolt of lightning struck directly in front of them. Yaz had never seen anything like it; someone controlling electricity and shooting it – directly out of their hands. Was she even human?

The lights all came back on at once, the floor slamming upwards to meet them as a loud alarm and a warning began to ring, signalling that they were falling and about to collide with Australia. Better late than never, she supposed. One by one, the Doctor and the stranger went about detaching the discs and powering up the generators again, at which point the questions changed from 'why would somebody want to sabotage a rain machine?' to 'who the hell are you and what are you wearing?'

"Who the hell are you?" Ryan asked.

"And what are you wearing?" added Yaz.

"Great questions, both of them," said the Doctor, "This suit is way too technologically advanced to be from this century. Even your fancy mask is beyond me. Who are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you some kind of superhero?"

"Well, yeah, I'm the Lightning Girl. Lame name, I know, but it stuck – I always liked the Bolt or the Streak, but my roommate was all like, 'If you call yourself the Streak everyone's gonna say you're going streaking.' I don't think they would, but it never sounded as cool after that…" she mused.

"A real superhero!?" Ryan exclaimed, "That's so cool!"

"I'll give you that, it is cool. But how? And why?" the Doctor asked.

"Because… you know because," she said, sounding confused.

"Me? I don't know because. And who sabotaged this ship?"

"That's an ongoing thing, it keeps happening to the rain machines. One of them crashed two weeks ago – luckily it just went into the ocean and nobody was hurt, but it's not great for the pollution, and the operation to dredge it up and try to salvage some of it is disrupting trade routes. Stupid devices are privately manufactured and impossible to trace, even the explosives don't have a paper trail. Which is weird, because it's not exactly simple technology – not simple enough to whip up in mom's basement, at any rate."

"I'm still confused," said the Doctor, "Do I know you? I feel like I'd definitely remember meeting a girl pretending to be a superhero."

"I'm totally a superhero! It's what it says on the news, and in my Twitter bio. The Lightning Girl: Superhero." She put her hands on her hips. Yaz couldn't see her face but could hear the grin in her voice. She was clearly very proud of her extraordinary reputation.

"But I don't know you."

"But you do. You're the Doctor. Even if she hadn't called you 'Doctor', I recognise the two heartbeats and the sonic screwdriver anywhere," she said, "Which one are you? I've only met one other woman."

"I'm the Thirteenth Doctor."

"You're the Thirteenth Doctor, but you don't know me? We've known each other for years. It was your friends who rescued me from UNIT, when…" she dropped off-midsentence and turned away from them. "…Uh-oh… Darn it… You're sure? No, I just… there's this thing… no, no, it's not important – I'll deal with it," she was obviously talking to someone. Probably had a line in her helmet. She looked up again. "I've got to go, I'm sorry. I hate running off mid-conversation, but they need me in Rio – there's a car chase, cartel drug lord, police are struggling to catch up – it's a whole thing."

"No – how can you know who I am? How can you be a superhero? None of this-"

"Doctor, I'm sorry, but I really need to go to Brazil ASAP. Life of a superhero never stops," she said, "Just – you're – go to Brighton, okay? They'll explain everything. This car chase is really hotting up, I need to go before there's a crash, alright?" With that, she disappeared, in another cacophonous flash and a streaking bolt of glowing electricity. The Lightning Girl – a bona fide superhero.

"So… she's just gone to Brazil to single-handedly take down the leader of a South American drug cartel?" Yaz asked. It had all happened so quickly – the almost-crash, the encounter with the girl, the strange hints about how she apparently knew the Doctor. The Doctor was still none the wiser, however.

"I think so," said Graham, "Should we go help her?"

"No," said the Doctor, "She can handle it."

"Do you know her?" asked Ryan.

"No, though she definitely knows me… we're going to Brighton," she decided, "First a climate change initiative I've never heard of, but now a superhero? And I love superheroes, I'd definitely remember. Let's do what she says."

"Really? I've always wanted to go to Brazil," Ryan persisted.

"I said no. Had a nightmare the last time I tried to get to Rio, anyway, ended up in a drilling operation in Wales. Very bleak. No. We're going to Brighton. And I'm taking these discs, too," she went and picked them up, the four of them, the generators now all working, "Come on. And one of you Google this Lightning Girl – see what's online about her." Yaz took it upon herself to do so, while Ryan continued to daydream about Brazil, getting out her phone. The superhero did have a Twitter, too, and millions of other hits. Online articles dissecting her behaviour, her actions, her psychology, trying to understand how she had her powers. There were many pro-Lightning Girl advocates online, who genuinely believed in her and all the good things she did, while many others derided her for being what they called an 'undocumented Manifest', or dangerous, saying it was only a matter of time until she made a mistake or got too excited about her power, and they needed deterrents, a way to control her.

"Well, some people love her, some hate her," said Yaz, scrolling through Chrome as they re-entered the TARDIS, "Hmm… there's this one guy, CEO of some company-"

"CyTech?" asked the Doctor.

"No, um, it's called… Prometheus," she said, after scrolling down a webpage.

"Prometheus? Bit pretentious."

"Guy's called Will Smiles, he's barely forty," she said, "Hates her. Obsessed with finding 'The Lightning Girl's Kryptonite.' Reckons she's dangerous."

"A wannabe Lex Luthor for a wannabe Superman," the Doctor mused.

"I wouldn't say wannabe, she saves people all the time – she really is like something out of a comic book," said Yaz, "She even stops to take selfies." She showed the Doctor a bunch of photos from a page titled 'Top 20 Lightning Girl Photo Ops' which featured her hanging out with various people. Always masked, it seemed nobody knew her identity. There were whole online forums dedicated to trying to unravel her mystery – accent experts who had apparently deduced that she was from the East Coast of America, but they couldn't be sure where because of distortions with the electronic mask she wore. People measuring her height and build from photographs, claiming that various celebrities were her, that she was actually a particularly short man or even a boy pretending to be a girl to avert suspicion, that she was multiple different people, or even that she was an advanced robot – built by CyTech, interestingly. "She was right, she's definitely famous in this decade. There's a whole segment of BBC News dedicated to her called Spark Watch. Nobody knows how she does it, or who she is." She gave Ryan her phone when he came nosing for information.

"I wonder why she wears that cool mask," he said, looking at the photos.

"To hide her identity, because she's a superhero," Yaz reiterated, taking her phone back. The Doctor was getting the TARDIS ready to leave, running hither and thither around the console, flicking switches, hitting buttons – the usual affair. "But why would she tell us to go to Brighton? If she's American? What's in Brighton? Apart from loads of gay people."

"There's an aquarium," said Graham.

"Yes! Let's go to the aquarium," said the Doctor, "I love a good aquarium. Not SeaWorld, though, for obvious reasons." The TARDIS jerked as it took off, Yaz going to lean on the console as she continued trawling social media. Twitter was full of fan-drawings of the Lightning Girl, as well as her own specialist hashtag – #lightspeed – invoked whenever somebody had a problem they needed help with. Rescuing a cat from a tree, assembling flat-pack furniture, saving the victims of a nasty earthquake, defusing a hostage situation, it was all fair game. She did everything, no crime too big or too small.

"I think she's genuine," said Yaz, "Seems like she really wants to help people."

"And you think vigilante justice is the way to go about that? You're a police officer," said Graham, "The police are meant to help people."

"Seems like she gets there a lot faster than the police," said Yaz, "I can't lie – if I had powers, I'd probably want to be a superhero, too. Do you think it's the suit?"

"Almost definitely," said the Doctor, "Technology like that shouldn't belong in this time period – and she says she knows me… and she knew what the TARDIS was… she could be from the future, I suppose, and that's where she got her paraphernalia."

"Maybe she'll come and tell us herself," said Graham, "Could be why she told us to go to Brighton. Maybe she lives there."

"Please – a superhero? In Brighton?" Ryan asked, "She'll be from somewhere cool, like New York, or Gotham."

"Gotham's not real," said Yaz.

"Isn't it?"

"No," said the Doctor, "But the name 'Gotham' does derive from an old 20th Century nickname given to New York. Even weirder is that comic book Gotham City is supposed to be in New Jersey. I always thought it reminded me most of Pittsburgh. City of bridges, and all that."

"What about where Superman comes from?"

"Krypton?"

"No, New York."

"Metropolis," said the Doctor, "Which is based on Toronto, originally."

"Maybe she's from Toronto, then," he shrugged.

"Or Brighton," Graham reiterated.

"She's got an American accent!"

"Maybe it's fake," Yaz shrugged.

"It is an easy accent to copy," said the Doctor, then she said, "Howdy, y'all," and beamed.

"Never do that again," said Yaz.

"It was good!"

"No, it wasn't," said Ryan. The TARDIS jolted again, and the central column stopped whirring.

"I've always wanted to go to Brighton," said Yaz.

"Why?" Ryan asked her, "It's full of middle-class toffs."

"Not everyone there can be middle-class," she said.

"Statistically speaking, it would be unlikely that everyone in an entire, major city is middle-class," the Doctor added, parking up and then running around the console to get to the doors. She opened them onto the seaside at twilight, a navy-orange sky burning across the electric lights of the vibrant coast. It was hot and muggy, but the crowds were middling at that time of day. Too late for shopping, but too early for the nightlife to kick in. "Early evening on a Friday. Going by the smell, I'd say… September. Late. Maybe the 26th? Somewhere in that area." As per usual, nobody noticed the TARDIS, nor the four weirdos who stepped out of it. At first glance, 2060s Brighton wasn't much different to 2010s Sheffield. Of course it was nicer, there was less graffiti, more tourists, it didn't smell as bad – and the ocean views were gorgeous even in the dark with the neon pier floating on the sea – but it wasn't exactly the futuristic utopia of sci-fi films. She couldn't see any flying cars or atmosphere-brushing skyscrapers. It was almost disappointing.

"Is this it?" she asked.

"It's only the 2060s," said the Doctor, "What were you expecting, Blade Runner?"

"There's a kid on a hoverboard!" Ryan exclaimed, pointing at a teenage boy across the street. He really was on a hoverboard, "That's so cool! Can I get a hoverboard?"

"There's one on the TARDIS somewhere, I'll find it for you later. I used to compete, came third, globally," the Doctor said, walking, "Would've been first in a different competition, but I got disqualified for not wearing a helmet. Health and safety gone mad. Do you know who I blame for that? Tony Hawk."

"You've met Tony Hawk?"

"Taught him everything he knows," she said, "When he did that 900, I was the one who persuaded the judges to give him another chance and break regulation time. I said Tone, listen, it's all about centre of gravity. After that, he landed – hang on a second." She stopped dead in the street, turning serious when she spotted something through a window; a television mounted on the wall inside a glass-fronted greasy spoon. Without a word, she pushed open the door and marched right over to the diner counter, the others following suit, and stared at the screen. "Scuse me," she called to a young man behind the till, waiting for orders, but it wasn't busy at that time, "Could you turn up the volume on the TV?"

"Are you going to order something?" he asked.

"Chocolate milk would be great. Anyone else for chocolate milk?" she asked the others. They shook their heads. "Just one for me." He sighed and took out a remote from behind the desk, unmuting the TV so that they could hear what was going on. It was a news item, the six o'clock news, and a severe-looking anchor was interviewing a young man in his twenties who looked more than a little uncomfortable. The summary at the bottom of the screen read: CyTech Addresses Xboost Epidemic: Second Manifest Crisis Looms.

"…not sure that 'epidemic' is necessarily the right word," the young man said, fidgeting and avoiding looking into the cameras. "Xboost has only been found circulating London and the surrounding areas."

"You don't think the existence of Xboost poses a danger to British citizens?" the anchor asked.

"Nobody's forcing anybody to take it. I don't see how it's more or less dangerous than any other street drug – and addiction is a societal problem, not an individual one."

"You don't believe drugs need to be tackled head-on?"

"Well, no, not necessarily."

"You're in favour of recreational drug use?"

"I have a lot of empathy and concern for people who struggle with addiction – it isn't a thing people ought to go to prison for, though."

"You don't think drug dealers should be punished? Drug pushers?"

"I'm not sure that this is entirely related to the problem of Xboost."

"Now you admit that Xboost is a problem?"

"People scaremongering about it is a problem."

The clerk cleared his throat, "Your chocolate milk?"

"Great, thanks," said the Doctor, holding out her sonic screwdriver to the electronic till.

"What's that?" he asked.

"New gadget. CyTech prototype," she said, lying. He shook his head and let her use the sonic to essentially steal the milk, tricking the machine into thinking she had sent it a legitimate payment.

"My point is," the awkward man resumed, "It's been fifty years since the first Manifest Crisis – the only Manifest Crisis to date, which was made a crisis by the inhumane response of our government. It's about time people stopped being looked at like they're dangerous because of genetics. How different is it really to homophobia or racism?"

"Nobody chooses to be gay or black, Mr Mitchell, but people do choose to take Xboost."

"There are plenty of genetic Manifests out there who inherited the mutation and wouldn't dream of taking drugs, and even if they did take drugs, who are we to turn our backs on them if the government threatens to re-open the concentration camps?"

"Concentration camps is an exaggeration, don't you think?"

"What would you have me say, Steve? Prison camps? Internment camps? Genetically discriminatory prisons? Silverstorm Penitentiary for the Terminally Deranged?"

"Nobody is talking about re-opening facilities like Silverstorm."

"It seems to be the way the conversation is going," he said, "People shouldn't be so frightened of Manifests."

"I don't get it, what's a 'manifest', what are they talking about?" Yaz asked the Doctor, slurping her chocolate milk through a straw and hanging on every word the young man said.

"He's getting off-topic, to be honest," said the Doctor.

"People give him too much shit," said the waiter, now paying attention as well, "My cousin would be homeless if it wasn't for Adam Mitchell."

"Really?" the Doctor asked, surprised.

"Yeah, but she found housing in one of CyTech's developments for the underprivileged. The underclass. CyTech has done more to tackle wealth disparity and homelessness than the bloody government if you ask me." The Doctor mused upon this.

"But Manifests are dangerous," the anchor implored, "Look at the chaos the Lightning Girl causes. Don't you think she sets a bad precedent? Influences young people at-risk of taking Xboost into seeking it out, so that they might develop powers of their own?"

"Did he say powers?" Ryan asked.

"Personally, I don't think the Lightning Girl poses any kind of danger. She's saved innumerable lives in the last few years."

"And what do you think about Will Smiles' campaign to build a deterrent for the Lightning Girl?"

"I think it's horrific, and I can't understand why Smilson would ever want to neuter her."

"Is it true that the Lightning Girl works for CyTech?"

He almost laughed, "No, not at all. As far as I'm aware, she doesn't work for anybody."

"But the technology she uses in her suit-"

"I can't pretend that I'm privy to who the Lighting Girl is or where she gets her equipment, but it's nothing to do with CyTech. As you know, all of CyTech's accounts and my personal account are public. We're one-hundred-per cent transparent about where all the company's income goes, and that transparency is completely voluntary because I believe people have a right to know what corporations are doing. We certainly aren't funding a vigilante superhero, as much of a fan of her as I am. I support her in an empathetic capacity."

"While we've got you here, Mr Mitchell, do you mind answering some questions about your own status as a Manifest? There are people who say that you're only so impassioned about them because you are one yourself, overlooking all the danger they might pose."

"I'm obviously already in a position of privilege and power, advocating for Manifests not to be rounded up, monitored, documented and spied on won't change anything for me, but it will change things for the people born Manifests spending their lives terrified of being locked in one of these governmental concentration camps. Disbanding the HCC was supposed to stop things like this from happening-"

"You don't think comparing the government's actions over Manifests to the Nazi regime is counter-productive?"

"Counter-productive to what? I don't think making more Manifests with Xboost is in anybody's best interest but talking about screening embryos for the Manifest gene is eugenics. The discussion now consists almost entirely of attempts to justify discrimination, and it's wrong whether they took Xboost willingly or were born with the latent gene. I'd also like to point out the new 'M.O.C.' initiative."

"A lot of people are very supportive of the M.O.C.s."

"Prometheus is in support of them," he said, "These things – 'Manifest Observation Complexes' – are essentially privately-owned and operated, state-sanctioned laboratories, using humans as test subjects against their will."

"And what do you think Prometheus is aiming for?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure Smilson doesn't have the public interest at heart when it comes to illegally incarcerating innocent Manifests."

"You don't think that Prometheus manufacturing a cure for meningitis has the public interest at heart?"

The young man grew even more annoyed at this, "Maybe if Smilson actually made the meningitis drug available through the NHS for free, instead of charging people extortionate private healthcare prices and filing lawsuits against anyone he thinks has infringed upon his immoral patent. Those drugs should not be withheld."

"A company can't operate if it gives things away for free."

"Any company that lets people, babies and children most of all, die of disease like meningitis, isn't one that should be allowed to operate. If they have the means to help, they should. If CyTech manufactured drugs, we wouldn't sell them for a penny." Things apparently got too controversial from there-on, because the anchor appeared to take a message in his earpiece and then wrap things up very quickly. The awkward man, who had proven himself surprisingly articulate, didn't seem surprised.

"He has a point, about Prometheus," said the waiter, muting the television again, "I heard that Adam Mitchell lives in a one-bedroom flat in Cambridge somewhere just down the road from the HQ. Decades ago he had a mansion, but something happened to him that made him give it all away."

"Something like what?" the Doctor asked, intrigued.

"Who knows? There's a theory that he met some girl, but no one knows who this girl is. And I've always reckoned he was gay. At least, I hope he's gay."

"He was wearing a wedding ring in the interview," Yaz pointed out.

"And, um, what do you think of this Lightning Girl? Is she connected to CyTech?" the Doctor continued.

"Who knows. But I think if Adam Mitchell had his own personal superhero on CyTech's payroll, he wouldn't keep it a secret."

"Is he the CEO?" Ryan asked.

"Do you live under a rock? He was the world's youngest billionaire, like, half a century ago."

"But now he gets paid the same as all of his employees?"

"Yep."

"Wow. Wasn't expecting that from him… oh, look, I've finished my milk," said the Doctor, "Thanks for that. Great milk. We'll have some chips. Chips for everybody. Go sit down."

"Sit down? Why?" Ryan asked.

"I have to explain something very heavy and complicated to you all, and you won't want empty stomachs," she said seriously. Confused, they did as she bade while the Doctor tricked the machine with the sonic again. She joined them shortly, sitting down next to Ryan at a table and tapping her foot restlessly.

"What were they talking about? On the news?" Ryan implored.

"Manifests," said the Doctor, "People who have superpowers."

"There are people who have superpowers in the future!?" Yaz whispered, "Then why is the Lightning Girl the only superhero?"

"Not in your future, no," she said seriously.

"I've never heard of this 'world's youngest billionaire' lad, either," said Graham, "Or his company, CyTech. And how is he 'half a century' old?"

"That's Adam Mitchell, I knew him once, a very long time ago. Had to boot him off the TARDIS for trying to still sensitive technology from the very distant future. I never much liked him. My friend I was with, Rose, she thought he was pretty."

Yaz shrugged, "He's alright, I suppose."

The Doctor gawked at her, "Eurgh! Really, Yaz? I thought better of you than this."

"Do you think that stuff about him having a secret wife is true? How can you have a wife nobody's ever seen if you're that famous?" Yaz wondered.

"I've got a few ideas," said the Doctor. She continued to think, muttering to herself. She didn't say another word until the waiter brought over their chips, at which point she began devouring them as quickly as she could. It seemed like she was the one who didn't want to have an empty stomach. "Alright. First things first, we've accidentally landed in a parallel universe."

"A what?"

"How?"

"They're real?"

The Doctor answered every question in turn, "Parallel universe, an alternate world to our own, almost identical except for a few minor details. Details like the existence of these Manifests, among… others. The Manifests are created via a genetic mutation; you take a drug and get a superpower at random. Adam Mitchell is in his seventies, I think, and he's cryokinetic."

"What's that?" Graham asked.

"Controls ice," said Ryan, "Like Elsa. Or Frozone."

"Not as cool as Frozone," said the Doctor, "But, along those lines. He's cryogenically frozen, that's why he still looks young. Doesn't age, but I don't think he heals, either.

"Like Walt Disney?"

"That's a myth, he was never frozen, he put his brain in a big Mickey Mouse mech – watch out for that, still in your futures'." That was an alarming titbit. "In our universe, Adam ended up going mad after I got rid of him, started kidnapping people, friends of mine. But he is a genius, or so he says. I'd also wager he does know this Lightning Girl. But where there are two Adam Mitchells, there are two of everything else."

"What do you mean?" asked Graham, "Like, evil versions of people?"

"Not evil, just different. That girl, the Lightning Girl, said something about only knowing one female Doctor, and it wasn't me," she said, "And the thing is, I know what universe we're in, and I've met this alternate, female Doctor she's talking about."

"So, it's you, but not you?" Yaz frowned.

"Physically, in this universe, I regenerated into a different form. I'm still 'the Doctor', but not quite."

"I don't get it," said Graham, "Wouldn't we notice if we went into a different universe?"

"Not necessarily. Once upon a time, the TARDIS was completely dead for hours after I accidentally dropped into a parallel world. But there was this thing – an event – that made all the infinite multiverses uniform and able to be traversed without, you know, imploding. Now you can walk between them in certain places, especially this one and ours. They're not completely separate…" She picked up a napkin and took out a pen, drawing two straight, parallel lines, "These are your regular parallel universes, running alongside each other, never connecting. The gap between them is called the Void, or sometimes Hell, depending on your preference. Suffice it to say, you don't want to go through hell, not literally. It's so empty nothing can survive, not even the laws of physics.

"But our home universe and this one we're in right now – which we could really do with coming up with some catchy nicknames for – are a bit more like…" Now she turned over the napkin and drew two more lines, both zigzagging and crossing over each other. "See? The Void is still there, but there are certain intersections where you can pass from one to the other seamlessly, without even realising. That's what's happened to us, now."

"Right… but what's the whole thing about there being two of you?"

"Only two women, that I know of. Me, and the one who lives here. That Lightning Girl knows me, the other me, and she told us to go to Brighton. I'd hazard a guess that this other version of me is in Brighton somewhere. And where the other Doctor is, the other Clara won't be far behind."

"Your old friend?" Yaz asked. The Doctor did not talk often about her old friends, usually mentioning them only in passing, throwaway lines, never explaining in-depth. She kept shovelling chips into her mouth.

"Yes. Brighton is exactly the kind of place Clara would be, and the Doctor won't leave her side." Yaz didn't bother to point out the incongruity of that statement; if she knew the Doctor wouldn't leave Clara's side, then why had she ever left her version of Clara's side?

"Why do we need to find another Doctor, though?" Ryan implored.

"See if she knows anything about whoever's trying to sabotage the rain machines. And I don't know, I haven't seen her for a long time, we could have a girly catch-up. See what's what, why she's spending time in Brighton. I wasn't very friendly the last time I saw her. Then again, I don't remember her being too friendly, either…" An unfriendly version of the Doctor sounded like an anomaly. "There's something going on here, something with that Lightning Girl, with Adam Mitchell, and these Manifests. If she told us to find me, she must have a reason."

"So what do we need to do?" said Graham.

"I'm a notoriously hard to pin-down person, but Clara's always been more grounded. To find me, we find her, and if I know anything about Clara – and trust me, I do – we need to search the gay bars."