Chapter 17:

POV: Mara

Date: December 9, 2023

Dad's reunion with Wilfred Mott, Donna's grandfather, was a happy one to say the least, but I was too preoccupied to take part in the conversation. My Quo senses were tingling. I could see the golden threads of the timeline beginning to converge around us, and I felt a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. I had been right before; a storm was coming. The tension in my shoulders tightened at that thought. The last time I'd felt this particular sense of dread, our family had been separated across dimensions, and my parents had never seen each other again. Not when their timelines were in sync, anyway.

My eyes focused on Jenny and Dad as they reminisced with Wilfred. If I lost them now, I wasn't sure my hearts would be able to take it. I felt so tired, and I had been so lost before we had come to this universe. I had been so lost without them. I didn't think I could survive if I had to go on in a world without them now.

Dad's eyes met mine, and worry flashed across his face. "What's wrong?"

I blinked and shook my head. "Nothing." What I wanted to tell him, though, was that we should run. Though I didn't feel the curse of the Quo as acutely as Mum had, I would still get flashes of things to come sometimes. Though the picture wasn't clear now, every instinct I had was telling me that we shouldn't be here. That something was very, very wrong. But I couldn't tell what, yet, and I couldn't tell Dad or Jen to run before I knew which direction to go.

My ears perked up at what Wilfred said next. "Yeah, well, I knew it. I never lost faith. I said, he won't let us down—he'll come back and save us."

Dad's eyes snapped back to him. "Save us from what?"

Donna glanced around us. "And where's the family? Where's my Rose? Are they alright?"

Her grandfather waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah, they're fine. They're safe. I've told them to bunker down. I'll keep watch, I said. You save yourselves."

Dad's brow furrowed. "Why? Is there something wrong?"

"I can feel it," I said. Their eyes all snapped to me. "Something is wrong here. Can't you sense it, Dad?"

He went to answer, but our attention was drawn away at the sound of shouting. "That's your fault!" a man cried as he gestured to a food cart that was engulfed in flame.

"Mara, what's going on?" Jenny asked.

I shook my head as more people began fighting each other all around us. "I have no idea, but whatever it is, it's powerful. It's made it so the timelines are converging into a fixed point."

Wilfred nodded. "It's everybody," he explained. "They're all going mad. Listen, Doctor, you and your girls have got to do something. The whole world's coming to an end!"

I jumped as high above our heads an airplane screeched as it fell to Earth. There was already smoke billowing out from its windows. "Quickly!" Dad shouted as it crashed a few miles off. "Come!"

Donna stayed back with her grandfather as Jenny and I ran after Dad. In the street, the chaos was continuing. People were shouting and fighting over the smallest of things. My eyes roamed the street looking for a pattern. And that's when I noticed him.

He was a tall man wearing a suit and top hat, and holding a cane as he danced serenely through the streets. He seemed to relish the chaos as it poured out around him, and he smiled. I narrowed my eyes and marched over to him. The power I had sensed earlier was seemingly centered on him.

"Are you to blame for this?" I asked.

His smile widened as he opened his eyes to look at me. "Ah, mademoiselle, so nice to make your acquaintance." Before I could stop him, he grabbed one of my hands to give it a kiss. His French accent was clear in his words. "Je suis terrible, no? But perhaps the lovely lady will dance avec moi." He wrapped me up in his arms and began waltzing us through the street. "Oo-la-la!"

I bristled against his touch and glanced over when I felt Dad's presence rush up beside me. "Sorry," he said as he pulled me away from the strange man. "Her dance card is full."

"He's the center," I hissed as we moved back across the street toward Donna and Wilfred. I turned back to look at the man, but he was gone. "Where did he go?"

Dad opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by UNIT armored trucks turning onto the street. As soon as they had parked, a soldier stepped out and gave us a salute. "Attention, the Doctor! Attention, the Doctor's daughters! Stay where you are. You are under UNIT control."

Jenny raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Oh, yeah? And what does that mean?"

Another man stepped out of the truck. "Doctor? I'm Colonel Ahmed of UNIT squad five. If you and your daughters could come with us…"

A smile broke out over mine and Jenny's faces. "Fashion-forward Ahmed!" Jenny shouted. "I see you're still with this riff-raff, then."

Dad glanced back at Donna, who rushed to join us. She pointed at Wilfred. "Get him to safety, alright? Never mind about us, I want my granddad safe. You got that?"

Ahmed nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. We'll keep your family safe."

We were all rushed into a vehicle then and driven to a helicopter pad. "Why's everyone acting so hostile?" Jenny demanded as we were herded out of the car.

"It would be better to allow the commander to explain," Ahmed said as he waved us toward an already running helicopter. "That way. Your TARDIS is already on the way to headquarters."

We were flown to the top of the UNIT tower that we had stood in with Mum only days ago. I swallowed down a large lump in my throat at that thought and felt both Dad and Jenny send out a wave of love my way. I smiled at them both gratefully.

"Oh, here comes trouble," Donna said with a laugh as Shirley rolled toward us.

She chuckled. "I could say the same about you."

"Kate, what's going on?" I asked. "What's happened to everyone?"

Kate sighed heavily, and her shoulders slumped. She waved us inside. "Come see," she said. "I just don't know what to do, Doctor. I've fought them all. Robots and insects and Yetis and clones…but what do we do when it's the human race we're up against?"

A redheaded woman walked up with a tablet in her hands. She smiled at Dad. "That's for you."

He gave her a brilliant smile back. It was easy to see the joy that seeing her sparked within him even without our connection. "Mel! Good to see you." He pulled her in for a hug.

She laughed. "And you, Doctor."

He nodded. "We'll catch up later. For now, what have we got?" He tapped a few buttons as readings came out on the screen. "Are these worldwide? Because I'm going to need all the statistics."

Mel glanced at Donna, Jenny, and I. "I used to be like you three," she said. "I was one of his companions."

"We aren't his companions," I corrected her gently. "At least, not Jenny and I. We're his daughters."

She raised her eyebrows. "His what?" She looked at Donna for confirmation.

Donna nodded. "They're telling the truth. Their mum was like us, though. At least in the beginning."

"Stations!" Kate's call interrupted our conversation. "Gold protocols, the Doctor is in the room. Report."

Shirley tapped a few buttons. "Two days ago, there was an increase in violence worldwide—the same increase in every country, and all rising at exactly the same rate."

"Basically, every single human being thinks they're right and won't be told otherwise," Kate explained.

"That explains the arguing on the street, but what about you lot?" Jenny asked. "You're not fighting the way they all were down there."

Kate rotated her arm to show off an armband that she and the rest of the UNIT staff were wearing. "We call it the Zeedex. It disrupts the brain, flattens the spike." She pointed toward the scan that showed how everyone's brain pattern had spiked as the violence had broken out. "Keeps everything calm."

"Is that what happens if you take it off?" Dad asked. "That brain pattern?"

Kate nodded. "Every time. We've tested it under every condition we could think of. Each time, without fail, that's the pattern that gets produced, and the result is the same. Chaos."

"But how is it affecting everyone?" Donna asked. "Is it some sort of beam?"

"No," Mel said. "It happens naturally. It's generated from inside the brain."

"But not me," Donna observed. "Not Granddad, and not you three." She waved a hand toward Jenny, Dad, and I.

Mel shook her head. "No, nor me. I'm wearing a Zeedex just in case, but I've been fine. Well…no more opinionated than usual."

Jenny chuckled. "You'd have to be opinionated to be a companion. Dad has a type."

"Maybe long-term travel in the TARDIS puts you out of sync," Dad observed.

Donna shifted. "But…can't you give everyone a Zeedex?"

Kate snorted. "Imagine trying that. Look." She nodded her head toward the screen as a tech pulled up a recent video from the news.

"They are using this to control us and monitor us and microwave our brains," a commentator stated passionately. "I am anti-Zeedex!"

"Can we filter this wavelength?" Dad asked. "Lose the background noise?"

Shirley nodded as she fiddled with the controls. "Gives us a strong coherent wave in the Seizure Focus—peaking seven times."

Dad ran a hand through his hair. "So, this started two days ago…but why then?" He looked at me. "You said the timelines were converging. You thought it had something to do with that man we saw…why did you say that?"

"It's…it's my instincts I inherited from Mum," I said while trying to skirt around the truth of my heritage in front of the watchful eyes of UNIT. "I could sense the power coming from him, and I could see the timelines in my head. Can't you?"

"Not as clearly as you," Dad said, and cocked his head as the wheels began to turn in his mind. "So, the question is…what happened two days ago?"

"Exactly," Kate said. "We've been looking for a trigger, and there's this." She nodded toward the screen. "The KOSAT five satellite launched by South Korea—activated two days ago. It was the final link in the chain. The world is now 100% online. From the highest mountain to the deepest valley on Earth, everyone is connected."

"But KOSAT is clean," Shirley interjected. "We've checked and double-checked. It's not like the old Archangel Network. There's nothing hiding in that signal."

"So, what could it be?" Jenny asked. "For the first time, everyone has access to the internet…so what could be sent through it?"

Donna narrowed her eyes at the screen readout of the seven peaks. "What if it's a tune?"

"A song?" I asked.

She nodded. "Now, I know we've only got minutes to live, but give me a second, because I spent six months teaching my daughter how to play the recorder 'till she said 'This is not who I am.' And that was the start of a whole other conversation, believe you me, but…if you look at these seven peaks like this…" She rearranged the readout on the screen. "Maybe it's music."

Mel nodded. "A classic arpeggio. Middle C an octave higher." She began to sing the melody then.

"Oh," Kate said with a scrunched face.

"What?" Dad asked. "What is it?"

"Sing that again," she said.

Mel complied, and all of the humans in the room—including Donna—flinched. "I know that tune," Donna muttered.

Shirley nodded in agreement. "I know that from somewhere. What are the notes?"

Mel tapped her screen a few times. "C, E, G, C, G, E, C. It's a musical palindrome…but it's just a straightforward arpeggio. Everyone knows arpeggios. It's a basic tune. So, the question is…why are we all reacting to this one?"

"I'm not," Dad said, and glanced at me. "Mara? Jenny?"

I shook my head. "Doesn't mean a thing to me."

"Me either," Jenny said.

"Just the humans, then," Dad mused.

"Look at this," Shirley said, and brought up old footage of a very creepy looking marionette doll. It was giggling in the same pattern. "I've found the exact same notes."

I shivered. "That is profoundly creepy."

"What is it?" Jenny asked.

"Stooky Bill," Shirley answered. "The first face to ever appear on television. Put there by John Logie Baird himself.

"But I've never seen him before," Donna argued. "So how do I know that laugh?"

"It's the very first image has been hiding in every screen ever since…well, the beginning of screens. Sneaking into your head, carrying a wave, and waiting." Dad paced the floor a bit to help him think.

"But why not Jenny or I?" I asked. "At least for me—I was on Earth the first sixteen years of my life. How come I don't react the same way everyone else does?"

"Excellent question, Mara," Dad said. "Might have something to do with both of your genetic makeups. With your telepathic abilities, you may just be blocking it out on instinct."

"But how could it be hiding in the wavelength of the screen?" Shirley asked. "I'd think we would have noticed that before now."

Dad scoffed. "What, because you're so clever? Maybe Stooky Bill's a lot smarter than you. Imagine, if he burnt himself into television itself and every picture ever since…every single one." He moved around the room swiftly and sonicked each screen he passed. One by one, they all showed the same image of the laughing doll.

I shivered and stepped closer to Jenny. She reached over to wrap a protective arm around my waist. "I feel it, too," she told me silently.

Dad came to stand on my other side. "Screen after screen after screen—and every type of screen. Everyone and everywhere, he's inside them all. Two days ago, he finally connected worldwide. Branding his giggle into your brains until he had enough screens to be complete. Since the very first existence of television, laughing at the human race and driving you mad."

I let out a relieved breath when the screens faded back to normal. "That man…do you think he did this somehow?" I asked.

Dad's face was stony, and I could feel his deep dread in the pit of my stomach. "I've got a memory," he said. "I think something's coming back…after a very long time." He turned his dark eyes on Kate. "But it's not only the giggle. Don't go thinking you've got an excuse. Humanity might be clever and bright and brilliant, but it's also savage and vain and relentless. All the anger out there on the street—the lies, the righteousness—that's human. That's you. Using your intelligence to be stupid. Poisoning the world. And hating each other? You've never needed any help with that. But today something else is using your worst attributes—playing with you like toys."

I swallowed and took his hand. I looked to Kate. "Can we take the satellite down?"

She nodded. "All missiles are on lockdown, but we've got the Galvanic Beam."

"What range?" Dad asked.

"We can pick off a pebble on the moon," Kate answered. "Trouble is—taking out a South Korean satellite will have international consequences, so I've been waiting for permission. All world leaders are being affected by the giggle."

"You have my permission," Dad said.

"He was named president of the world while you were gone," Jenny muttered to Donna, who snorted.

As Kate began to get the beam in order, Dad turned to me. "Is it the Time Lords?" he asked silently. "I thought I sensed something earlier. It could be something much worse than General Hass, but I'm hoping I'm wrong."

I shook my head. "It's not him, I'd know. It's…it's darker. It's that man."

He nodded and kissed my temple. "Shirley, have we got the exact date that Logie Baird made his transmission?"

Mel glanced at Donna. "Do they do that often? Communicate silently?"

Donna huffed. "Oh, all the time. You get used to it."

I chuckled. "Sorry, Mel." I turned my attention back to Dad as Mel rushed to help him. The point we were heading towards moved ever closer, and the dread in my stomach deepened. Nothing good could come of this day—of that I was certain.