Falls the Shadow (3 page)

‘The lights are down,’ Ace pointed out. She shivered. ‘And the heating.’

‘Yes, but the internal gravity’s on. We can live without light. We can’t live without the shell that keeps the vortex out. Or the failsafe that stops the TARDIS from erasing itself. And the heart, the basic life and mind of the TARDIS is being sustained.’

‘Okay, it’s a black‐
out, but we’re alive. Why?’

‘I don’t think,’ Bernice began slowly, glancing between Ace and the Doctor, ‘there’s anything wrong with the TARDIS. This is external. We’ve been nobbled.’

‘Right,’ the Doctor continued. ‘We’re still in flight. There’s an external force that’s moving us under its own steam, to its own destination.’

‘Doctor,’ Benny murmured.

‘You’re saying it’s moving us?’ Ace queried, ignoring Benny who was trying to catch her eye. ‘It must’ve bloody massive energy reserves, right?’

The Doctor shook his head vigorously. Manic light gleamed in his pupils.

‘Massive is an understatement. It would have to be the equal to the Eye of Harmony, at least. Which means,’ he fixed Ace with a steely glare, ‘when we land, I want you to be polite to
everyone
you meet.’

‘What? You think I wouldn’t?’ Ace retorted, feeling reassured enough to try some honest sarcasm.

‘Fascinating though this all is,’ Benny purred, ‘I think the time rotor’s trying to attract our attention.’

Ace looked.

There was a small light burning in the heart of the column, flickering weakly like a dying candle. Ace automatically glanced upwards, at the lights set on the walls. These remained dead. She looked back at the console. The light there had grown noticeably larger and brighter. Too bright to be the normal column lights.

‘We’ve been reconnected?’ suggested Benny.

‘No,’ the Doctor whispered, almost hypnotized by the light that tore deeper into the TARDIS core. ‘No,’ he repeated, lending more weight to the syllable.

Then he went mad.

His fists slammed on the console top. Fingers smashed against all the buttons in reach. Levers were pulled, switches flicked, dials sent reeling, empty spaces thumped until they were dented. Fury was carved onto his face. Pure, near‐
bestial rage, caught in the now blazing light from the time rotor.

‘This is my ship!’ he screamed, staring into the glare. ‘My ship!’

The light screamed too. The delicate rods and instruments inside were drowned out by its brilliance. As the light grew more intense it sang. A simple, high‐
pitched harmonic, radiating out of the column, across the room. Ace found it almost soothing; Benny turned away, lost to the turbulence around her. The Doctor it drove into deeper fury. He still mouthed the same anger, but it came out silent, washed away by the music of the light. His face was caught in the golden‐
white light; he might have been weeping. Ace called to him, but even she couldn’t hear.

The light seeped from the console and burned into the room. Ace flung her arms in front of her face and turned away, the image of the Doctor still staring into the core of the agonizing light caught inside her eyelids.

The music reached a crescendo. The console room bleached out in a holocaust of white.

The shape punctured the universe, flooding into the gaps between atoms. The cosmos retaliated, forcing back the intruder. The shape shimmered in and out of existence, fighting to maintain its grip on the universe. Gradually it solidified.

The lights were drawn by the sound more than anything else. The sound of ancient engines forcing themselves to make one more jump into reality, the shrieking pressure, the violent crescendo.

The lights contemplated the shape. A tall blue box. A hundred intricate angles that gave it a unique shape. A light flashing feebly on the roof. The words over the doorway: POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX.

Not fooled by appearance, the lights saw it as it really was.

Time machine.

Gallifreyan.

TARDIS.

Time Lord.

Renegade.

Doctor!

Satisfied, the lights vanished, spitting and shrieking, into the dark.

Harry Truman stared into the bathroom mirror, hating his reflection. The face that stared back was a patchwork mass of scar tissue and deformity. The face that he had been born with had burned away a long time ago. Truman spent hours searching his reflection for an echo of his lost features. He found none.

He hated the thing in the mirror. He wasn’t alone – most others who had seen it found it repugnant – but Truman’s hate was deepest. He couldn’t have lived with one deformity – here was an army of them! Scabbed, swollen remnants of the original flesh hung loose on the bone. Weals lacerated it, torn out of the face like a freshly ploughed landscape. Occasional flashes of smooth bone jutted through the skin. His eyes bulged out from their hollow, fleshless sockets. Everything he’d feared, every deformity, every nightmare, had been visited on his face. His new features taunted him by adopting the inflections of his once handsome visage. Truman hated it, because it was him.

The deformities were broken by jigsaw patches of smooth, blotchy skin grafts. Plastic surgery had been a mistake. An expensive mistake. At the time it seemed to make sense. Truman was no longer able to concentrate, his new face distracted him – he would spend hours tracing the lines of his features in preference to work. He missed the old familiarity. None of his colleagues or his friends had been comfortable around someone who had to hide behind a mask. Surgery seemed a promising option, but Truman already had an abundance of flesh, and adding more only made things worse. The surgeons were deranged chefs, slapping on more layers onto an already rickety and overworked cake. It hadn’t improved his appearance, it made him poor and disillusioned. Truman stopped caring then. He walked out of his life, giving up everything.

His old life was gone. He had spent a year shedding memories and friends. A half‐
remembered year of homeless wandering, when the scope of his ambition contracted to bare existence. A year of hiding in hostels. A year that wiped away his past. The name of his company was gone. Memories of friends, enemies, neighbours and lovers were reduced to a gallery of meaningless faces and idiosyncrasies. His life became a blur of empty remembrance. Even the circumstances of his accident were forgotten. Only his name and a handful of memories survived.

And his face. Always his face.

It had taken a year before he found anything new. He came to the house out of desperation, drawn by a vague hope of manual work. He found himself with a permanent position in a home that offered stability and isolation. He found himself employed by people whose loyalty, respect and friendship were quickly forthcoming. He wore a mask in their company, but they had a fair idea of what it hid, and they didn’t mind. Truman found a niche and a purpose.

He still hated his face, but it didn’t seem to matter any more.

‘Monster,’ he told his reflection. It smiled bitterly at him.

Reluctantly he replaced his mask. It always took longer than he expected. He had to make sure that it was placed correctly and tight. He had nightmares of it coming off at an awkward moment.

The mask was a simple, wooden plate smoothed into expressionlessness. It covered Truman’s face from his hair to below his chin, incorporating an elaborate mouthpiece which could be removed so that he could eat in public. Tear‐
shaped holes were cut half‐
way up the wood, while a slot was dug over his mouth; enough to see and talk. It was a well‐
ventilated item, cushioned, comfortable. It had been made for him after the accident; one of the few things he had never thrown away. He hated it.

The mask made him faceless. It had no features, beyond the slight curve in the mouth‐
slot forming an inane smile. It was a grotesquely bland thing, like the theatrical masks of comedy and tragedy. Truman’s mask grinned. It stole his self‐
expression, a blessing sometimes. Mostly he found it isolating. No one saw deeper than the vacant grin, the real Harry Truman. The mask made him more of a freak than the twisted mess it hid.

Truman scowled at his reflection. It grinned at him.

‘Bastard,’ he said. The mask, its mouth fixed, said nothing.

The bathroom door opened behind him, dry hinges groaned with the effort of movement. Truman didn’t bother turning. He already saw the newcomer, framed in the doorway in the mirror.

A woman’s features swam on the surface of the glass. A soft face surrounded by a stream of loose hair. Her eyes were inquisitive and dull simultaneously. Her name was Sandra. She had been a part of Truman’s life for two years.

She stared at Truman’s back, smiling uneasily.

‘Harry,’ she said slowly, almost as if she were framing a question. Truman nodded then added a soft ‘yes.’

He turned, nervously straightening his tie. Instinctively, one hand leapt to check that his mask‐
straps were still tight. He smiled widely at her, blissfully aware that she couldn’t see it.

Sandra was one of his employers, his friend. With little age difference between them – and no one else in the house of a remotely similar age capable of holding a sensible conversation – they had been drawn, naturally, together. They respected and liked each other, shared loyalties and confidences. Truman had come to realize that he wanted more. Something more special, deeper, more intimate. Something – and he admitted this grudgingly – more physical. He had admitted none of this to Sandra, certain though he was that she suspected. He was sure that she wouldn’t agree. That even the slightest inference might spoil the friendship they shared.

Truman’s eyes didn’t stray from her. There was little else in the bathroom worth watching. It was a soulless place, its sterility sharpened by the pervasive smell of disinfectant and the persistently crooked mirror. There was nothing in the room that was not purely functional. Sandra’s presence breathed life into the room.

The lights came on. They were an old system of fluorescent tubes, which took several attempts to kick into life. They would flicker wildly (on special occasions they strobed). This time the light was harsh and steady. It flooded the room and Truman got a clear glimpse of his closest friend.

She was smiling dreamily and looking straight at him. Her eyes weren’t properly focused. They never seemed to settle for more than a few seconds – one of her most attractive, irritating mannerisms. She was simply dressed, a bland contrast to the features which Truman adored. Jeans and a sweater: an unexciting combination rendered interesting only by the shape of the body around which they moulded.

‘Shower?’ he asked. Sandra mouthed yes. Instantly, unbidden, a picture of the showering Sandra leapt before Truman’s eyes. The beautiful, perfect image smiled coyly, then vanished. Truman shuddered, blinked and forgot.

‘Ah. I’m just leaving.’

‘Don’t let me hurry you if you’re not done.’ Sandra’s mouth formed a sympathetic smile. She stepped to one side, blocking Truman’s exit. ‘I’ve got all the time in the world.’

Truman stopped sharply, wondering if she registered his unease. She probably couldn’t avoid it, it was written all over his…

Stupid.

Truman relaxed, his confidence returning to him, his eyes locking onto Sandra’s warm features.

‘Have you talked to Justin?’ Sandra asked, eyebrows arching. Truman shook his head.

‘He won’t let me near him,’ he said, picking his words carefully. ‘He sits in the corner and waves fruit at me.’ Sandra looked away suddenly. Truman trailed off. ‘He’s not getting better, is he?’

‘Not much, no.’ She was dismissive. Her back was turned to Truman. Whether she was deliberately avoiding his gaze he couldn’t tell. ‘He doesn’t talk any more, he rambles. He’s as coherent as a three‐
year‐
old, and as predictable. He talks about you a lot. He’s very possessive.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Truman. She didn’t seem to hear.

‘The rest of the time he’s worse.’ Her voice sank into a dull whisper. ‘It is him. It’s the real him, I know it is. But it’s only the worst parts of him. He hates everyone. Hates Dad, this house, himself, you, me…’

‘He doesn’t hate you.’ Secretly Truman hoped otherwise.

‘He does. A part of him does. He still wants me, for all the wrong reasons. He’s quite gentle at times. But that’s all. He’s regressed to the state he was in six months ago. One part of him just wants to… use me, and the other’s a toddler who’ll go to pieces without me. Six months’ work. Bang! Gone in five minutes.’ She slumped on a chair in the corner, shooting Truman a glance packed with pain and suppressed resentment. Her shoulders sank forward and her fringe fell over her face, obscuring her eyes. Truman felt she was crying; he wanted to try and comfort her, but he knew Sandra well enough to check himself. This was anger. Some frustration, mostly anger.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Sandra growled through clenched teeth. ‘It could have been you in there. It’s his fault for wanting to go alone in the first place…’ She broke off suddenly. Angry eyes concentrated on Truman. ‘You want him to go in again!’ Her voice was hushed and powerful. ‘You’re scared of going in alone, and you want him to go with you. You want to know if he’s up to it!’

‘No!’ Truman snapped truthfully, preparing to go on the defensive. But Sandra was already shaking her head.

‘I’m sorry, it’s just so… bloody frustrating. Everything I’ve built in the last six months has just turned into shit. It’s going to take years to get him back to normal. Just when I thought I could let him go…
this
.’ She slumped, not speaking for almost a minute. ‘When do you take the plunge?’

‘In about five minutes,’ Truman said without confidence, though he was heartened by Sandra’s look of apologetic shock. ‘I want to get something on tape for your father. He’s desperate to try it himself. It was all I could do to talk him out of it.’

Sandra nodded.

‘It’d probably kill him,’ she agreed. ‘Look at Justin.’ She checked herself, adding, ‘I’m not building your confidence, am I?’

Truman tapped the side of his mask and smiled ruefully.

‘It can’t do anything to me that hasn’t been done already.’

Sandra smiled and rose from her chair. Her lips pressed briefly against his mouth‐
slot. Beneath the mask, Truman flushed.

‘Good luck.’

‘Thank you,’ Truman replied stiltedly, before scuttling out of the door. It closed behind him. He stood waiting on the landing, his eyes closed. The image he’d seen before flickered under his eyelids. The hateful, enthralling picture of Sandra – smooth, soaking and perfectly naked – slowly, in monochrome, liked a jammed projector playing an endless loop of old film. It was a thrilling image, ultimately unreal. But so
vivid
, like a fragment of an old memory plucked from his subconscious. That was impossible. The woman in the shower was Sandra a good five years younger than she was now. It could only be a confused memory, mixing his past reality with his present fantasy. It wasn’t until he was disturbed by the sound of a key turning in a lock that he turned away.

He did have a job to do.

When leaving the TARDIS Ace always had the feeling of stepping from one world to another; the disconcerting realization that the enormous, complex machine she had left shrank to the shape of a police box on the outside, a police box in the weirdest surroundings.

The TARDIS had materialized with unusual smoothness. The light at the heart of the console waned and snuffed itself out. The room filled with darkness again and the console remained dormant. The doors had hummed with life, swinging open of their own accord.

Faced with little choice, they had left.

Outside the TARDIS it was dark. The air was heavy, thick with the stuffiness of an undisturbed room. Brick rose in the darkness in all directions, picked out by the beam of Ace’s torch. Instinctively she felt they were underground. She associated the claustrophobic sense of pressure with depths. She’d once spent three weeks in a disused mine on a nameless alien world, alone with a small, tense squad of corporate mercenaries. She’d felt the same sense of confinement there. She hadn’t forgotten it.

They were, apparently, alone. Ace was sceptical. She emerged from the TARDIS tensed for a fight. There could be anything waiting to meet them and, though their surroundings seemed deserted, she pressed up against the side of the police box before taking a look round.

Her torch picked out crumbling brickwork or loose wooden partition structures where walls should be. Shining the beam at the ceiling, she saw that it was supported by an undisguised network of wooden beams. The whole thing looked fragile. Thick, ancient cobwebs were strung between the beams, probably all that was holding the ceiling together. Ace lowered the torch slowly, catching a snatch of Benny’s back on its way down. Less cautious than Ace, she was already over by one of the walls, studying the brickwork. Ace ignored her and swung the light to the floor.

The floor was a minefield of strewn wooden beams and crumbling blocks, piled on plain boards. All were covered by a carpet of dust. Ace cast the beam further round the room, picking out more interesting hazards – chunks of plaster, large shards of broken glass, abandoned ornaments. The light brushed over the shattered features of a human face, and Ace tensed before discovering that it was a plaster bust, one side smashed in. Just more rubbish. The room was a store for anything that someone at one time had decided to dispose of. Ace relaxed: there was no sign of anything immediately threatening.

A dark shape moved clumsily round the side of the TARDIS, but this was only the Doctor, locking the TARDIS door. He moved slowly and unsteadily, like a troubled man.

‘There’s no point doing that,’ Ace pointed out. ‘If they can control the TARDIS, they can get the door open.’

‘True.’ the Doctor mumbled, shoving the door to ensure it was locked, ‘but it should make it a little more difficult. Besides, we don’t know who else is out there.’

Typically, he seemed entirely unaffected by the events of the last half‐
hour. He looked healthier than ever, almost refreshed.

‘Anyway,’ he announced, ‘until we find whatever’s brought us here, the TARDIS is out of bounds.’