“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.”
– George MacDonald
She was in dresses when it happened. One of the dummies moved.
Oh, it didn’t move much, and she only saw it out of the corner of her eye. Most people would have likely chalked it up to their own overactive imaginations, but Charley had spent far too much time travelling with the Doctor to take anything for granted.
By the time she turned her head, the figure had stopped moving of course. Charley stepped closer to investigate. It was a standard shop window dummy. No signs of life at all, not even the flutter of a heartbeat. Which meant that if it had moved, it hadn’t done so on its own. Someone–or more likely, something–was controlling it.
“Pardon me,” Charley interrupted a passing sales clerk, a blonde girl barely older than she herself had been when she boarded the R101. “It was…Rose, wasn’t it?”
Rose stopped, offering her a small smile. “Yeah. You’re the new girl, right? Charlotte.”
“Call me Charley,” she corrected with an answering smile. “Look, I know it’s my first day and I’ve no right whatsoever to be making any sort of demands, but would you mind terribly keeping an eye on things for me for a moment? I really must make a telephone call.”
“Sure, go on,” Rose answered.
With a quick but heartfelt thank you, Charley ducked into the back and dug out her mobile. It had taken nearly a year living in this century before she finally gave in and got one, but as it was increasingly difficult to find a public telephone when needed – even of the red, non-time-travelling variety – she really hadn’t much choice.
“Brigadier?” Charley spoke as soon as the other end of the line was picked up. “It’s Charley.”
“Miss Pollard,” Sir Alastair greeted her. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s regarding that matter at Henrick’s department store. You can tell Benton he was absolutely right, there is something odd going on.”
“Shouldn’t you be placing this call to your superiors, then?” he asked, amused.
Charley rolled her eyes, even though he couldn’t see it. Granted, she didn’t know much of anything about how UNIT had functioned during the Brigadier’s time, but under the present chain of command it was far too likely to shoot first and ask questions later. This inspired her more often than not to do her own threat assessment before actually bringing anything to their attention, even if they were her employers. “In good time. But first, I had wanted your opinion.”
She could almost see the old man snap to attention at the other end of the line. “I’m listening.”
Casting a quick glance around to be sure she was alone, Charley dropped her voice and quickly recounted what she’d seen. When she’d finished, she asked, “Well?”
“Oh dear,” was the rueful reply.
“So then it is something you’ve encountered before.”
“Indeed,” he agreed grimly. “It sounds rather like an Auton.”
Charley frowned. The name didn’t ring a bell, but she’d encountered so many monsters on her travels with the Doctor that after a while, they all began to run together. “What exactly is an Auton?”
“Dashed difficult to kill, is what. Seeing as how they’re not quite alive. In simplest terms, Miss Pollard, they are items of everyday, ordinary plastic controlled by an alien consciousness. The Nestene Consciousness, to be precise. It attempted to invade on two separate occasions whilst I was with UNIT.”
Charley’s heart sank. “So they are hostile.”
“Very,” the Brigadier confirmed. “It does puzzle me, however, that thus far you’ve only seen one in action. It rather makes me wonder that they’re not yet ready to mobilize. In which case, it might be unwise to alert them that we know of their presence: don’t want to speed up their timetable before we’re prepared to deal with the consequences.”
“So perhaps for today I should just keep an eye on things here?”
“By yourself? Absolutely not.”
Charley smiled. He meant well, but when one had learned this defending-the-universe business at the Doctor’s knee, well…charging into danger with little to no back-up was all rather part of the job. “Thank you, Brigadier.”
He sighed. “You’re going to do it whether I say so or not, aren’t you Miss Pollard?”
“I learned from the best,” she quipped in return. “But don’t worry, Brigadier. If I do get myself killed, I promise to come right ’round and apologise, abjectly, for not heeding your words.”
He chuckled ruefully. “That is exactly what I’m afraid of. Be careful, Miss Pollard.”
Charley hung up the phone with another smile. Slipping it into the pocket of her skirt, she ducked quietly back onto the floor.
The remainder of the work day passed without incident. No other dummies appeared to move or jump out at her, so Charley carefully concluded that the Brigadier was probably right. Only one question still remained: why had that one allowed itself to be seen? Had she somehow aroused its particular curiosity? Or rather, the curiosity of the thing that controlled it?
That question lingered with her after the last customer had departed and the employees began the process of closing. She wanted to investigate further, but with so many other people about, it was hardly convenient.
The opportunity didn’t arise until she and the other girls were on their way out. Colin, the doorman, handed Rose a small plastic bag containing the day’s lottery money, which the younger girl took with a sigh and started to turn back.
“Why don’t you let me?” Charley intercepted her, holding out a hand for the bag. “You’ve got plans for the night.” She nodded towards the other girls. The three of them had been nattering on about going out for drinks together for probably the last two hours. “I haven’t.”
Rose gave her an odd look. “You sure? Do you even know where Wilson’s office is?”
“I can find it,” Charley answered with a shrug. Truthfully, she’d studied the layout of the store in detail before she’d gone undercover, but she could hardly admit that, could she? “I’ve got to learn my way about sometime.”
Rose glanced at Colin, who shrugged. Then with a tentative smile, she handed the bag to Charley. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
You’ve no idea. Charley watched Rose link her arm through her mate’s and disappear out the door. Then she took a deep breath and plunged determinedly in the direction of the basement. That was where the electrician’s office was, but more importantly, it was where all of the dummies not in use were kept. If someone were planning to use the shop’s dummies as an invasion force, it seemed as good a place as any to start to look for that someone.
+++
On second thought, perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
For one thing, the basement of Henrick’s was very large, and very, very empty. And while that was good insofar as it meant there were fewer people likely to be put in danger, the fact that it should be at least one person less empty was not all reassuring. But Chief Electrical Officer Wilson’s office door was shut fast and he hadn’t responded at all to Charley’s calls. Her voice echoed instead unanswered in the cement cavern.
For another, there were quite a lot of dummies about. Many more than she’d supposed, even knowing the area was used for storage. She was surrounded by a vast, sleeping army that might come to life at any moment, which was unnerving to say the least.
Not that the Doctor wouldn’t have been equally likely to wander into just such a scrape, but at least he would have probably had an idea how to get out of it. Looking around at the painted eyes that seemed to follow her, Charley realised that she really didn’t.
At the other end of the vast room, the door she’d just come through banged shut. Charley’s heart sped up as the shadows around her began to move for real. First one, then several mannequins took a few shuffling steps towards her. She took a step back. Well, if they kept on moving at that pace, perhaps they’d not prove too terrible a threat after all.
They sped up. One would think she’d learned nothing about tempting fate.
Charley muttered darkly to herself as she scrambled backwards, trying to get away without turning her back to any of the creatures. “Stay back!” she shouted, trying to sound a good deal braver than she felt. “I warn you, I’m armed!”
Oh, that was intelligent. Perhaps she ought to throw out a few more empty threats. Charley fumbled in her purse for some sort of weapon. Something aerosol, perhaps? No: couldn’t blind what didn’t have eyes. She grabbed a wooden hanger and threw it at them, striking the foremost one. It didn’t even flinch. The rack that the hanger had been dangling from, however…
In a burst of inspiration, Charley grabbed the wheeled metal rack with both hands and pulled, thrusting it between her and the advancing army of Autons. The first one stumbled, causing the others to slow. Charley felt exultant. She hadn’t stopped them, not by a long shot, but at least she’d found some way to slow them down and give herself more time to think of a way out.
As she stumbled onwards and backwards, she grabbed anything else within reach; tossing clothes over their heads, throwing more racks and boxes in their path. So intent was she on her campaign of creating an obstacle course that she failed to notice the biggest obstacle in her own path until she had run right into the wall.
Only then did panic truly set in. The Autons were practically on top of her. There was nowhere left to go.
“Oh, bollocks!” Charley moaned, closing her eyes and throwing up one arm to ward off the inevitable blow. After everything she’d survived, she was going to be killed the basement of a shop, pummelled to death by plastic dummies. How humiliating!
Then, out of nowhere, an unfamiliar hand wrapped itself around hers, and a stranger’s voice said, “Charley, run!”
She reacted on instinct, letting herself be pulled out of the way just as the foremost Auton struck. Its hand knocked apart a pipe on the wall instead of her skull. Suddenly Charley was running, hand in hand with a black-clad figure she’d never seen before in her life. But while the hand holding hers was unfamiliar, the surge of adrenaline was not. They tore down the long corridor, hand in hand, the relative safety of the lift ahead and a phalanx of their plastic enemy behind. Too close, the Autons were too close. They’d never make it in time!
By some extraordinary chance, when they reached the lift, the doors opened nearly as soon as the man in black pressed the button. Without exchanging a word, he and Charley both dove through the opening just as the creatures reached it. A pale plastic arm was thrust in after them, but with a few sharp tugs the man pulled it off and the doors slid closed before any of their other pursuers could make the same attempt. At least for the moment, they were safe.
“There you are,” the man said cheerfully, waving the dead arm at her. “Inert now.”
Charley just stared, her heart pounding in impossible hope. The man opposite her didn’t look a thing like the Doctor had when she’d met him, but then neither had the man in the crazy-quilt coat. He didn’t sound like him, either, with his Lancashire accent, but then her first Doctor had sometimes sounded as though he were from Liverpool whilst her second had been pure London.
It couldn’t be him, could it? She’d seen him die – or at least, she thought she had. Unless this was another earlier one. But no, she’d met several of his past selves – or rather, aspects of them- during the whole bit with Zagreus. She would recognize the others as surely as she’d recognized his sixth persona when he’d answered her distress signal.
But this man knew her name. And he’d taken her hand just as the Doctor used to when his eyes were grey and his hair long.
The object of her observation looked at her. “Oh, don’t give me that look. After the things we’ve seen, living plastic can’t be all that shocking.”
“Doctor?” she asked, her voice twisted with grief, shock, hope and uncertainty all mixed into one overwhelming emotion.
“Hello!” He grinned manically at her but Charley could see the tightness around his eyes.
That was what finally convinced her. How else could she so easily read an unfamiliar face, unless she knew the soul behind it?
But what was he doing here and now? If Byron hadn’t killed him, not permanently, then why hadn’t the Doctor come back for her long before? Why had he just abandoned her after fighting so hard to keep her by his side when she was determined to go?
Confusion clouded her thoughts. “What are you doing here?” Charley asked numbly.
The Doctor looked at Charley. “I should think that would be obvious.” He waved the plastic arm at her. “Living plastic in London? Ring a bell?”
So he hadn’t come for her. Not that she really thought he had. Their meeting had been too nearly arbitrary for that. The reminder of how they’d met, however, jarred her for a moment out of her stupor. “Oh! Wilson, the electrician. He was down there. Is he all right?”
The Doctor shook his head, his voice flat. “He’s dead.”
The bell dinged and the doors slid open, announcing their arrival back at the ground floor. The Doctor strode out and Charley followed, now in a different sort of haze.
Dead. Wilson, dead. She’d never met the man, but Charley grieved him nonetheless. If only she’d listened to the Brigadier and called in back-up. UNIT could’ve had a team in, evacuated the entire store under the pretence of a gas leak or some sort. No one need have died.
“Mind your eyes,” the Doctor warned before holding up a new sonic screwdriver to the lift control panel and using it to short out the controls. That seemed to be the end of the conversation about Wilson, at least so far as he was concerned. Charley was reminded for a moment of C’rizz and of how cavalier the Doctor had seemed about his death.
She shivered. “Now what? How do we stop them?”
“We aren’t going to do anything. I’ve got it well in hand myself. You can go on home.”
There he went, getting all protective again. Really, he ought to know by now that she’d never listen. And that she usually wound up saving his life in the process. “Nonsense. Of course I’m going to help. So what can I do?”
“Nothing,” the Doctor reiterated shortly, and this time he sounded almost angry. “The Autons are being controlled by a relay device in the roof. Which would be a great big problem if I didn’t have this.” He pulled something that looked like a motherboard from his inside pocket and waved it at her.
“And what is that?”
“What’s it look like?”
“It looks like a–” Charley nearly made the motherboard comparison (and blame the Doctor that she even knew what a motherboard was) but stopped a moment before the words left her tongue. The Doctor wouldn’t be warning her off if he were just going to rewire the relay or intercept the signal. “It’s a bomb, isn’t it?” she asked in disbelief.
“Yup.”
“So you’re just going to blow them all up?” That wasn’t like him. Sure, the store was empty now, but to not even attempt to negotiate? What in heavens name had happened to him?
Unless…unless they couldn’t be negotiated with. That thought made her go cold all over.
The Doctor didn’t appear to notice. “Yup. Might well die in the process, but don’t worry about me, no. Go home, go on! Go and have your lovely beans on toast.”
Charley recoiled, stunned and wounded by his answer. “You’re absolutely mad if you think I’m going to allow you to go charging into danger on your own and get yourself killed,” she told him sharply.
“And why not? You’re the one who said you didn’t want to do it anymore.”
Now she was completely baffled. “I…what? When did I ever say that?”
“Singapore, 2008.” He looked at her and his eyes hardened. “You left me a note. Didn’t even have the nerve to say it to my face.”
A note…surely not that note? “But that was before!”
“Before what?”
“Before…the Cybermen!”
“What Cybermen?”
Oh, he really was the utter limit. If it was meant to be a joke, it wasn’t the least bit funny. “The ones who killed you!” Well, sort of. Byron had been half converted at the time, anyway. “Or at least, I thought they had.”
The Doctor shrugged. “No matter now. No time to argue.” He opened a fire door that Charley in her befuddlement hadn’t even realised they were approaching and she found herself abruptly and unceremoniously deposited the other side of it.
“I’d run for your life, if I were you,” the Doctor said before slamming the door behind him.