The fourth Doctor, who, thank the Gods and Guardians, happens to be standing at Thomas’s elbow, quietly takes the weapon from his hand. “I’ll take that,” he says, slipping it into a coat pocket. “The Time Lords have a bigger special effects budget than the BBC, you know. And the effects can be rather nasty.”
Eloise breathes a sigh of relief. Now, she only has three problems to deal with at once, instead of a potential three dozen. She turns back to Lord Gallifrijan.
The charm he was oozing just a few seconds ago is now gone entirely (seeing a high powered weapon being waved about as if it were a water gun can do that). This, at least, is a relief. Eloise has never trusted charm. Nine and a half times out of eleven, it means someone has a nasty ulterior motive. And how, she wonders, does he know her alternate identity, which she has shared only with fellow earthlings?
“Pleasure?” she echoes back to him. “Pleasure?!! PLEASURE??!!”
She feels a tap on her shoulder. “That’s my gig,” the sixth Doctor informs her.
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Though I must admit, it’s a wonderful way to stall for time. And besides, it’s hard to hear over all these damned alarms…”
Lord Gallifrijan makes a small gesture, and the alarms fall silent. Into the silence that follows can be heard the very faint, but clearly recognizable, sound of Buddy Holly singing “That’ll Be The Day” coming from Compassion’s direction.
The tall Time Lord raises one thin eyebrow. “What,” he asks, “is that?”
“It’s the first in a brand new series…” Fitz says hurriedly. “Musical androids. You tune them up, and off they go… It’s a trial run. We’re just seeing how ordinary Time Lords such as yourself might respond…”
Compassion manages to do her best impression of an unthinking android, while simultaneously threatening Fitz silently with dismemberment.
Lord Galifrijan sniffs. “It will never catch on… Now…”
“Oh-oh-ho, I feel just like Buddy Holly! Something something over Mary Tyler Moore.”
A girl, singing, steps through a doorway off to the left of the crowd of partygoers. Rather plain to look at, with black hair tumbling madly around her shoulders, she is dressed in black jeans and a battered ‘Buffy: the Vampire Slayer’ t-shirt, and shod in half-boots and white socks.
Seeing the crowd of partygoers and guards, she freezes, her voice trailing off, and stares back at everyone as they stare at her. “Um… hi.” She blinks at her surroundings, and mumbles, “Need to have a word with Kielle about those portals.”
“You’re under arrest too,” the guard captain informs her automatically.
“Whatever it was, I didn’t do it,” the girl says. “Honest. It was all Lynx’s fault.” She pauses to check the reaction. “Aaaand you people have no idea what I’m talking about. Right.” She flashes a cheery smile. “I’ll just be going, then.”
A guard catches her arm as she steps back to the portal.
“Or maybe not.”
“Hey, Ana!” yells Alryssa, jumping up to be seen in the crowd.
“Ryss? That you?”
“You’re damn ri– er, never mind. Get on over here, girl!”
The girl called Ana, not seeing any choice, gets on over there. Alryssa bear-hugs her to within an inch of her life.
“So,” says Ana, when things have been explained to her, “you’re saying that I’m on Gallifrey, back before the whole TARDIS creation thing, etc. And that you all came here in a barn.” She nods cheerfully. “Right. So, where’s a nice large bottle of Bailey’s?”
“Oh dear,” the eighth Doctor says.
“What is it now?” the sixth mutters.
“We’re trying to avoid being hauled off to meet Rassilon. Though if I remember correctly, Four’s already there…” The eighth Doctor winces. “Oh… Eeeuuwww…”
“Apart from the perfectly obvious,” the sixth says, “is there a point to all this?”
“Yes. Although we’re here, we’re also already halfway there…”
The third Doctor blinks. “How is that possible?”
“It’s possible… if you know your temporal mechanics.”
“Assume,” the third Doctor says sniffily. “that I don’t…”
“Somebody’s tampered with the timelines so that two different timelines currently coexist…”
“Let me guess,” the fifth Doctor says. “Number Seven.”
The eighth nods, as best he can. “I suspect so. He has his own plan for this situation. Now, sooner or later one of these timelines is going to fade out. The trouble is…” he frowns. “I can’t remember which one. I seem to remember both of these happening…”
It is the cheerful whistle you notice first. Then, as the shadows part, you can see more of the man. He is short, maybe not much taller than 5′ 6″ or so. A white panama hat adorns his head, and he is looking at a pocket watch as he whistles.
Time is nearly at hand. Or is that Time’s Hand is nearly there?
“What is he up to?” the eighth Doctor mutters. “It’s times like this I wish I could remember what his plans were…”
“Oh no…” he says. “Not the Hand of Omega again… So that’s why he wanted two timelines… Creating a gate to Subreality…”
He shakes his head. “He’s really going to have to open up to the rest of us one of these days…”
Eloise, overhearing “two timelines”, shudders. She’s feeling horribly dizzy, and getting a terrible headache to boot. (That sort of thing can happen when your time streams cross themselves too often in an enclosed space.) And now this… It was hard enough to keep track of all her guests when there was only one version each, and the thought of keeping track of three or four of them gives her the heebie-jeebies. It seems only a matter of time before some of them bump into themselves, causing a Blinovitch Event of such proportions that all of Gallifrey, and perhaps even Earth (or at least, this story) would explode in one horrible fireball.
“I think I know where the problem started,” she says, very slowly (because she doesn’t really know, and is figuring it out as she goes along). “The timelines started to diverge when Alryssa, Chas, and Thomas ventured out of my TARDIS…”
Alryssa looks at the ceiling, and starts whistling innocently. Chas looks sheepish. Thomas looks baffled.
“At that point, the two timestreams were close enough together so that it was very hard to tell the two of them apart. The angle of divergence magnified greatly, however, when Thomas picked up that ‘object.’ And not long after that, the portal opened between here, in the Citadel, and Subreality.”
She pauses, and gives a small wave to Ana. At least there is still only one of her.
“I think–” she goes on, “and I’m only guessing, but – I think that the portal was here when we arrived, and I think that object – whatever it is – has something to do with it. I don’t think that it is either a Gallifreyan weapon or a Wombles album, but something alien to both our worlds.” She nods to the fourth Doctor. “I think you should take it out of your pocket, now, and put it down very carefully. And when he does,” she tells the others, “I want everyone to step away quietly with no sudden movements.”
The Doctor does as she suggests. What he holds in his hand looks like nothing anyone has seen before. It is beautifully luminescent and sickeningly vile all at the same time; seemingly as intangible as light, it nonetheless has weight, and writhes and slithers between his fingers.
When he puts it down, they all step back as if pushed by an invisible force.
They stare at it in horrid fascination while it pulses and thrums.
Eloise finally manages to tear her eyes away. “Right,” she says (to the whole group, but with her eyes firmly locked with Compassion’s). “I apologize for this Dea ex machina solution…”
“But when you really do have a ‘Goddess in the machine’…” the eighth Doctor’s companion finishes for her, wryly, mouthing the words almost silently.
Eloise has never been sure how Eris would respond to prayers (one never is). But still, she prays.
There is a ripple in the air, as if the entire Citadel were nothing more than a reflection in a pool. The reflection breaks up, as if a dozen children were kicking the water simultaneously. And then, like a reflection, space-time settles back into itself.