The third Doctor clapped his hands together. “Good. That’s that done.”
“Are you really sure this is going to work?” the fourth asked. “After all, there was our problem with the demat circuit…”
“I would remind you, dear chap, that the Time Lords took the knowledge of how to repair it away from us,” the third said. “This will work.”
“Yes… but what’s it for?” the second asked. The fourth glared at him.
“Quite simple,” the eighth said. “By reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, augmenting the meson resonance, adapting its hyperspatial circuits, and using a copy of the Radio Times and a rubber band, we’ve made it a Time Videophone. We can look in at any point in the Universe, and, thanks to the holographic generator we built in, they’ll be able to talk back to us.” He grinned. “With no time lag.”
The sixth frowned. “We’ll need a massive power boost to be able to get it to see past the barriers around Ancient Gallifrey…”
“Ah,” the eighth smiled. “That’s where Seven’s contingency plan comes in… Authorisation Quiqaequod.”
– And suddenly, the Hand of Omega appeared.
“How did…” the fifth Doctor began.
“Seven found the prototype Hand on Gallifrey, and remembered that he – I – had learned he commanded it to visit Cyberspace. So he gave it the command.” The eighth Doctor shrugged. “That’s why he disappeared; he was trying to track it down.”
He turned to the Hand. “Would you mind terribly powering this up for us?”
The Hand’s lid shifted a crack.
“Thank you,” the eighth Doctor said, and placed the Videophone’s power cable in the Hand. He bowed to Eloise. “It’s all yours.”
The troll dropped the armload of links she’d been carrying, which included that famed piece of natural history by Lewis Carroll, “The Hunting of the Snark”*. “Interesting stuff at the end of that one,” she said. “If our Snarky is a Boojum, then maybe we could just project hir image in front of the Valeyard, and he would vanish…”
The fifth Doctor thought about this. “Maybe Snarky is a Boojum… After all, when he first came to Rad-wah, even the Azaxyr suddenly vanished away…”
“But it came back…” the sixth pointed out.
“…And vanished again. The Snark does seem to be effective against the Azaxyr… what might it do to the Valeyard?”
Eloise grinned. “Exactly!” she said.
The third Doctor coughed in a polite but uneasy way.
The sixth scowled. “Need I remind you,” he said, icily, “That the Valeyard is a later regeneration of me – us? If the Valeyard vanishes, it might have – unpleasant – consequences.”
“Yes,” the eighth interjected. “But he is a false version… a concoction of the High Council out of the Matrix… If we were free of him, it might clear up some rather messy aspects of my – our – history.”
The first harrumphed. “‘If’! ‘might’! I say, m’boys, your gallivanting around the universe has obviously drained all sense from our brains! It’s too great a risk – we simply can’t go about fiddling with history and expect it to come out all right in the end!”
“Yes, well,” the fourth answered him, “that’s true. But truth can play funny games. The joke here is that by doing nothing, we’d be fiddling more than if we acted.”
“Remember,” the eighth warned, “that in acting, we have to be careful. The Trial may have been messy, but given the temporal confusion in my life as it stands, I don’t think I could handle it never having happened…”
“Then,” the fifth replied, “we’ll have to hope for the best possible outcome. And hope can do unexpected things…. But our non-interference is obviously not a part of established history…”
They turned their attention back to the Videophone.
“Will it work, do you think?” the second Doctor asked, scratching his ear.
“Oh, I expect so,” the third answered. “After all, the High Council rigged up something similar when they linked us with our first self to fight Omega… except that they didn’t have access to a Radio Times or a rubber band, so this should work even better.”
The second chortled and rubbed his hands together. “This kind of thing is always exciting, don’t you think?”
Eloise took a deep breath, and turned the Videophone on. Everything else was falling into place; now, if they could only find the seventh Doctor and Mappy…
There he was…
…standing right outside her TARDIS, with Mappy sniffing the leather of his shoe.
“Psst!” Eloise whispered, in an attempt to avoid retriggering the alarms, “Doctor – can you hear me?”
“Yes?” the Doctor asked the air, “who’s there?” He turned, and accidently stepped on a certain pom-pom tail.
In an instant, Mappy transformed into his giant, monstrous self.
The Doctor looked up, and raised his hat. “Ah. Mappy the mouse, I believe…”
“What’s he doing?” the sixth Doctor asked.
Eloise winced. “He’s bringing out the Timelash video.”
The sixth Doctor grimaced. “Let me speak to him…”
He tapped the Videophone. “Mappy? Mappy?”
The monstrous Mappy turned away from the Timelash video, and gaped. “Wow, it’s you… I’m your biggest Pro Troll…”
“Mappy,” the Doctor said urgently, in a low voice. “listen. We face a threat even greater than Jonathan Powell…”
Mappy’s face creased in disgust at the mention of The Great Canceller.
“Boneyard’s back on Gallifrey,” the Doctor continued, “and he’s out to wipe out Cyberspace. We have to stop him as quickly as possible!”
“Right,” Mappy said. “Where do I shove the Timelash video?”
The Doctor’s eyes bugged for a moment. “Not yet, not yet… We need you, my successor and the Timelash video here, to prevent his nefarious scheme. Then we can see about judicious application of the videotape to Bonehead…”
“Although,” he added in an aside, “he survived my Trial, so this might get difficult…”
Mappy looked at the sixth Doctor in bafflement. “So how do we get to where you are?” he asked. “Not that I’m questioning your judgment, but…”
“Get back into our hostess’ TARDIS,” the sixth Doctor rapped out. “We will take care of the rest…”
“We control the transmission…” the second Doctor murmured.
The seventh Doctor and Mappy entered the Pro-Fun TARDIS.
“Is it ready?” the eighth Doctor asked Thomas.
“Ready,” Thomas grinned. “set… go!!”
– And the Hand of Omega was gone.
“Where’s it gone?” one of the guests asked.
The fourth Doctor smirked.
The eighth tugged at his lapels. “Barring the Matrix codes, there is one thing that can override a TARDIS’ safety lock…”
“The Hand of Omega…” Eloise realised.
“Exactly,” the third Doctor said. “And your TARDIS’ telepathic circuits are linked both to you, and to Compassion there. So… your TARDIS should be arriving here any minute now…”
There was a wheezing, groaning sound.