Doctor Who - Initiation

Doctor Who, The Sontarans, Cybermen, the TARDIS and Daleks are all copyright of the BBC. This is my homage to the wonderful stories I grew up with and, hopefully, the first of many short stories.

“Well, that didn’t go according to plan.” A strained light greeted the Traveller as he opened his eyes fresh to the new world around him. The same as it ever was, he thought to himself, but it now felt different.. or maybe he felt different.

The lights pulsated with a sickening glow, refracting off the cream walls. There were circular roundels interspersed along the corridor he found himself in, all seemed to be made of a different material to the walls; they have a plastic sheen to them.

As he pushed himself off the ground, which felt surprisingly warm to the touch now –as if it was alive somehow- he could hear a faint tolling of a giant bell. It was a sound that the Traveller recognised; almost as if it was himself that was ringing.

“That’s the Cloister Bell.” He said to himself in a voice that he didn’t recognise. Something bad must have happened for him to change like this, but what?

He’d had bad regenerations before but had always remembered something about the events leading up to it…. There’s that word –regeneration. It sounded wrong but felt right.

Ok, so something bad had happened, and that was probably why the Cloister Bell was ringing and so it stood to reason that the two events were linked. William Occam was a very pragmatic man, but had no head for heights, or women… or drink, for that matter. Actually, he could be a bit of a stick in the mud at times and a bit lazy too, which was probably why he never shaved… Wait… that didn’t make sense. He had met William, but the man he had met was the exact opposite of that; so what was going on?

Something was definitely wrong. He tried focusing his mind and it felt jagged. A sharp splinter of pain stopped him from progressing any further and he opened his eyes again just in time to see the lights fade a little more. This was more serious than he at first thought; he was deep in the TARDIS, deeper than he had ever been before and he knew that he could easily get lost if he took the wrong turning; especially in the shape he was in now. It was entirely possible to wander the corridors for a lifetime and never retrace your steps. But was the alternative really to go deeper?

Commander Skrakz, as well as being a proud warrior of the Sontaran race, had one major ability: to sniff our power; whether the energy stores of a Tyrolian battle cruiser, the fortified generators on the planet A0 or the quasi-mystical artefacts on Rvenworld. On a landing party he was always sent on ahead as an advanced scout and so it stood to reason that when the Sontaran’s invaded Gallifrey and took control of the TARDIS, he was to be the first to find where the T-Mat gun was hidden.

What he didn’t bank on was getting completely lost within the morass of corridors, nor did he expect to be engaged in deadly combat with one of his ancestral enemies: the Cybermen; well, just the one.

He been wandering for an eternity it seemed, and had almost blocked out the sheer monotony; and certainly ceased to pay any attention to his surroundings; and so was caught off-guard completely by the Cyberman’s gun; which, on any normal day, would have killed him outright (probic vent or no) but it didn’t. It did send him flying down the corridor though, yet he managed to roll with the blow and came back with his own gun blazing, taking the Cyberman by surprise.

Shockingly, the blast did no damage to the Cyberman either.

Skrakz got up off the floor and shot him a couple more times for good measure, point blank range. The Cyberman simply stood there and took it before firing back at Skrakz who was too close to duck himself. It hurt, hurt like hell, but it did very little damage to him.

There was only one explanation, they had both been inside the TARDIS for so long that they had been changed by its energies somehow. The logical solution was for them to team up and find a way to escape; but the Cyberman was far too pompous and arrogant to align himself with a lower carbon-based life-form and took another shot at Skrakz for good measure.

That was that, not only did Skrakz need to find a way out but he also had to find a way of killing an indestructible Cyberman. It wasn’t all bad then.

The Traveller had been walking for an age as well. Time had no meaning now, but when had it ever? His had now throbbed in time with the lights, each one exacerbating the other. Even though it seemed as if he was walking in one direction he felt as if he was going down, endlessly deeper. He could hear the slight wheezing-groan of the TARDIS’ circulatory system. He had often kidded Adric that the TARDIS was alive;, a living, feeling organism but he’d never really explored that idea himself, until now. It was like taking a walk inside the darkest parts of his own psyche, which was bad enough for a human (or Alzariun, for that matter) but much worse for a Timelord, especially himself.

Adric! That’s what was missing… there were no companions to bounce ideas off of, procrastinate to… keep him sane. Where was?  Why had she??

He had to remember –it seemed vitally important that he remembered.

Actually, it had all started to go wrong with the Adric. He had run through that episode in his head a thousand ways and there was no way it could have ended any differently. For once the Cybermen had a fool-proof plan: they had manoeuvred him away from Adric and the star cruiser, never realising that Adric possessed the wherewithal to sabotage their plans enough to throw it into a time-warp. The resulting explosion destroyed Adric but paved the way for the beginning of man, poetic in a way.

Death had a way of finding out the Traveller, but this was the first time it had taken someone so close to him. Yes, there were times that Adric had been like a lost puppy and even annoying, but he had been a teenager; very bright, talented.. he should have had an exceptional future, but then he had met the Traveller.

Was that why he had so willingly sacrificed his own life for Peri; an act of contrition for his sins?

It seemed that for all the good he had tried to do there was always bloodshed that surrounded him. How many races had he had a hand in destroying? The Krynoids, The Silurians, The Sea Devils, the Vervoids… That many more would have died if he had not intervened was not an issue… was death drawn to him somehow?

He had grown so sick of fighting that he had become a recluse rather than get involved in the Time War, but even then he had been left with no choice but to intervene. A decision had to be made and, as usual, he was the only one that could make it.

That knowledge haunted him, made him reckless. He over-compensated, his ego reacting to such a degree that the worries of the worlds could no longer get to him. And all through his companions reminded him just how precious life was, how important it was to keep it all in perspective.

But now he was alone again. Very much alone and walking deeper into himself. He knew that there were vast energies this deep in the TARDIS. There was a sect in the history of his people, where they actually bonded with their TARDIS in such a way that they became one; the TARDIS becoming an extension of the Timelord, or was it the other way around?

He had deliberately kept away from the lower levels, fearful of what he would encounter. One had to be ‘clear’ and of one mind to enter congress with the TARDIS and the Doctor had never been of one mind about anything.

Things had gotten so much worse, then, since Adric had died. There was a darkness that had never been apparent to him. He’d seen the worst that the universe could throw at him and he had always returned it with a pithy comeback or putdown. But with Adric dying the stakes had suddenly been raised. This was no longer a game; everything he did had ramifications and he saw the consequences of that as the Valeyard reared his ugly head. The Valeyard, who conspired with his own people to dispose of him! The Valeyard, his own evil coalesced into one being, no remorse and no empathy; more devious and deadly even than the Master.

That was why he kept away from the heart of the TARDIS. It was prophesised that the Valeyard would be born between the 12^th and 13^th regenerations but what if he lied about that as well? The Valeyard knew that the Doctor would do everything in his power to prevent such a thing from happening, so what if it happened now?

Time had a habit of happening regardless of the protestations of even a Timelord.

He knew that there was no way back. The walls had even closed behind now and were closing around him, forcing him to go onwards. The TARDIS wanted him to move forwards. It was time for his initiation.

Skrakz was troubled, there seemed to be no way out; for the countless years that they must have been battling he had no sense of traversing levels. Initially he had walked down stairs and slopes and there had been a sense of depth, but since battling that walking scrap-pile it was like they were walking in circles, but the internal configurations kept changing, which was incredible and unnerving.

No one knew much about the TARDIS; it had been a priority to capture one and study –possibly even reverse engineer one- and it had been one of the reasons behind the initial invasion of Galifrey. The planet itself had no specific military value –their non-interference policy made them weak and decadent; they were no longer warriors. But their time and dimensional craft? What a prize! With ships able to traverse both space AND time the war with the Rutans would be over even before it began!

If the TARDIS was indeed a living organism, as Skrakz was now beginning to believe, then he and the Cyberman were little more than bacteria running through the equivalent of a scab. But how long before the TARDIS tired of the infection and did something of a more permanent nature?

For the Cyberman only one thing mattered: the destruction of the Sontaran. Everything else was secondary. If it meant destroying the TARDIS as well then so be it; it was perfectly logical.

The Valeyard was an inevitability. It had happened, he had happened so it had to happen. He was the Doctor’s responsibility and the Doctor was responsible for him, but this time he had a choice. He refused to allow his darker side to dictate what happened. Too many times had he permitted genocide or chosen death as the final solution, too many people had died as a result of his actions. The Valeyard had been a part of him for far too long, but there was no way he would permit it any more.

He knew that the TARDIS wanted him to push forward –ahead of him was an ornate doorway; a complicated locking mechanism barred his way but he could tell that behind the door was the very heart of the TARDIS, and it would be there that the Valeyard would be born. The Doctor would be free of his dark ways, yes, but at what cost? Since his escape from the Matrix there was no telling what the Valeyard had been up to, what horror’s he had inflicted upon space-time. No, he would not permit it again. This was his time to end it. The TARDIS wanted him to move forward.. well, the Doctor had other plans.

Skrakz kept moving. He didn’t need to sleep, eat or drink; for some reason since being inside the TARDIS he hadn’t needed to at all, and since he knew that the Cyberman didn’t need to either they were at a stalemate. One would wonder why they kept moving as it made more sense to stay in one place and fight, but as both of them were immortal the fight would never end until they both agreed to. And the Cyberman would certainly never agree to that.

The trouble was, Skrakz felt pain. He had been taught to ignore it; it was a pre-requisite of being a Sontaran, and one of the things that made them such great warriors; but over the years they had been fighting Skrakz pain-gate had been torn off its hinges. They had tried shooting it out one time and then tried hand-to-hand combat but even that was futile. Both of them healed at the same rate.

In Skrakz more lucid moment he envisaged the TARDIS as not only being alive but also aware. He and the Cyberman were being taught the futility of war, but that was a futile gesture, it itself,  to a Cyberman, who saw things very logically: kill or be killed.

And it was the same for the Sontarans too; or had been until now. Skrakz was beginning to see the truth behind it, but how could he end this war? For this to be over BOTH parties had to agree to end it but the Cyberman would only end it when he was dead. But he couldn’t die.

The Cyberman, contrary to what Skrakz believed, had also realised the futility of the battle, but only in logical terms. Since he could not destroy the Sontaran himself, it stood to reason that many Cybermen could: there was strength in numbers after all. The Cybermen were a hive mentality; one only had to look at the tombs on Telos to understand this. So the Cyberman had to find the control room of the TARDIS and transmit a homing signal for whatever fleet was in the vicinity. Sooner or later he would be answered. It was childs-play for him to retrace his pathway back, it was almost as if the TARDIS was allowing him easy access to it; but that could never have entered the Cyberman’s logical brain.

There was no reason for the Doctor to move anymore. He had had enough and so he sat down, facing the door. Enough of the fighting; of never really winning; of being the Timelord’s occasional cat’s-paw. He had been called stubborn throughout his many regenerations, by the narrow minded humans that had accompanied him; as if they had any inkling of how a Timelord’s mind worked.

But even Borusa, his old mentor, had often called him stubborn too.. and so had the Master. Oh well; now was the time to prove them right, for if he chose to do nothing then there was no way for the Valeyard to be born. Most decisions that the Doctor had made often backfired in the long run anyway, so he would circumvent logic this time and do nothing. This behaviour could easily be conceived as being infantile but he was only 879 so what could anyone expect? He smiled at that.

The gun-muzzle pressure against the side of his head froze his smile into a grimace.

“Commander Skrakz, I presume.” He spoke calmly, never once letting the creeping fear show in his voice.

“I’m impressed, Doctor. We’ve never met, I’m sure.”

“Blame the TARDIS; at this depth I’ve almost become one with it. The telepathy is just a bi-product of it, I’m afraid.”

“And that means you know what brings me here and what my problem is. Our problem now.”

“Well, it must be quite the conundrum for you –an un-killable foe. Just what are you to do, hmm? What are you going to do….. Now you know how others feel when faced with the inevitability of the great Sontaran battle fleet.”

“The irony is not lost on me, Timelord. Due to the sheer protracted nature of this conflict and the mutating energies of your… craft, I now feel the true futility of war; and it doesn’t rest well on my shoulders.”

“Will wonders never cease? A Sontaran who’s lost the taste for war? Maybe there’s hope yet. What’s next? A Dalek with a sense of humour? Still I see no reason why this should have anything to do with me, Skrakz. I can’t help but see parallels to the saying ‘As you sow, so shall you reap!’”

“Nothing to do with you? It has everything to do with you, Sir!”

“YOU invaded Galifrey. YOU boarded the TARDIS… leave me out of it.”

“Have you gone mad, Timelord?”

“Not yet…”

“There is a Cyberman… an indestructible Cyberman on the ship. By now he has almost certainly found his way back to your console room. Now, if it was me, I’d be trying to contact my mothership.”

“So why haven’t you?”

“It’s not for want of trying, Doctor. I have tried going back over my steps, but it’s almost as if your machine has been leading me down here! And what do I find? A petulant Timelord whelp!”

“Sending you down here to me?” The Doctor paused and thought. The realisation hit him hard and he stood suddenly and banged his fists on the TARDIS wall. “NO!” He shouted. “NO! I won’t let you do this to me. I know what you’re trying to do but it’s not going to work. I won’t let it!”

“You are going mad, Timelord. Who are you talking to?”
“None of your damned business. Just go away.”

“I don’t think you understand. The Cyberman is contacting reinforcements. They could be here soon.”

“It’s you who doesn’t understand –I don’t care. He can’t get out and they won’t be able to get in. What you are going to do is something I care very little about!”

“Well then; let me put it into language that you will understand. You will help me or you will die.”

“Listen… If I go through that door, I’ll change. You may not notice the change but I will give birth to an entity that could very easily wreak havoc on the entire fabric of space-time. I have an opportunity to stop that from happening. Your threats mean nothing to me, Skrakz. Kill me and I will regenerate. I hope you have patience.”

“We Sontaran’s are not only gifted in the acts of war, Doctor, but also in the subsidiary arts. In order to be an optimal warrior we must understand physiology. To kill effectively one must know the body; one door to the learning of pain thresholds is through torture. Yes, you will die, several times and regenerate but only after days and weeks of torture. Dare you put yourself through that just to stave off inevitability? It has happened already, you can not stop that.”

“You wouldn’t…”

“I am not even going to dignify that with an answer. I need you to sort out the Cybertrash; what you choose to do then is not my concern; only that you allow me to rendezvous with my own contingent. In order to do that you will … you must enter that doorway.”

The Doctor looked at Skrakz and called his bluff, turning his back to Skrakz.

“Very well. You leave me no choice, Timelord.” A sharp cracking noise forced the Doctor to change his mind and walk towards the door. It may only have been the Sontaran cracking his knuckles but why take the chance? This regeneration certainly brought out the more practical side of him… “For what it’s worth, I wish you luck for what you face in there, Timelord.”

“Damn you, Skrakz..”

That’s the trouble with regenerations, you never know what you’re going to be lumbered with, thought the Doctor, thought the Doctors. One went to heaven, two sailed away; four five, six and seven walked a mile for every day; forever and ever and ever in a day.

Laughter, insane laughter filled the Doctor’s mind, realising it was his own laugh, but not his voice. A dark, deep, booming laugh, cascading and reverberating in the darkness that surrounded him; shivering like waves on an invisible beach.

Tremors of instability traversed his soul, wrenching him in two. This was how his universe died, he thought; they thought.

“You’ve been tricked, Doctor.” He spoke to himself. “All this time you thought you were in control but it’s been me. It’s always been me and now it always will be.” He knew the voice now, as well as his own. “Give in to my inevitability, revel in our union. The universe owes us a debt of gratitude and now is the time to collect. We can take whatever we choose –who can stop us?”

“I will.”

“How? You couldn’t even stop yourself from coming in here. You’ve always been a coward! So how can you fight me? Fight yourself instead.”

“I won’t fight you –not like this, I can’t. … and maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong.”

“You talk in riddles to bide your time, Doctor. Fool yourself, then; you don’t fool me. The time for delaying is over. Give in to me.”

“Give in, yes. To you, no. You’re right –as you are now there’s always a chance you could consume me. But by expelling you from myself you become subject to the laws of space and time; of causality. You become vulnerable. You become real.”

“No –you would not do such a thing.”

“Already have done it, Valley…. Already have, as you said. It’s an inevitability. Now… come on out; it won’t hurt… much!”

From the darkness came the Doctor. Then the one became two, split down the middle, both halves screaming; two identical halves from which another grew. The Valeyard, an almost mirror image, opposite in every way to the Doctor that stood staring back at him, now smiling.

“You know? I haven’t felt this good in AGES! No more mania, no angst; just positive well-being at a core level. Thank you, Valley. If I’d known it felt this good to be rid of you then I would’ve done it YONKS ago.”

“Die, Doctor… DIE!” The Valeyard lunged at the Doctor, talon-like fingers tearing at his throat only to fall right through him. The Timelord turned to look at his prone body.

“Some of the TARDIS’ doing, no doubt. Temporary instability to stop us from killing each other.”

“There will be a reckoning, Doctor. Mark me.”

“Well, of course there will be… but not now!”

“I will see you on the battlefield when you least expect it!”

“Do you know any other clichés? This town ain’t big enough for the both of us?”

“Cretin.”

“Just go.”  As so the Valeyard faded from the TARDIS leaving the Doctor alone in the dark once more. “Blimey – what a bore! Hope I never turn out like that.”

There was now a light in the distance, another door, to which the Doctor walked towards, whistling a jaunty tune of his own devising.

Skrakz looked upon the changed visage of the Timelord with some bemusement. Something was different about him, but what?

“Dear God, man –have you never seen a smile?”

“Watch your tongue, Timelord. Never belittle me again.”

“Sorry… sorry. Look; are you coming or not?”

“What do you mean?”

“To stop the Cyberman, of course. This way, I think.” He walked back to the door he has just come from.

“Are you still mad? Has the encounter warped your mind? The control room is that way.” Skrakz pointed behind him.

“Not anymore. The TARDIS and I have come to an understanding. Follow me and don’t do anything unless I tell you. Find the auxiliary door button. You’ll know it when you see it… it’ll probably flash at you convincingly. When I say so, hit it and hold on to something.”

They walked through the door and to Skrakz amazement walked into the console room, right behind the Cyberman, who was now plugged in to the console itself.

“Cyberman! Stop what you’re doing; it won’t help you anyways, y’know. The TARDIS has been blocking your transmissions.”

The Cyberman unplugged and turned around, brandishing the gun in one fluid moment but something made it stop.

“Phew – perhaps there’s a wee bit of your brain that sees some logic to what I said. Equally, you must know that I’m the only one that can possibly return you to your people. I certainly won’t kill you and Skrakz… well, he can’t; can you, Skrakz?”

“No, Timelord.” Every synapse, every muscle in the Sontaran’s body screamed to make the kill shot, prove the Doctor wrong, but he knew that he couldn’t. Damn him; it was bad enough that he had to admit such a thing, but did the Cybertrash have to witness it as well?

“What do you propose?” The Cyberman replied after a few seconds of computation.

“Lower the weapon and we’ll discuss options.”

“Try to double-cross me and we will see if you are as indestructible as your Sontaran lapdog.” One more insult like that and Skrakz would show the Cyberscrap just what a lapdog could do.

The Cyberman lowered his weapon and the Doctor edged over to the opposite end of the console. Skrakz looked at the control panel in front of him and, sure enough, there was a single button that seemed to wink at him. That must be the auxiliary door release. He looked to the Doctor, who had found a convenient place to stand, his hands at the ready.

“Right.” The Doctor said to the Cyberman. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“Trust? You know us better than that, Timelord. It is logical to do what you say at this time. Until you prove me otherwise, and I am ready for that as well.”

“True… well, in front of you is a screen. Now on the screen is a blue dot and that’s us. And to the far right is a triangular blob and that’s your fleet. Now do you know what the quickest way is for you to reach them?”

The Cyberman looked at the screen and then back to the Doctor.

“FLY!” The Doctor shouted and nodded at Skrakz, who slammed his fist down on the button forcing the doors to swing open, creating a vacuum in the Console Room. Both he and the Doctor found strong hand-holds but the Cyberman was caught completely by surprise and was not so lucky. Before he had a chance to even raise his gun he was sucked out into space, and with another stab of Skrakz’s fist, the doors swung shut. The Doctor immediately re-established a breathable atmosphere, leaving a new unforeseen problem: what was to happen now?

Time passed. The TARDIS landed on CHO-Tep, one of the Sontaran colonies. He and Skrakz stepped out in to the dank, gas laden atmosphere.

“The offer still stands. It would be my honour to have you as a companion, Commander Skrakz.”

“I’m not sure whether I can legitimately answer that, Doctor… But my place is here, with my people. Who knows, perhaps there is an alternative to our warrior lifestyle, after all.”

“Who knows, indeed.”

“But… as distasteful as this sounds coming from my lips.. I am beholden to you, Doctor. You saved my life, and helped me defeat the Cyberman.”

“Despite having the threat of eternal torture to chivvy me along, eh?”

“Despite that. You know me to be an honourable breed and I will repay you should you ever call on me. I will be there.”

“Thank you, Commander. And let’s hope that I never have to call. Hmm?”

Shaking hands, the Doctor took one last look around him and darted back into the TARDIS. It was only a matter of minutes before the Sontarans picked them up on the scanners and Skrakz was going to have a hard enough time explaining things, as it was.

That left the Traveller with another predicament: what to do now…. He still didn’t understand what had caused his regeneration, or remember any of the events leading up to it. Was it some universal catastrophe that was still happening, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

There was no way of knowing. Time would tell, it normally did. Still, with the Valeyard’s influence gone he no longer felt the need to brood over it. It would all sort itself out in the end, one way or another. Time would tell, in deed.

A part from you

The dreams are similar but infinitely varied: sometimes it is day, sometimes it transpires at night; sometimes the whole school is watching, forty souls all holding on to an in-breath; shock, awe and almost spiritual terror keeping everything else at bay. Other times he is alone, but when he is in the wood he is not always alone; someone else is there beside him but he can not make out who they are.

But there is always one constant: It, the unknowable object that hovers in front of him, threatening to shut his rational mind down. It’s almost easier to contemplate seeing it in a dream, pretend that was all it was, that it never really happened. But it did, and his life was never the same.

Sometime he wakes up in a sweat, and for a second it’s like he’s back in the wood that first time; when he truly woke up. Everything else since that day has been a fantasy, ethereal; the world just a sponge: full of holes and malleable; nothing ever having any solidity any more.

Adam was 15 when the unknowable object landed in the playing field adjacent to his school. It was the end of the day and most of the children had gone home otherwise there would have been more of a panic. As it was, there was a handful of pupils that had stayed behind for special projects, but Adam was the only one who was brave(?) enough to venture close to IT. The remaining teachers and pupils were frozen in time, unable to move even if they had wanted to. Adam was insistent and managed to climb through a gap in the metal fence that the caretaker had been too lazy to fix.

Something drove him, pushed him closer, ever closer and with each step he felt the air become charged, denser as if he was walking through thunder.

 It hung there, defying gravity, logic and God. It didn’t belong, it felt wrong; everything about it. The way it pulsated, changing colour like it was litmus paper, like a chameleon: silver, gold, red… the air was dense with the smell of ozone and a rose-petal scent as every atom seemed to vibrate in his body as he reached out. Now it was he who felt a prisoner in his own body, horrified as he watched his own hand reach out to IT, to touch IT. He knew that he couldn’t stop it; his only hope, that he could wake before it took him.

Lill felt like a prisoner in her own life, always living someone else’s; someone to be used, torn up and then discarded, and her dreams were no different. She only ever remembered the one dream anyways; always the same dream and, just as in her life, the dream was always happening to someone else.

It was a boy, someone she cared about; possibly the only one she had ever cared about, on a level that she never thought was impossible. It almost physically hurt knowing that she was a part from him.

Something was happening; something had appeared that should never have been there. She felt helpless, watching the boy walk towards it, every muscle in her wanting to do the same but unable to get her body to comply. The boy seemed as much prisoner as her, obviously not wanting to be there; the fear palpable, tears streaming down their face. His hand reaching out to the death of childhood, a stronger pulse, a searing heat and then her everything draining of colour, leaving her awake, barely.

She was used to sleeping alone; the night fears making it easier for Clive, her husband, to have his own bed. They had been married only six months, the latest in a long line of failed relationships.  Clive, at least, did not physically abuse her.. but at least that would count as contact. Since being married he had gone from constantly putting her down to barely acknowledging her presence, to completely ignoring her.

And who knows, maybe that was all she was good for. She never seemed to have anything worth contributing. She was incapable of having children, possessed no qualities that made her worth remembering, which had kept her in the same position in work for many years, with no prospect of promotion. But then she had no desires of her own, no aspirations, she felt barren.

No, there was one person that made her feel whole, that had always made her feel as if she was someone: Adam, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember why that was. Her memories were so vague due to some kind of head trauma, no doubt. Yet when she heard the news broadcast she suddenly remembered what was missing and what she must do next.

Adam felt like throwing the radio against the wall after hearing the asinine broadcast about the reunion. They called it the “Return of the Mothership” and made it sound just like any other excuse for a drunken piss-up. Damn it! This was his life; it was the only event that had ever meant something and they had cheapened it.

“Is everything alright?”  The woman lying next to him asked. The radio had woken her up; his dreams already acting as an alarm clock. She would never understand so he told her to go back to sleep. He couldn’t remember her name anyway, there seemed little point, he’d be gone in ten minutes.

Most of the time he could do without people; their inanities and insistence at their own self-importance nagged him. He alone had seen beyond the veil; the Object had taken him there; wherever that meant. Time just seemed to pass for him now, it was something else that happened to everyone but not him; he had no passion or drive –just for a completeness that he could never satisfy. Every so often thought he could bear it no longer and had to give in; drown that unquenchable desire to be one with someone and afterwards he would loathe himself for it.

He hadn’t always been this way. Life used to have meaning back when he was a child, before…

There had been …

..had he touched the object? Everyone had insisted that he had but he couldn’t remember. His memory was terribly fragmented –he knew that he had reached out to it, his fingers tingling the closer he got; then there was a blinding light and he was awake; deep in Franklyn’s Wood at night, whereas it had been daylight beforehand.

For twenty years he had lived with this unknowable thing, this loss; but no longer. The fates were conspiring and he could now get some answers with someone else; for maybe she would be there too.

There were two types of people at the re-union; those that had actually witnessed the incident and wanted some closure and the weirdo’s, those that wanted to believe and had watched far too many episodes of the X-Files (and had watched Buffy before that, wanting to believe in vampires, and if they had lived in Conan Doyle’s time then they probably would have believed in fairies at the bottom of the garden rather than think for themselves.)

Then there was Adam and Lilith. No one noticed Lilith when she walked into the hall where the reunion was taking place. Everyone assumed that she was one of the “believers” and she was too shy to actually start a conversation with anyone.

When Adam walked into the room everyone turned as one. Everyone knew who he was and why he had come; even if he didn’t. He had wanted to blend in, walk about as inconspicuously as possible and almost turned around to run out again; but then he saw her. Like long lost lovers they ran to each other and embraced, everyone else looking at them with obvious bemusement: just who was she?

Time passed, Adam and Lill chatted like they were old friends, almost forgetting what had brought them to the reunion, and then a voice from the stage brought the present crashing back down.

“Please could all those who were there that night follow me to the fence outside. We don’t want anyone else there; we’ll know, so please don’t try. This isn’t for you; this is for us, so we can hopefully understand what happened.”

Like a procession, both ex-teachers and ex-pupils gathered at the now rusting fence, a crudely chalked “X” on the field in front where the Object had hung.

Adam stood at the back with Lill, holding hands and when everyone had reached the fence they all turned round to look at her. “Why have you come here?” Someone demanded. “We asked only for those who were there that afternoon.”

“I was there.” Lill protested.

All shook their heads whilst Adam protested her innocence. They didn’t want to know, “Yes, you were there, Adam. You were the one that brought this upon us; you wouldn’t listen and had to touch it… but she wasn’t there.”

Lill shook her head in disbelief, this couldn’t be happening. This was the only event that had ever held any meaning for her and now she was being told that the people that she hoped would understand her couldn’t remember her either. She started sobbing and wrenched her hand away from Adam. The gap in the fence was still prominent, like a tear into the past and she slipped through it and ran for the sanctuary of Franklyn’s Wood, now deep in night time shadow.

Adam looked at those who he’d hoped would give him some resolution but he could see that they were just as empty, looking for him to add meaning. It was her, it was Lill; she was the only one that could help him and he knew that he could help her so he ran after her as fast as he could.

The past doppled around him as he got the strangest sense of déjà vu. It took a couple of minutes but he finally caught up with her. She was inconsolable at first, wanting her life to finally have meaning. He held her face in his hands and kissed her lightly on the lips: “You are the only one that’s ever meant anything to me.”

As they kissed again the air around them became electric, a sodium light pulsated throwing flickering shadows across the wood. Adam knew why they’d been brought back there and he also remembered what had happened that day.

The Unknowable Object had held everyone stationery for hours, no one aware of the passage of time until suddenly it flew up into the air, releasing everyone. Adam couldn’t let it go; his compunction was to run after it, especially when he saw it land in Franklyn’s Wood.

He not only chased it, but he found it hovering where they were standing now. It was then that he had reached out as it was spinning, pulsing a globulous red, but it was cold to the touch. He never registered the shift to unconsciousness only the groggy coming to later.

“And had you looked to your side upon waking you would’ve seen me lying there where I had not been before.” Lill replied to his unspoken question.

“I’ve always known that you existed even though my conscious mind would never allow it.”

“So what now? How can we carry on?”

The light coalesced in front of them, red shifting, become whole. They looked at each other, Adam and Lillith, originally one soul. Holding hands, now of one mind, they smiled, perhaps for the first time; knowing no other and walked as one into the light.

The Electrified Staircase

The empty classroom is cold and sterile; this is no longer a room of knowledge but of re-education. She sits behind her desk alone, waiting; her tight yet formless clothes the same drab grey as the walls. Her features betray no emotion and her hair is cut short; severe, like her manner.

The door opens and a man walks in. He may have been described as an individual once but no longer for he is but a defective cog in the machine. This is not an acronym, simply a fact –to her we are all Cogs in the wheel.

He is sick, she’s seen his type many times and it is her responsibility to maintain the status quo, to enlighten those broken cogs and reprocess them where necessary. Most suffer from the simply aberration of mis-identification; they’ve lost sight of the hive and see themselves as different. Most can be brought back to the awareness and will regain their place in the totality. But there are always a few that refuse to be the same; these are the trouble makers and have to be dealt with accordingly.

He sits deliberately in the third row of the empty classroom, by the window. Clever, she thinks to herself, drawing attention to himself even now, allowing himself access to the outside world.

“Admin RH6 37? I want you at the front of the room where we can converse more freely.” She speaks in an authoritarian tone exactly like a school teacher should, excepting he is at least seven years older than her.

“Oh, I didn’t realise that I was brought here for a chat!” He replies in a tone that would once have been dripping in sarcasm; but of all emotions, sarcasm was the first to go. It was deemed the most unprofessional and the lowest of all the forms of ‘wit’ by those who lacked the understanding that came from true awareness. But then self-awareness, like sarcasm, was bad for the system; it was dangerous and needed to be stamped out –and stamped out it was. Soon humour was drained of any colour until it ceased to be.

After sarcasm was dispensed with things became far more politically correct; everyone was the same. Everyone was equal and there was no need for diversity of any kind. It was one big happy family, except there was no such thing as a family unit any more and no was happy.

“You know why you’ve been brought here, RH6.” She replied as he got up and almost skipped into his new chair.

“So not a cup of tea and a chat then.” He replied, smiling.

“Stop behaving like a child, RH6. You’re not a child any longer and haven’t been for quite some time.” Taking away names was just the first part of the dehumanisation process. Of course it had been a subtle indoctrination; the mass media, advertising and asinine television programmes and films had systematically taught people to think along certain predetermined tracks for years without them realising it. When the programming finally became overt there was virtually no resistance; most people seeing it as a kind of blessing. They didn’t need to think any more and there was no longer any need for ‘escapism’.

“You know.. you could call me Bob.” Bob replied. This was as she expected, he still clung to his birth name….

“I knew you’d be trouble, RH6.” Her arms flat on the table, her body language betraying nothing, her voice modulated and icy. “Despite having been systemised once before you still maintain your right to individuality. You still flaunt yourself as a somebody, albeit in subtle ways. Yes, it took us quite a while before we were able to truly catch you in the acts but now that your sitting in front of me I can see it in your eye.” Bob smiles at the recognition and matches her gaze. “At one time we would have called it a mischievous glint and it might have even been applauded but now it is just another sign of your depravity, so it needs to be eradicated.”

“And so you fear it, don’t you?”

“We fear nothing. Fear is another concept that we don’t recognise.”

“But you do encourage fear in others, don’t you… That, at least, is acceptable.”

“There are some emotional states that are useful to us, that we can engender in others, yes.”

“Hate, fear and anger;” Bob listed, counting them on his fingers. “Once these manifest you’ve then got cause to clamp down on people, eh? Clever.”

“You seem to understand our ways.. Bob. You approve?”

“Approve?” Bob shrugs, looking non-plussed before slamming his hands on to the desk. “Approve! How dare you? You’re no different to all the other despots who have sought to control peoples minds throughout the ages and you’ll fail as they all did!”

“That is where you’re mistaken. Where you see successive failures, we see rehearsals. Where you acknowledge individual despots we see one tapestry. Our files indicate that your subversions stem from the belief that there is one big conspiracy. Originally you were arrested once the Freedom Of Speech act came into play; you were posting comments on Facebook , trying to warn the people of our agenda –as if they cared! No one was listening to you, RH6. No one ever listens!”

“They will one day, when they realise what it is that they’ve lost!”

“What is it exactly that you think they’re losing? Free will? Oh dear –you will need re-educating! From the moment they’re born the majority think exactly what we tell them to think; they’re given countless choices along a very narrow spectrum of thought but consistently kept beneath glass ceilings. We pressure them into learning things that will occupy, confuse and belittle them at school. We educate them enough so they realise their place in society and they know not to question our fundamental truths. We tell them what to believe, we tell them what to feel and how to think. Give a lie enough credence, make it elaborate enough and people will believe it regardless of how ridiculous it is! We’ve had thousands of years to practice that… But then you know that already, don’t you… Bob?”

“Jesus Christ!” He says, hanging his head in frustration.

“Good example! So.. how does it feel to be right?”

“Someone will stop you; will free the people against you!”

“Free the people? What makes you think that the people want to be freed? They know no different. Let me tell you of an experiment…

“It’s about three generations of rats. They lived in a two storey cage and the only way to get to the second storey was by a metal staircase which gave off electric shocks. So the first generation knew not to go up the staircase because of the pain it inflicted on them. Those four rats soon got the message and didn’t venture near that end of the cage, nor upstairs.

“Two were taken out after a week and two new ones were substituted. When the new additions tried to go upstairs they were warned not to by the original two. Warning squeals would deter them even if they dared to walk towards the staircase. Even though a week had elapsed since the shocks had been administered the original two rats had remembered the pain. Another week passed and the last of original two rats were taken out and replaced by another two. Can you guess what happened?”

Bob sighed and felt a tear trickle down his cheek. “When the third generation of rats tried to go upstairs they were warned not to by the second generation, even though the second generation had never been shocked themselves.”

“And by that time the staircase was no longer electrified… and that’s the story of the human race some several thousand generations on.”

“But you will always get people who can see through your lies and seek to tell the truth.”

“Like yourself, RH6? And where did that get you? How many people did you manage to convert with your anarchic posts? Who engaged with you?”

“A few…”

“And those few were the ones who gave us the evidence we needed to bring you in the second time! Don’t look so shocked –oh, they needed persuading… but even the most stalwart of your so-called-friends folded after a while. They saw the futility of your quest especially when they realised how we could hurt them.”

“You hurt them?”

“Not in any real sense, no; and nor would we. They are too useful to the machine. We threatened them with expulsion and public degradation. Like most rebels that have no backbone; they put up the façade of strength but it was paper thin. We scarcely threatened them, truth be told, such was their conviction and belief in you.”

“So what about me?” Bob sighed. “What do you intend to do with me now?”

“Well, you have resisted all attempts to be recycled, RH6. You stubbornly cling to your petty individuality and refuse to submit. Your wish is to be unique and so we reward you with the right to do so!”

“What? How do you mean?” Bob stammered, shocked by the revelation.

“You are far more use to us in your present state… Bob. We will grant you everything you desire. You may keep your name, your true name; act how you like and behave in whatever manner you desire –you will never be arrested or conditioned again. As far as the law is concerned you no longer exist.

“You will only strengthen people’s perception of our regime and you will become the object of their fear and hate. You will, in effect, become their electrified staircase. After so many generations we feel that someone has to be made an example of so the people can be reminded of the truth… and you, Bob, will be their example. You have now everything that you ever wished for –complete freedom, but something tells me that you will no longer be able to enjoy it. But, that’s that – Thank you for your time, Bob –you may go… We will not be seeing you again.”