Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [29]
The hall was dark except for a flickering fixture at the far end. Octave led the Doctor past the other dressing rooms to the stairs, scurrying ahead, slightly stooped. As they passed the lamp his slicked-down hair gleamed wetly at the edges, still damp from where he had washed off his greasepaint.
On the stage, a solitary electric bulb glowed in an iron cage on a rod, spreading a weak circle of light against the theatre’s empty darkness. The ghost light, thought the Doctor, wondering how he knew the phrase. He’d noticed earlier the up-to‐the-minute electrical stage lighting, though the theatre lobby, like the backstage hallways, was still illuminated with gas. He looked into the black void of the rows of seats.
‘You’re curious,’ said Octave. In the faint light, without his makeup, he looked washed out.
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘Oh – unless that was a description of me.’
‘About my act,’ said Octave after a beat.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘There’s no mystery about your act.’
‘I like to think there is.’
‘I’m sure you do. Not a secret you want advertised. Tell me: how many of you are there altogether?’
At the edge of the light, in quiet unison, the doors of Octave’s cabinets swung open. The Doctor watched as five identical men stepped out. He nodded. At a noise behind him, he glanced into the auditorium. Two more Octaves were coming up from the blackness on to the stage. Silently, the figures surrounded the Doctor. He turned in a circle, examining them. They wore different suits but otherwise were indistinguishable one from another.
‘Eight,’ said the Doctor. ‘Thus the name. Bit obvious, don’t you think?’
‘No one’s guessed,’ said the first Octave. ‘Till now.’
‘I didn’t guess,’ said the Doctor. ‘I knew.’
‘Really?’ said another of the Octaves, very quietly. ‘What did you know?’
‘Perhaps you’re a gynaecologist,’ said a third drily. ‘Someone familiar with multiple births.’
‘Though not quite this multiple,’ added a fourth.
‘You’re not octuplets,’ said the Doctor calmly. ‘You’re the same person splintered into eight parts.’
The Octaves hadn’t been exactly animated before, but now they became completely still, their eyes fixed unblinkingly on the man at their centre. The Doctor was unruffled by this stark attention. He reached out, took the first Octave’s hand, and gently pressed the little puncture wound with the edge of his thumbnail. A tiny spot of blood appeared. The Doctor looked around. As one, the other Octaves turned their palms towards him, each with its own glistening droplet.
‘You’re one man,’ the Doctor said as the first Octave took back his hand, ‘but shattered, like one reflection multiplied in the fragments of a broken mirror. Who did this to you? And why?’
‘Who are you?’ said the first Octave. ‘And why have you sought me out?’
‘I’m the Doctor. Time is wounded here. You can feel it, can’t you?’ The Doctor was turning in a circle again, facing each of the Octaves for a moment. ‘You’re part of the wound.’
The Octaves moved back a step. The Doctor looked from one pair of identical eyes to another to another, saw the trace of sweat beneath the moustaches on each upper lip. It was like facing multiple beings that shared a hive mind, only not quite. That was natural. This was a human mind, never meant to exist in more than one body, let alone eight. What kind of perceptual strain must it be?
‘How do you manage?’ he said. ‘What do you do?’
‘I sleep,’ said the first Octave simply. ‘They sleep.’
‘Except during the act,’ said the Doctor. The Octaves nodded. ‘It’s a risk, that act.’
‘There’s so little I can do,’ the first Octave whispered, anguished. ‘So little,’ murmured the others.
‘My mind...’
‘My mind...’
Their voices broke. The Doctor flushed angrily. ‘This is abominable! Who did this to you?’
Weirdly, they looked at one another. The Doctor watched in fascination. Elements of the mind communicating. So there was some slight psychic as well as physical fracturing. His heart sank. That made reintegration more difficult,