Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Times Crucible - Marc Platt [21]
"Doctor!"
Time inverts, spewing and hurling its cogs, wheels, spindles and springs across space.
Ace, plunging into oblivion, has one last thought, but disturbingly it is not her own. The Doctor is thinking, "The Process is only beginning."
6: Night School
Ace's heart sank. "How did you get here?" she complained.
"How do you think I got here?" said her mother. "By time storm?"
"Don't be stupid."
Ace shifted uncomfortably at her desk. Why was she here? She never bothered with school. School was somewhere that got Ace off her hands during the day. She was a beautician with a face like powder-caked plastic. She never bothered with Ace's school. And to make sure, Ace always "lost" letters about parent-teacher meetings on the way home.
Through the wide school windows, Ace saw the boys playing football on the tarmac below. She had a sudden urge to go and kick a ball around with them.
The teacher finished writing on the blackboard. The wedge of chalk he used was attached to the tip of his umbrella.
"Today I want to take a look at parenthood and some of the issues surrounding it."
"Oh, God," muttered Ace. "Is that why you're here?"
Her mother shrugged.
Ace's friend Manisha, one row in front, shook her long dark hair and leaned back in her chair. She looked awkward. A pink burn scar on her brown cheek was barely healing. "Sorry, Ace," she said, keeping her dark eyes to the floor. There were scars that wrinkled the skin on her hands as well. She sat forward again and exchanged glances with Shreela at the next desk.
This isn't happening, thought Ace. They're not really going to do this to me. Not in front of the whole class.
The teacher launched into that familiar hectoring style that he reserved for lectures. "None of you will have children as yet . . . I hope. But all of you will have parents in some circumstance or other."
"Too right," punctuated Ace loudly. This was the same old stuff. Boring, boring, boring.
Except of course for the person they'd invited behind her back.
"Pay attention, Dorothy," warned the teacher.
A paper dart launched out from the back of the room. It rose up towards the strip light and glided down to rest at the teacher's feet. He picked it up and studied it for a moment. The name Nosferatu was scrawled in biro on one paper wing.
"Aerodynamically primitive," the teacher declared, "but then so was Leonardo's helicopter." He launched it back across the class and scrutinized its flight, forgetful of his lecture.
"Is this what they call the National Curriculum?" said Ace's mother scornfully.
There was a loud guffaw from the back of the room. Ace turned and saw Sabalom Glitz lounging in the back row. The space mercenary's sharp blue eyes were laughing at her. There was a week of stubble on his chin and the beer stains of a thousand interstellar dives and seedy speakeasies on his leather tunic. He held the paper dart between his grubby fingers. "I won't say a word, sprog," he leered. "Your mother wouldn't like it."
Ace scowled and turned away. They were turning up from all over. Bad memories. It was getting too much like This is Your Life.
Captain Sorin of the Red Army's Special Missions Brigade frowned at her from the next desk. A grave frown that she had once almost loved.
"Ace," he said in his curdled Russian accent, "we all have our faiths. Remember?"
"I thought you were dead," she said bitterly.
"Not in your head, tavarisch. Mother is the first thing any child believes in. So have faith now."
"I don't want any more lectures," exploded Ace. "When did she ever believe in me? What is this anyway? If I hadn't seen her in the street, I wouldn't have been reminded. I wouldn't be having this dream, she wouldn't be here and you wouldn't all be ganging up on me!"
The teacher turned to glare at her. "Ace!"
She stood up and walked between the desks towards him. "Professor, you've got chalk dust all down your jacket."
The Doctor pulled a grimace of defeated