Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [107]
He broke off.
‘We seem to have company,’ he said, under his breath.
‘The scanner.’
Scanner? Catcher was unfamiliar with the word, but the Doctor had turned to face the wall, where the grey screen had been. Even the screen was a marvel now, a glittering rectangle instead of the terrible belching thing that had adorned the wall of the cellar. But what it was showing...
Oh.
It was too big NOT BIG too EVERYTHING too much EVERYTHING he couldn’t look at it LOOK??? AT IT his head wasn’t BIG big enough to hold IT ALL OH FATHER
OH MOTHER it was so BIG IT SPILLED out of his eyes and into his EARS and into every SENSE he HAD the thing on the screen THE THING ON THE SCREEN IT WAS IT WAS IT
WAS –
‘CaCCCOpphonYYyy !’ screamed Catcher.
– That’s as good a name as any, said the thing.
Roz Forrester slipped into the nearest empty seat. She’d needed to find cover, to shelter from the fall-out that poisoned the world outside, and the cinema had been the closest building. She didn’t know what a cinema was doing in the middle of a warzone, but the amaranth assured her that such things were perfectly normal here.
On the screen several jungle wars were in progress, and various unusual atrocities had been captured on celluloid. In the aisles of the cinema, usherettes were selling self-igniting flags to college students. Every time somebody was shot on the screen, the students would hiss and wave their burning star-spangled banners.
The doughy-faced man in the next seat nudged Roz’s arm.
‘This is the good bit,’ he drawled.
On the screen, the President of the United States of Decay was driven to his execution, smiling and waving at the photographers. The students didn’t know whether to hiss or cheer. By the side of the road, a man in a monk’s habit stood on a grassy knoll, aiming a sniper rifle.
The President’s head cherry-bombed open. Lee Harvey Oswald stood up from his seat next to Roz and clapped.
‘Cool!’ he said, and was more than a little surprised when some Adjudicators arrived and dragged him out of the cinema.
Roz ignored the commotion, and bought a tub of ice cream.
The wars continued on the big screen. Wars in the jungle, wars in the desert, wars in the stratosphere. The centuries passed and America fell, but its curse lingered on. There in the future, there were two power-blocs, just as there always had been, and if they weren’t the USA and the USSR, then they might as well have been. Ion-jet rockets pushed the frontier out into space, men with cowboy moustaches and stupid accents spreading their gun-law across the cosmos.
Finally, the Earth died by fire, great arks carrying humanity’s leftovers away to safety. There were black-skinned slaves on the ships, same as always. The slaves were one-eyed, rough-skinned, and extraterrestrial, but a slave was a slave was a slave was a slave.
The film ran out. The cinema went dark.
‘Behind you,’ said the mouth.
Daniel Tremayne turned. Behind him was a doorway, the only exit from the room with the brass roundels. The doorway was dark. On the other side the whispers were louder, and futures were waiting for someone to come along and make them.
‘How’s one man supposed to change history?’ he asked.
‘One man always does,’ replied the mouth. ‘But no one ever realized it, until now. Perhaps the revolutions have more to do with economics than with freedom and high ideals.
Perhaps America only wanted its independence so that it no longer had to pay taxes to the British. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what the reasons are. Man has taken history by the throat. Looked the kings and the monsters in the face.
Remade