Doctor Who_ Hope - Mark Clapham [11]
They are a brotherhood, although such organic concepts as family and fraternal feelings have been put behind them in their search for perfection, their constant upgrading. Gathered in their robes they chant hard integers, allowing their minds to relax into a dreamstate of ones and zeroes. The founders of their faith live on somewhere in the outer universe, far away from Endpoint. The Perfected Ones themselves are long since dead, martyred in battle, reduced to the components on which the brotherhood model their own adaptations. But this brotherhood have one who makes their quest worthwhile, who holds out a light of hope for them. A virtual messiah, carved out of the air in pure, gleaming holographic form, a messenger from a better world of pure data.
As they chant they are gradually aware that she is among them, that their queen has a proclamation to make. In the centre of the room a face forms, feminine features pooling from liquid mercury, the soft curves of organic womanhood adapted into something more precise, a colder and more efficient vision of beauty. They are awestruck by the dark grates that are her eyes, the chiselled steel of her cheekbones, the plated slit in her perfect features that is her mouth. When that mouth deigns to speak, they all listen.
The equations are all balanced, their queen says. This is the optimum time to strike, to remove the aberration. It is time to terminate the abomination.
The flickering blue flames of the gas torches lit their way as they followed the steps, and Anji took the opportunity to have a good look around. The path the steps took was supported by beams linked to buildings on either side, and somewhere below was the sea.
Hope isnt an island, said the Doctor, fascinated as he peered over the edge. The city is built on stilts, as theres no actual ground here for it to rest on. There are clearly a large number of main structures going down to the sea bed. Everything else is cantilevered in between. Its a miracle of crisis engineering.
Anji had to admit she was impressed. The buildings either side of them resembled tenements, vast grey structures with pokey little windows and that swollen, looming quality that comes from buildings designed to cram as many people into as little space as possible. But they were impressively tall, many storeys high, and the way that bridges interconnected the various buildings while acting as support struts was equally ingenious. Anji was sure she occasionally heard the sound of people walking by overhead, but with the constant clattering of nearby machinery, the hum of power lines crisscrossing above her and the bubbling of the gas pipes, it was hard to be sure. Who did live here, anyway? She asked the Doctor what Powlin had told them.
They call themselves Endpointers, butted in Fitz enthusiastically. Theyre descended from a number of races, including humans. They think of us as throwbacks apparently.
Throwbacks? said Anji. It was a term little used where she came from, the sort of folk logic her grandparents generation might have used.
The hostile environment has made the Endpointers a breed apart, said the Doctor, expanding on Fitzs ramblings. Stronger, more resistant to toxins and harsh weather. They dont have hair, their eyes are protected by an inner lid rather than eyelashes, their lungs are probably highly evolved. To them we seem like chimpanzees do to Homo sapiens. Ancestral features occasionally pop up in the Endpointer gene pool a child with hair here, someone with blue skin picked up from a reptilian ancestor there. But actual, pureblood humans havent been seen for centuries. Certainly, Powlin was quicker to presume we were genetic freaks than Homo sapiens.
I wonder what happened to all the people, mused Fitz.
Evolved into these ones, I should think, said the Doctor, gently mocking what he clearly saw as an outmoded, humancentric view of history.