Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [91]
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12
Faster than the Speed of Dark
(Ancient Gallifrey: The Mini‐series)
Scene 19. Anathema
[We see SAM and COMPASSION, crossing the plaza. The plaza seems to go on for ever, the paving slabs stretching out towards a horizon that isn’t really there. Up ahead is the silhouette of the main transmitter, and the only word that accurately describes it is ‘looming’. The perspective’s distorted, so SAM is probably hallucinating again.
[Suddenly, she stops walking, and looks up at the sky. The red patches have been almost entirely consumed by stripes of black, great swathes of dark smoke with no visible source. Somewhere on the other side of the smoke, we can see stars, tiny points of light moving across the sky.]
SAM: They’re moving. We’re moving. [Turns to COMPASSION.] This city. It’s a ship, isn’t it? We’re moving through space.
COMPASSION [under her breath]: I wish we could build ships that big.
[Then SAM looks back up at the sky, her attention caught by movement overhead. There are shapes emerging from the smoke, pushing against the fabric of space‐time from somewhere on the other side. We see half‐formed faces, screaming and twisting, embryonic hands trying to tear through the sky. The shapes are vague, but we can make out some of the faces splitting open, torn in two by their own screams. The stars are their teeth, puncturing the heavens.
[SAM gags.]
SAM: The Cold. It’s coming.
COMPASSION [following her gaze]: Where?
[All around them, extras dressed as members of the REMOTE are crossing the plaza, all of them wearing the standard nonuniform of Anathema. But as SAM speaks, they stop, as one, and raise their heads. Their faces mirror the features pushing at the sky, eyes wide, mouths open. COMPASSION just looks confused.]
SAM: Can’t you see it? It’s…
[SAM breaks off, and looks around.]
SAM: Wait a minute. Everything’s… scripted again. Oh God. I’m receiving. Why am I receiving?
COMPASSION: We’re getting closer to the main transmitter. Don’t worry about it.
[Suddenly, the REMOTE people begin to scream. Each of the screams is a perfectly normal human sound, but together they form a wall of solid white noise, a shriek of pure static. In the sky, the faces thrash and bite, trying to tear their way into the material universe.]
SAM: They’re like mediums. That’s what they are. They’re mediums, and they’re channelling the voice of the Cold.
GUEST: Media.
[SAM whirls around. GUEST is standing behind her, wearing not only his shadow mask but an entire suit of Cold‐skin armour. Jagged, angular plates of writhing black matter have been strapped to every part of his body. He looks more like a machine than a man.
[N.B.: COMPASSION seems to have vanished from the scene, but Sam doesn’t notice this yet.]
GUEST: The plural of medium is media. The people are the media. And it’s not the voice of the Cold, it’s the voice of the transmitters.
SAM: None of this is real, is it? It’s just the transmissions. They’re doing things to my head.
GUEST: But the transmissions are all that matter. Compassion told you that. Hang on a moment, this thing’s killing me.
[GUEST’s voice doesn’t sound quite right when he delivers this last line. He starts to peel off his shadow mask, and we see a cross‐cut of Sam’s surprised face before the features under the mask are revealed. They’re the features of MARK LESSING.]
MARK: That’s better.
SAM: You’re not Guest. You’re not even real, are you? You’re just… background noise. My brain’s picking up the signals, and it’s making you out of them.
MARK: So? Doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.
[SAM crosses her arms, defiantly, and turns away from MARK. When she turns, however, she realises that the scene has changed around her. The plaza has vanished, and in front of her there’s only space, speckled with stars.]
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Scene 20. A Gallifreyan Science Vessel
[We see that SAM is standing on the bridge of a ship, in front of a large viewscreen. She looks around, to take in the rest of this new environment.
[The