Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [56]
‘I don’t want to end up as a cartoon character,’ Fitz muttered.
‘Why not?’ said Tobin. ‘The more we get stripped down to our basics, the more we turn into who we really are. We get stronger that way. We get more real, not less. That’s the whole point of this lifestyle.’
It was true. There was no denying it. The Remote weren’t being dehumanised: they were being turned into something beyond human. The ultimate cultural development of mankind, more icon than animal. Everyone knows who Wile E. Coyote is, thought Fitz, but nobody knows who I am. Coyote’s immortal, and I stopped being important over six hundred years ago. So which of us is stronger? The one with the big floppy ears and the unlucky streak, that’s who.
Sarah Jane Smith cried when she saw ET. But when those two hundred thousand people died in East Timor…?
‘Supposing I died tomorrow,’ said Fitz. ‘Would you remember me as a good person, d’you think? As someone who’d want to be near his friends?’
Tobin shrugged. ‘I suppose.’
‘Good.’ He looked down at the biomass again, a big fat blob of flesh just gagging for a face. ‘That’s good. That’s all that really matters.’
* * *
21
Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation
(Sam finally gets a sense of perspective)
* * *
Scene 61. London
[We pan across a futuristic, possibly post-apocalyptic, landscape. We watch a montage of scenes from the streets of London, the air heavy with toxic gas, the buildings pockmarked by shellfire. There are no living people to be seen, but the streets are littered with debris and rubbish, and it’s conceivable that some of it may be made up of human remains. A few of the buildings are surrounded by barbed wire, suggesting that the survivors of the calamity may have taken shelter there. The corpses of dead birds hang from broken windows, signifiers of some unknown – and unseen – urban tribe. Occasionally, a personal helicopter will fly overhead, but none of them stay around for long.
[Finally, we focus on one particular building. We see that it’s the old BBC TV centre, but it’s in ruins. Parts of the building have been demolished, the windows are shattered, and the lawn surrounding it is horribly overgrown. The place clearly hasn’t been used in years.]
* * *
Scene 62. A Disused Television Studio
[The studio is mostly in darkness. We can make out the shapes of old machines, the skeletons of ancient camera rigs surrounding the bare studio floor. For the first few moments, there’s silence. Nothing moves.
[Then we see a light. A figure steps into the middle of the floor, an electric lamp in his hand. The figure is young, his hair cropped short, an earring in one lobe. He’s dressed in combat fatigues, though the fashion is unfamiliar, again suggesting a future setting. He also wears some kind of small plastic oxygen mask, or maybe it’s just a filter. Also, there’s a black seedling pinned to his jacket, although there’s no indication of what this might mean.
[This is DONOVAN. He turns, sweeping the lamp across the camera equipment, and bows theatrically.]
DONOVAN: Good morning, Great Britain. It’s ten o’clock on the fifth of November, and this is Donovan’s Happy Half-Hour. In NICAM digital holography, where available. Coming up –
VOICE [off]: Donovan!
[A second figure steps out of the darkness, lamp in hand. It’s a woman, her body stooped and emaciated, probably in her mid-seventies or early eighties, although she moves like someone much older. She’s wearing an automedical survival jacket, so at least one of her major organs must have failed during her lifetime, and she’s wearing the black seedling emblem as well.]
SAM [for it is she]: Don’t touch anything. We don’t want to do any more damage. And you can take that mask off if you want. The air’s clean in here.
DONOVAN: I won’t take the risk, thanks. [Looks around.] Don’t think much of the hardware. Not a lot here we can use.
SAM: We can find the equipment. We’ve got the contacts.
DONOVAN: Still don’t know why we have to broadcast from here, though. There’s no way we can keep up security in a place like