Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [88]
‘Will I be better?’ Kode asked.
The Doctor didn’t answer. Instead, he took a step forward, and gently rested a hand on Kode’s shoulder. To Fitz, the gesture looked forced. Unconvincing.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ said the Doctor. ‘I can’t make you change yourself It’s got to be your decision. There isn’t really anything wrong with the way you are now.’
‘But I’ll know.’ Kode looked up at the Doctor, and the Doctor finally had to make eye-contact with him. ‘Don’t you get it? I don’t belong in Anathema any more. If I stay this way, I’ll spend my life wondering how close I am. How close to the real thing. And he’s got a place, hasn’t he? He’s supposed to be with you. And you want him back.’
‘That’s not the issue,’ said the Doctor.
‘Yes it is. Look… I won’t be him. Not properly. I’ll be a copy, that’s all. Made out of your memories.’
‘Not just mine, Kode. I’ve linked the machine to the TARDIS, and she’s got a better memory of Fitz than either of us.’
‘I’ll still be a copy.’
‘No. A man is the sum of his memories, that’s all. Every cell in your body has died and been replaced a million times over. There isn’t a human being alive who’s the same person they were a year ago, or a month ago, or even a week ago. The continuity’s all that matters. Believe me.’
So Kode believed him. And so, for that matter, did Fitz.
‘You’ll all remember me, won’t you?’ Kode asked. ‘I mean, you’ll remember who I was. Who I am now.’
‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor.
Oh yes, thought Fitz. I’ll remember. I’m still going to have all those thoughts you had, aren’t I? Those little quirks, those buried fantasies, those bits and pieces that have got caught up in your personality over the generations. I’ll be Fitz, and you’ll be gone, but you’ll be part of me, the same way I was part of you.
Just for a moment, there were other scenes in front of his eyes, the last of the memories being reshuffled and reordered inside his head. He saw his initiation into the Faction, back on Ordifica. He saw himself kneeling in Mathara’s shrine, with his hands behind his back and the living shadows clustering around him. He’d suppressed this memory, hidden it away at the bottom of his skull, but now it was all coming back to him. Would he forget it again soon, or would it stay with him now? Hard to say. He got the feeling he’d be happier if he forgot.
Yes. Because now he could see the man with one arm, the messenger who’d been sent by Grandfather Paradox while he’d been in the shrine. A figure dressed in what looked like armour, even blacker and heavier than the armour the Remote wore, with his whole head covered by a great black mask. It was almost like a pharaoh’s death mask, but smoother, and darker, with no features except for the slits of the eyes. The remains of the man’s right arm dangled by his side, shrivelled and sad-looking.
‘This is the future,’ the messenger said, and his voice had all the cracks and wrinkles of old skin. The man sounded exhausted, Fitz noted. Tired of living. But then the messenger started to fold time into pretty origami shapes, showing Fitz his own destiny, where an old Fitz lay screaming in the dirt of a faraway planet as something huge and ancient started to eat him alive, except that –
‘Are you all right?’ asked the Doctor.
The memory vanished as soon as the Doctor opened his mouth. Fitz found himself back in the twentieth century, back in the remembrance tank. He looked up, and saw the Doctor’s face hovering over him, peering at him through the glass panel of the tank. The Doctor was smiling. Fitz thought about smiling back, but it was too much of a strain, really. After everything he’d been through. After coming all this way.
‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.
* * *
Coda 1:
Coming Down to Earth
coda n. (1) the final part of a structure, esp. a musical or mathematical one. (2) the concluding part of a literary work, esp. a summary at the end of a novel describing further developments in the lives of the characters.
– Dawson’s English Dictionary, 1993.
The attic of Sam’s house, Shoreditch,