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By Root 824 0

It's a side effect of the drug. He pictured the dog and the stick and violent mayhem. The assembled rats stirred and skittered and moved further away from him, then settled again to watch.

Shoo!' he shouted at them. Go away!' He clapped his hands. 'You are not psychic! You are rats! Go away and leave me alone!'

'Sharing your mind with inferior creatures,' Josh remarked, stepping out of the deep shadows. 'Not very appealing is it? Does that answer your question?'

'Did you do that?'

'I can take animals' thoughts or people's thoughts and amplify them and pass them on. They never realise it's happening.' He rubbed his hand backwards and forwards over his shaved scalp. 'Hours of innocent fun.

Gets boring of course.'

The rats scurried away as he walked unhurriedly through them.

The Doctor's mind was clearing. 'Why do you use speech?' he said. "That was the question. The answer is: you use speech to keep contact with inferior creatures like the rest of humanity to a minimum.'

Josh said, 'I don't want to share your thoughts. I don't want you to share mine. I don't want to be part of you.'

'You shared Barry Hitchins' thoughts,' the Doctor suggested. 'Or was the cellar full of rats a coincidence?'

‘I am unique,' Josh stated.

'Everybody is,' the Doctor said.

Josh laughed. 'You all spend your lives imagining you're unique,' he sneered. 'None of you is even unusual. You're all so predictable. You're all the same. Only I am unique.'

It seemed to the Doctor that the student's attitude was more unmediated, his behaviour more erratic, than it had been before. Could that be the result of clearing his mind? Or was clear your mind a euphemism for something altogether more damaging? 'Are you still taking the drug?'

'The enhancer releases my power'

'How long have you been taking it?'

'Look.' Josh pointed at one of the departing rats. The animal turned and began to run towards them squealing. 'Your dog is chasing it.'

'Let it go,' the Doctor said. 'It hasn't done you any harm.'

The rat turned again, ran a short distance and then reared up on its hind legs before collapsing into a twitching heap.

'You hit it with the stick,' Josh remarked. 'It thinks it's dying.'

The rat kicked its back legs convulsively and lay still. The Doctor went to it and pushed it gently with his foot. It was dead. Was it because he had deliberately pictured the dog and the stick that Josh had picked up the images, he wondered? How much more of what was in his mind did this boy 'share'? Could he keep anything in his mind a secret from him?

'I am the next stage of evolution,' Josh said. 'There will be no other'

'I think you may be confused about how evolution works,' the Doctor suggested. 'There has to be more than one.'

Josh gestured into the shadows. 'Professor Finer is ready to start.'

In that event I'll say goodbye.' The Doctor went back to the wall and sank down into a sitting position.

'He needs you for the experiment,' Josh explained.

'I tried to explain to him that he may already have damaged this planet irreparably,' the Doctor said, 'and that to press on any further would be a waste of a perfectly good universe. Unfortunately he wouldn't listen to me.'

Josh looked uncertain. You are exaggerating, aren't you?'

'It's not possible to do that, I'm afraid.'

'Why should I believe you?'

Why shouldn't you believe me,' the Doctor said. 'You can read my mind.'

'If what you think is true,' Josh tugged at his arm, 'you can't just sit there and let it happen.'

The Doctor got wearily to his feet. 'What do you suggest I do?' Was it possible, he wondered, that the student's short-term psychosis had worn off or was even working in his favour? Was Josh on his side now?

'I suggest we try and convince Professor Finer before it's too late.' Josh hurried off into the shadowy dimness. This way. Come on!'

The Doctor followed him out and found him waiting at the entrance to a concrete service tunnel. Josh handed him a pair of rubber overshoes and a hard hat with a lantern attached.