Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [1]
Chapter One
Repressing a shudder, she stared out over the cold, grey sea, wavetops flecked with white spittle. Every wave that slopped onto the beach was a reminder of the saggy bag of water she called a body, every drop of rain that fell on her dead skin a reminder of the shape they’d given her. She knew all the facts and figures, climatic data, physiology and biology of the prime species on this world; but still she shuddered at the suffocating wetness of what she’d become. What she’d been made.
Sometimes at night, listening to the wind rattling the windows, she scared herself by suddenly remembering that she’d forgotten what her own body – her old body – was like. And she’d sit up in the darkness, listening to her own breathing. She’d slide the water-fat palms of her hands across her fleshsuit, firmly pressing the spongy tissue as if she were smoothing out wrinkles, trying to remember the shiny slickness of her old skin; she’d close her eyes and picture the slender, twig-like body that she used to call hers. Did it still exist under the mounds of flesh and prosthetics that they’d applied to her, slapped on like so much animal fat? When she looked down at herself, she didn’t see the hours of work the modifiers had put in, or the years of augmentation technology they relied upon. Instead, all she saw was ugliness and fleshy wetness. And sitting there upon the cliff, she could taste that same wetness on the wind. It repulsed her at the same time as it fascinated her.
She looked up into the sky and watched clouds scudding past, thick grey ribs promising a storm, and pulled her coat tighter. Away in the distance she could still see the boat, bobbing defiantly on the sea. She wondered what the occupants were doing now. A feeble yellow light flickered in the cabin and the thought of warmth made what passed for her heart surge a little.
She glanced back over her shoulder, down the long, long grassy slope towards the base dwelling, wishing she didn’t still have two hours of observation duty to perform. She should have brought the Landine with her – for warmth, if not for company.
The water drops from the clouds suddenly began to increase in size and frequency and she took a deep breath, surrendering to the inevitability of this dreary world and its dreary weather as she watched the waves breaking on the shore. She turned her bulky head and surveyed the surface of the sea again, noting how perfectly the hues of its steel surface matched those of the sky, hanging above her like corrugated metal, bringing more of the wind and more of the wetness.
Soon, she hoped. It would happen soon. And then she could go home – to the warm and the dry, to her old body.
She plucked thoughtfully at the skin around her fingernail. A tiny flap came loose. She wondered how easily it would come off.
Doctor Joyce Brunner was in drag. Or at least that’s how she felt in anything other than her labcoat or her UNIT fatigues. Skirts made her legs feel cold and naked, vulnerable; and the kind of shoes that she was expected to wear out of work made her wince, bringing back painful memories of being a teenager. She’d never been one for twin sets and pearls, and the last time she’d had to dress up – for a UNIT dinner, surprise, surprise – she’d had to borrow something from her sister. Although Alison’s taste in clothes was rather showier than her own, she’d taken some small solace in being a ful two sizes smaller than her.
Dressing for a civilian trip to the Scottish countryside had been somewhat easier – a quick flick through a country lady magazine had given her the names of a couple of outfitters in London, and a tedious afternoon with her credit card had sorted the whole lot. Not that it was necessary to make any kind of an impression on the staff at Graystairs. God knows, she was paying them enough for her mother’s treatment. But something in Mum’s own love of decorum – if not stilettos – must have rubbed