Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [87]
‘Hang on, hang on. Rewind a bit, Professor. When I pulled you out of the ship, you were completely gone. What was all that about?’
The Doctor absently rubbed the back of his neck and, somewhat uncomfortably, accepted the double brandy that Claire offered him. He swirled it around in the glass, his brow furrowing as he stared into it. ‘I saw Joyce earlier, back at the hotel,’ he said. ‘She told me how you’d rescued her from the ship. I had to find out what it was all about so I wired myself up.’ ‘And it turned you into a vegetable,’ Ace admonished, watching him sniffing his brandy.
He nodded almost sheepishly. ‘I wasn’t prepared for the fact that it was designed to paralyse its subjects, prevent them from moving about or disconnecting themselves; and it was evidently designed for human brains. I think mine,’ he lowered his voice to a whisper and glanced around the bar, ‘confused it a little.’
‘I know how it feels.’
‘And then, of course, you came along and got me out.’
‘In the nick of time.’
He raised an eyebrow and smiled wryly. ‘Almost as if you’d known exactly what was happening, eh?’
Ace looked away guiltily.
‘I take it,’ he said slowly and carefully, ‘that you haven’t been... careless?’
‘Professor! As if!’
His eyebrow inched higher up his forehead.
‘After our little chat,’ she said in a whisper, realising that she was glancing around the bar in the same way that the Doctor had, ‘I made sure I was a good girl.’
‘Well, it’s never too late, is it?’ He jabbed her, gently, on the nose.
‘Anyway,’ she changed the subject, suddenly feeling awkward. ‘What about Eddie here?’
‘Ah! Eddie!’ Ace glanced over her shoulder at him. He’d sat down at the bar and seemed to be taking huge delight in his Guinness. She looked back to see the Doctor slipping from his stool and beckoning Ace over to a corner table. She followed him.
‘Eddie is a very confused man,’ said the Doctor as they seated themselves. ‘Apparently he’s escaped from Graystairs and they’re getting in a flap about his disappearance. That’s one of the reasons Joyce sent me the postcard. He went missing a couple of days ago and has been drifting around the woods and village ever since.’
‘Most of Graystairs’ residents are confused – what’s so special about him?’
‘For a start, his memory seems to be returning.’
‘Isn’t that the whole point of the treatment?’
The Doctor raised a hand. ‘It’s not so much the fact that his memory’s returning – or, at least, seems to be. It’s what he’s remembering that’s so disturbing.’ The Doctor gave her a quick summary of what Eddie had told her about the horrific nature of the memories that were surfacing. She felt herself go cold as he told her of the burning cities and screaming children. ‘Eddie seems to think that the staff at Graystairs are actually implanting false memories in him for some reason.’
‘And what do you reckon?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure, Ace. My own faculties aren’t quite a hundred per cent yet. Whilst I was on board the ship, I had a couple of disturbing flashbacks myself.’ He paused.
‘Well, one of them was a flashback. A memory of Leela in the snow. But the other one ...’ He tailed off, staring down into his glass again.
‘So did they put that in your head?’
There was silence. Ace watched his eyes, saw the puzzlement on his face. ‘No – no I don’t think they did. But I think there are two separate treatments going on: the memory implantation and the multiple processor array – the people wired up in the spaceship.’
‘And you’ve no idea what that’s for yet, then?’
He tapped the side of his head. ‘Part of me’s still working on that one. And then, of course, there’s Stacy Chambers.’
‘Who do you think she is?’
‘I’m not sure. Norma seems to think that she’s the key to all of this. She’s heard her name whispered around the place, but I haven’t found her.’
Ace laughed gently. ‘And here’s me thinking that I was the one having all the fun.’
‘Well!’ came a familiar voice from behind her. ‘The wanderer returns!’ She turned. Standing behind her, his jaw tense as he looked