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Fitz watched him for a few seconds, then collapsed to his own knees. 'Oh thank you, sweet Jesus Christ! Thank you, thank you, thank you.' He kissed the air, then looked at the Doctor. 'You all right?'

'We've got to stop Taylor,' the Doctor said, examining first Sam, then Azoth.

He shook his head, and squinted at Fitz. 'Or rather, you have.'

'On your bike,' said Fitz.

'Listen to me,' the Doctor began, then broke off. 'Oh, there's no time, there's no time... I can't do it myself, I have to help Sam, retrieve the information I need from Azoth's head. Fitz, you follow Taylor and stop him.'

'What, to save your precious, crummy Beast?'

'Not only them, but your mother and countless other lives too.'

'Come off it!'

The Doctor grabbed his arm. "The program in Taylor's mind has been awakened too soon.'

'So? He's already potty, isn't he?'

'When Sam collapsed, Watson didn't struggle, did he? Even though there was nothing holding him.'

'Well, I-'

'I think he was too busy calling for help to notice,' the Doctor said, using his cravat to dab at his eyes. 'Do you know how an atom bomb works, Fitz?'

'Come off it. They're like women. It's hard enough coping with them, let alone understanding them.'

'Uranium 235 is an isotope, disintegrating continually because of its radioactivity. In small amounts this disintegration is a slow process, but if more is brought together, if critical mass is exceeded...'

'Boom?' offered Fitz.

'The disintegration accelerates massively: the pulses of energy thrown out by the atoms hit the nuclei of other atoms, disintegrating them; and these exploding atoms shoot out still more pulses of energy which hit still more nuclei.'

'Which proves what?'

'The program, or the leech, is the isotope. While your mother and the others were apart, the metamorphosis of their brain cells proceeded slowly, creating only minor traumas - bouts of schizophrenia and so on. Bring them into contact with each other, stir them up as Roley did.

'And we've seen what happens,' Fitz said.

'We were lucky to stop the four of them, last time,' said the Doctor. 'I dread to think what will happen if Taylor joins them too.'

Fitz buried his face in his hands. "Then I suppose you're right. I'd better follow him.' A thought seemed to strike him, and he looked earnestly at the Doctor. 'Do you think I could have a ray gun?'

***

The needle punctured Watson's vein. Maria paused with her thumb on the plunger. One push, it would all be over.

Something grabbed hold of her hair and pulled hard.

Maria shrieked in surprise, and the syringe fell from her grasp. Lucy had hold of her, dragging her face up close to her own.

'You fat old bitch,' Lucy hissed, her eyes full of sleep and malice. 'l'll have your unloved heart out for this.'

Lucy released Maria, sending her sprawling backward. She half crawled, half staggered towards the passage that led to the drawing room, to the shattered windows, to freedom - but the door slammed in her face, trapping her in the hallway.

Lucy was saying nothing now, just staring at Maria with a kind of drunken concentration. Maria moved cautiously towards her. She could see the syringe, lying by the woman's feet. Had Lucy noticed it? Her eyes were still half focusing on Maria's own.

Well, if the little slut wanted a fight, she could have one.

Maria lunged for the syringe, but it skittered into Lucy's hand without her moving a muscle. The witch laughed, that annoying high-pitched squeal of hers, and dangled the syringe by the plunger in front of Maria's face.

***

The flick of a switch and the doors to the cavern opened, exposing the chill dark of the tunnel outside. The Doctor had found Fitz a gun - one Azoth must have used to stun his victims before doing his Frankenstein bit - but it didn't make him feel much better.

The Doctor was hauling Azoth into the TARDIS, having already collected a bizarre assortment of items from Golden Boy's torture chamber. I'll