| Doctor Who Internet Adventure #27 - "The Apan Way"
Every flick of the second hand on the clock ushered in an oblivion that seemed inevitable. "Who..?" inquired the short, balding figure in the neat grey suit as he turned his curiously proportioned face towards the intruder. Slowly, his pallid, sadistic features twisted into a hateful sneer of recognition. The new arrival cast a simple glance around the control room; the dials and winking readouts of various weaponry consoles as they hummed in the milky light. Thrusting his left hand deep into the pocket of his tweed jacket, he sliced at the air with his bamboo cane to a satisfying swishing sound. "Exactly," he said, "and you're in trouble." Pausing only to flick a small switch, the Doctor turned the razor's edge of his steely gaze towards the dictator. "So, Dasher old bean, what on Earth have you been planning?" This was asked as if he were quizzing a particularly petulant child. General Djshar looked shocked for a moment as if such personal abuse were something he was unaccustomed to, and in a softly menacing tone replied, "It's 'Shar'!" "Hah, yeah right! I heard it's Dasher; suits you so much better. I can't allow you to continue to threaten the East Zone with destruction, you know." "Really Doctor and, ahum, what on Earth do you propose to do about it?" "Nothing." Djshar's pudgy face flickered with a sadistic grin. "Well then Doctor, I think we have finally reached an understanding; unfortunately for you it has come too late. Guards, kill this intruder!" The assembled guards remained immobile, apparently watching the scene with silent interest. "But the resistance," continued the Doctor, "now they're a different matter..." He grinned toothily. The General suddenly snapped: "Curse you to Hades Doctor! I don't need guards to dispatch you!" he cried, pulling a handgun, but the handle of Doctor's cane was too fast for him. A bruising swipe sent the laser bolt wide of the mark and into a nearby console. As the hum of power changed to a strangled whine the General ran over to check his beloved instruments as a few of them began to smoke. "Djshar, NO-!" but the Doctor's words of warning came too late as a nearby console suddenly erupted in a magnesium-white flash ending the dictatorship in a single stroke. With a grim expression on his face the Doctor rose from examining the body to address one of the guards. "Mr Haworth, in ten minutes this whole ghastly apparatus will implode - you must evacuate the complex at once. I shall stay and try to hold it back as long as I can. Yours is the responsibility of ensuring the peace talks succeed. I know that I don't need to tell you that the fate of untold millions lies with you. Good luck!" A few short words of thanks later and the Doctor was alone in the control room, slouched in a chair. The damage to the instruments really wasn't that bad actually, but he had unplugged them just to be on the safe side. He would give the resistance about half an hour to get clear of the complex, and then the armageddon device could meet with an unfortunate accident. Pulling a neon yellow yo-yo from his pocket, the Doctor the began to idly toy, his face set in a frown. "Now then. Implosion, implosion, implosion... How the devil can I arrange one of those?" A sharp beam of light peaked with a flash, and there was the Doctor. He perceived three dimensions, but knew better, for this was the realm of INspace and nothing was quite what it seemed here. INspace, that strange ethereal dimension of mind and technology intertwined, universal internet to the soul, subspace bridge across the empty void of space and time and home of the swirling intelligences known as avatars. The dimension was older even than the first race of our universe - the Time Lords themselves. Traditionally only civilisations around level eighty or over could develop the panatropic technology to successfully jack into the self-perpetuating neural streams of this weird, formless environment of thought; but occasionally a younger race stumbled across it. Getting up from the floor the Doctor looked around the facsimile of Djshar's control room. As usual for INspace everything was shades of colourless grey. "A memory of your past, Doctor?" asked a voice from nowhere, "Ah yes, back when you had newly regenerated. In a world of thought it is best to guard one's memories." A flickering light flared before the Doctor, crystalising into a form; the Doctor's own. "You corporeals set so much store by appearance. Allow me to introduce myself Doctor: I am Morrell, controller of the Apan, a name the universe of matter will eventually learn to respect." The Doctor frowned, surveying his smirking mirror image. "I suspected as much. To save time, let's just assume that I know everything. So, what, the Apan Queen stumbled upon INspace? I say, that's really a remarkable feat for a level thirty civilisation! But without the ability to control her thoughts she got more than she bargained for. You hitched a ride in her head, and have been softly whispering in her dreams and idle moments for so long that you have achieved a degree of control over her actions; now that's species piracy, Morrell. I wonder how long it will take the authorities to catch you?" "Aha, but soon...very soon even our agent Jorrell," he spat the name in disgust, "will be seeing things the Apan way as well. All corporeals will see things the Apan way in time. I will be remade anew, a god in my own domain." "I cannot allow that; you cannot play with the universe, Morrell." "A God can play dice where he pleases." The Doctor shook gently his head. "God does not play dice with the universe...it's more like a bizarre game of Jenga." The figures circled each other, neither willing to drop their guard. "In which case you have pulled out your final block. You made a fatal mistake in coming here, Time Lord." "Maybe, maybe not. I wanted the chance to speak to you face to face," said the Doctor, pulling a pack of cards from his pocket. He selected a Jack of hearts and threw it to the floor, and in a blaze of light the surroundings changed to another, more recent memory... Life in a spaceport dome was always hectic, you never knew who you'd meet from one day to the next. So many types of life-forms passed through, all trying to be somewhere else; or recover from coming from somewhere else before going on to some completely different elsewhere altogether. Here and there the occasional dozy security guard wandered: usually a human or leafy Verdant, petals for a face, dragging itself along by the roots. Far from the madding crowds of the concourse, within a part of the building that should have been locked tight, but where security seemed to have gone soft with age. The staff of the control deck were engaged in yet another situation, as if being attacked from the outside hadn't been bad enough. The four hostage takers were grimy, unwashed members of the jobless spaceport underclass labelled "sneekers" by the command staff, for want of a better title. A laser bolt to the temple at point blank range had killed Comm Officer Duh Yates instantly. The raggedly clothed, sinewy individuals seemed nervous, maybe they were on drugs. Their slight trembling made it look like they were attempting to control themselves, or regain control. A silver jack plugged into the back of each man's neck glinted dully in the light, a crude design and ill filled. Of course, the bodged technology would cause them all permanent brain damage eventually, but they were obviously seen as expendable. "All you need to do is drop the duranium shielding panels. Open the dome Commander!" shouted the lead sneeker desperately, waving his laser pistol. "Let in the air, and we stop the killing." Jolyon regarded the sneekers impassively, . "I don't give into threats, mister. You can see the computer logs, that Apan bomb released some kind of unknown bacteria, which by now has spread across the whole planet. If we let it in, we might contaminate the whole spaceport. We could all die." The Doctor had made himself at home in the Security office, seating in the Security Chief's chair, watching the situation on the monitors. Now and then he fingered the lapel of his jacket, or sliced at the air with a small wooden ruler he had picked up from the desk - how he missed his trusty bamboo cane. Beside him stood Vivi and a large white-petaled orchid with pink flecks. As Greh entered, the Doctor looked up from the screen and beamed politely, acting in every way as if the office were his. "Ah, Greh, how nice to see you again! We have a bit of a situation here, and I thought that you could be of assistance. This is security chief Vandas," he motioned to the giant, walking orchid-policeman who slouched casually on the desk. The plant fluttered it's petals in a nod with a friendly low "vow-vow" noise. "What makes you think that I can help you?" asked Greh curiously, to which the Doctor tutted as if the answer was quite obvious all along. "All the multifarious complexities of life," he began, "boil down to the little details, sooner or later. Everything about a person from how they check out a room before entering, to the way they lace their shoes." A gesture downwards, caused Greh to stare curiously at his own feet in their patched boots. "Right now we could use your Space Special Security agent training." Greh looked a little shocked for a moment, and Vivi's eyes became alive with curiosity. No-one ever paid this much attention to a lowly sneeker, they were supposed to be invisible - non existent. Greh sighed, and began, "I left them a long time ago, Doctor. My license to kill has been revoked. It's all past history. Best to let me continue doing what I'm best at; being a professional waste of space." "Hang on, if he's an SSS, then why...?" "I'll explain later," smiled the Doctor and winked conspiratorially. The lead hostage taker shifted his vague gaze to the doorway as a timid knock at the door announced the presence of three curious looking people who had walked in wheeling a large metal trolley covered with a white cloth. They all wore blue and white checked chef's trousers, plain jackets and tall white hats, two (one tall, the other short) had bushy moustaches that looked as of they had been cut off a brush, and a third wore a straggly grey beard. "Ah, 'scuse me mate," relishing his role as the head chef, the Doctor sniffed theatrically, cleared his throat and swallowed. "It's chow time, man. And do we have a treat for you people today." His false moustache was a little skew-whif, but that just seemed to add to the biazrre character. "Open the dome," said the sneeker vaguely as it were the only thought in his head. "Of course I c'n do that for you!" the Doctor replied reassuringly. "But first I can promise you a delight that will make your tastebuds sing with delight and your senses reel. We have spent hours delicately crafting the subtle flavours and textures so that this is quite the bes' thing y'll taste planetside, possibly in the galaxy if I may be so bold. Yes, a veritable tasty treat, a tasty treat indeed sirs!" "Open." The request was firmer now and the gun was raised to point at the Doctor, the acrid smell of a fully charged power pack invading the room. All the eyes of the other possessed sneekers were on him. Just a little closer... It was then that the Doctor moved, whipping the sheet from the trolley, throwing it over the sneeker, and pushing him roughly into a wall; at the same time Vivi had crept up behind another and dealt him a swipe from a frying pan with a resounding clonk. So fast and efficient was Greh's SSS martial arts skills that the final hostage taker hardly even noticed as his comrade flew through the air and landed on him. "That was a dangerous stunt to pull! They could have shot you before you got anywhere near." said Joylon, marching up to the Doctor and tearing off the moustache, making him yelp in pain. "A quick nonsense situation was the key," he replied, "their possessed brains simply couldn't handle it. Confuse and pounce." "And you look so darling in a hat, Doctor," smirked Vivi, but the Doctor didn't seem to hear her, so engrossed was he in the examination of the circuitry on the back of one of the men's necks. "Alright, it is reasonable to suppose that whoever is behind this should be on the other end of this, and after hearing their demands it’s not unreasonable to conclude that this is related to our trouble with the Apan. Vivi, Jorrell this is more your line of expertise. Can you devise a way for me to INterface." "It's possible, but extremely dangerous. You'll risk you mind remaining lost forever inside INspace, and as for the world INside, it won't take very long for things to start to getting very surreal indeed." The Doctor just shrugged at the last bit, apparently unconcerned. "Let's do the Timewar again." "Interesting, so you dealt with my agents, then linked to one of their jacks in order to travel here; I should never have relied upon a corporeal to do an avatar's work. Anyway, none of that matters now. It might interest you to know that we have entered into orbit. See planet Verdant through the eyes of a Queen, Doctor." Morrell tossed an ace of spades to the floor, and as if on cue the surroundings melted away. The Doctor looked surprised, as if he thought he would have more time than this before Morrell made his final move. The dull, dark interior bomb bay of the Apan Queen's personal ship. All around, Apan technicians were working on bits of strange, organic looking circuitry from their gooey hexagonal chambers in the honeycombed walls. In the centre of the room a large crusty cabbage-like device the size of a small house sat in a softly pulsing puddle of green light. The insects were putting the final touches to the bomb, which perched eagerly on the bay doors. Through enormous oval portholes, the silver and red jewel of Verdant hung in space before the bombship. Queen Zenza herself had arrived from the hive to deliver the weapon personally. Morrell's smile widened malevolently. "So, now you understand what we were really after? Once we test this upon the occupants of Verdant, the bacteria within will have a little party with the bacteria already released. It will be a wonderful sight to witness." "It's depraved, you cannot think that you'll be allowed to blackmail..." The Doctor was still. "And who will stop us, you? The Time Lords? The Khelaron race?" The Doctor looked surprised at this revelation. "The Khelaron race? But they are the most powerful species in this galaxy! You simply don't have enough Apan warriors to stand against them in a war, and you'd never get close enough to their homeworld to terrorise them with your bio-weapons." This seemed to provoke a reaction from Morrell. "Maybe you're right Doctor, I'll tell the Queen to call off the attack. Friends?" he said offering a hand. As the Doctor slowly moved to shake it, Morrell gave him a shove towards the bomb. Momentarily caught off guard, the Doctor's essence tumbled from the mind of Queen Zenza, towards the organic circuitry of the bomb. As the Doctor's mind left Inspace, Morrell's Doctorish form melted away to reveal Queen Zenza walking away across the bomb bay. Crystal glass safety hatches slid down, safely sealing the area. "Goodbye Doctor." whispered Morrell from Zenza's body as he moved her to the porthole of her ship, gazing out planet below. So keen was he to witness the end of the Doctor's mind, Morrell failed to notice the silent equivalent of a sad tear on the alien insect's face reflected back at herself. Moments later the hatch opened and the bomb fell down through space towards the planet's atmosphere, streaking a line across the sky like a fiery cannonball. As the bomb fell, the swirling essence of the Doctor mentally searched the circuitry of the bomb for a jack to escape back into Inspace, but there was nothing. His mind had been cut off from escape when he had been evacuated from the Queen by Morrell, trapping him within a deadly plague bomb that was going to cause devastation on a global scale. From the Doctor's point of view, he was clinging to the top of the bomb, riding it like a mad bull as it fell to earth; the thought of wind in his face toying with his non-hair. Finding no way to avoid his the impending destruction of his mind, the Doctor relaxed a little; and resigning himself to his fate, an insane giggle grew inside him, rising at chest level to become a fully fledged maniacal laugh. The ground rose to greet him, higher and higher... Outside the sealed spaceport dome, the bomb exploded high spreading a green patch through the atmosphere like the evil stain from a poison barb. Latching onto the bacteria already present from the first bomb, it moved around the entire globe in seconds like a match dropped into a puddle of fuel; raining down upon the people in the streets, parks and in their houses. Whenever the green light touched a living being the result was instant and horrible: All around the people fell to the ground, clawing helplessly at their steaming skin, trying to breathe or scream without sound, soft tissues bursting wetly. Thick wiry hairs began to grow from the former humans, chitinous plates replacing skin, skulls splitting open with sickening crunches to reveal mandibles drooling with ichor and twitching compound eyes. A long, sullen silence fell over Verdant - a planet that now belonged to the Apan.
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