Time came to a halt. Fitz, frozen behind her, shouting. Griffin and the Doctor in their lethal dance.
She reached into the web of her own life. A sharp pain ran through her body, ran right back through every moment since she had been born, as she split herself down the middle.
This isn"t fair 228.
Get out of there. Go on! Get out there and save him. Get out and save them all.
Oh G.o.d, it"s not fair, it"s not fair, it"s not fair Fitz was shouting, "No!"
Sam emerged from the other side of the scar, undamaged.
She ran past the Doctor, still struggling in Griffin"s grip. The unnaturalist was laughing, each cackle shaking his gaunt frame as he crushed the Doctor"s life in his million fingers.
Sam stopped at the unnaturalist"s cabinet, turning the stabiliser in her hands.
She thumbed the control.
She stepped backward as the box exploded open. Drawers and panels were sliding and swinging. Dozens of pins were shooting out through the solid wood and crashing against the alley walls, blasted out by the force of the stabiliser.
The box was getting bigger, expanding in every direction, like a balloon filling with air, filling with light from the scar.
Now the specimens were dragging themselves loose, every one of them, more than Fitz could keep track of. Bog wraiths and serpentoidians, a black flock of Mandelbrots, a man with three eyes, a few hypnoredips and the odd robo-destroyer, a leopard woman, a ma.s.s of Basardi, Mutant Marvin the Two-Horned Unicorn, and one very irritated dodo.
Most of them ran for it, in panic at their sudden freedom. But a crowd stayed behind. Horns lowered, mouths opened, deep voices growled.
Griffin saw them as they started to circle around him. With a start, he dropped the Doctor.
Fitz couldn"t see Sam at all. The Doctor lay still on the ground, almost hidden by the crowd of creatures. They were stepping over his body, uninterested. All they were after was the unnaturalist. Griffin had his back to the scar as the monsters closed in on him.
Now he could see her! She had her shoulder against the box, shoving it along the ground, a bit at a time. It was still huge, but light now, hollowed out, more s.p.a.ce than wood.
Griffin stood at the edge of the scar, off-balance. The monsters weren"t even touching him. At any moment, thought Fitz, there would be a rush, teeth and claws and horns and beaks all working together. He didn"t want to see, but he couldn"t look away.
229.
There"s only one person who"d reach out to you now. Pity you"ve just battered him into unconsciousness. Pity you wouldn"t believe in him even if he was there.
One tiny Mandelbrot leapt forward, scolding the unnaturalist in an outraged squeak. Griffin startled, took a step backward.
The scar seemed to expand, its yellow light reaching out to him. Suddenly there was no more ground beneath his feet.
With a high, thin scream, he tumbled backward into the tear and was gone.
Fitz slumped against the wall. Wait a minute, he thought what about the He turned around.
The Kraken was looming above them.
Fitz screamed, he couldn"t help it.
For a moment, he thought it was right outside the alley, that it had already crushed buildings and streets to get to them. But it was rising up behind the buildings, ma.s.ses of water gouting down where it intersected with three-s.p.a.ce.
Somehow he knew it was looking, shuffling this way and that, sending tidal waves across the Bay. Looking for them, seeking this way and that for the rich food of the scar. As he watched, it locked on to it with every sense and began to descend on to the city.
With a roar of effort, Sam shoved the box over the threshold and into the scar.
Sam looked down at the Doctor. "h.e.l.lo?" she said.
The Doctor opened his eyes. "Sam!" he shouted.
He sat up, much too quickly, and wobbled around. Sam grabbed hold of him.
"Slow down!" she laughed. "The crisis is over. Get your breath back."
The Doctor looked at her with a mixture of delight and astonishment and panic and loss. He took a deep breath and said, "Are you all right? You"re not hurt?"
"I"m in better shape than you are." She ruffled the Doctor"s hair. "But take a look at this."
She lifted his blood-soaked shirt, carefully. "Nothing," she said. The wound was gone, nothing left but a thin pink scar.
Sam looked around. A couple of the creatures were watching them, but most of them were quietly leaving, slinking off into the night. Something metallic spread sharp-edged wings and took flight, screeching.
"What do you remember?" said the Doctor.
She turned back to him. "Not much."
230.
"Sam, please "
"Well, number eighteen, all right go for the second most obvious target.
The box is like the TARDIS, right? Lots of extra dimensions. When it fell in the scar, it collapsed, the way the TARDIS was going to. It sealed it up."
"What about the rest of it?"
Sam shrugged. "I"ll let you tell me all about it if you buy me a smoothie. I tell you, I"ve pulled half a dozen muscles shoving that box around like that."
She looked over her shoulder and grinned at Fitz. He unstuck himself from the alley wall. "Hey," she said. "We won again."
"Oh, G.o.d," said Fitz. He threw his arms around her. After a moment he let go and just sat on the asphalt, staring at her.
"What is it with you two?" Sam stood up, running her fingers through her short, blonde hair.
Day Zero Plus Seven I think I did a bad thing the other day.
It was a simple little favor some guy asked me to let him know if another guy turned up in town. Which I did. No biggie little bits of news are what this paper"s for, anyway.
Then I found out later some other people were in trouble, and it was probably because of what I said.
There"s a lot of things that go on in this city, just out of your sight. You can"t see the threads that join them. You don"t know the choices you"re making till after you"ve made them.
So I think I did a bad thing. And I don"t think anyone"s ever gonna tell me.
Now if you"ll excuse me, I"ve gotta go feed the iguana I just inherited from a late friend.
Eldin Sanchez, Interesting Times Interesting Times, 14 November 2002 Epilogue: The Other Woman "So that"s it, really," Sam said to Marilyn across the chip-shop counter. "The Amnesty guy rang up the New York office, they started on the paperwork, and they offered me the job right away. I leave for New York in a couple of days."
"Whoa. Cool."
Sam remembered Marilyn from school as a dedicated member of the chemical generation someone she"d vaguely got along with, but never had much time for. But her number had been in dark-haired Sam"s address book, so she was one of the ones she had to tell the story to. The London twilight and overhead fluorescents left her looking pale, as if she"d aged a lot more than five years since school.
"I still can"t believe that guy would offer you a job, like, in another country,"
Marilyn went on. "And just "cause he liked you from volunteering. . . "
"Yeah, well," Sam said with a careful sidelong glance, "there"s a little more to it than that."
That Marilyn could buy, and Sam was able to steer the conversation through the minefields of personal chitchat from there on. Now and again little bits of dark-haired Sam would surface in her mind, hints, impressions, memories.
Enough so that Marilyn didn"t notice the difference.
How much of dark-haired Sam was still inside her?
Finally she told Marilyn to make sure to tell the friends she hadn"t reached with the news, said her goodbyes, and made her escape to where Fitz was slouching outside the doorway.
On her way out, Marilyn called, "Oh, by the way, I like the hair."
Sam hesitated. "Thanks. I"m not quite sure that it"s me, though."
"Was that the lot?" asked Fitz.
"Yeah." Sam nodded. "She was the last one."
It was raining in London, just as it had been when she left a week and a half ago.
Epilogue: The Other Woman 233.
Fitz and Sam were sharing a black umbrella. Sam walked carefully, watching out for the puddles, careful where she put her feet. She felt new and light as a sheet of paper.
"Pretty sorry bunch, if you ask me," said Fitz. "Just think, if you"d stayed, that could"ve been your idea of a best friend "
"Sam thought she was pretty dim too," Sam said flatly. "She just didn"t judge her on it."
"Sorry, sorry." Fitz raised his hands to ward off more words. "Thought it would make you feel better, that"s all."
In the days since they"d flown back to London leaving the Doctor in San Francisco to nurse the TARDIS back to health she"d been feeling like a ghost haunting the wrong house. They"d spent their time walking in dark-haired Sam"s footsteps, sifting through the details of her life, even as they erased any trace of them. Closing up her bedsit. Leaving her job. Telling the same lies to everyone, even the friends she wished she could get to know for real.
"The bad-movie bunch are the ones I really didn"t want to blow off," she said.
"Those video nights sound like a scream."
He nodded. "And they loved your story about quitting your job. . . "
She managed a smile. "Yeah, I knew just what she thought of Dave, and didn"t have any reason not to tell him." She shrugged her jacket tighter around her. "I suppose I like to think she"d have appreciated it."
"You could always invite them over for a farewell," he said.
She and Fitz were staying in the smoky familiarity of the place in King"s Cross. She"d known the place instinctively, had even walked in and breezily put her keys down on the counter the way she always did before she"d realised this was her first time there. She"d had dreams about this place, little fragments for years now.
There was only the one bed still rumpled and Fitz had hesitantly and awkwardly a.s.signed himself the floor to sleep on. He"d been rubbing his sore neck all day today. She kept wanting to give it a good ma.s.sage, but she wasn"t quite sure how he"d take it. Or how she"d take it.
"I said you could always "
She shook her head. "I couldn"t keep the act up that long. I"d have to start smoking, for one thing." She"d noticed she hadn"t seen Fitz smoke around her since she"d got back. Which was considerate of him, if a bit out of character.
Not that she had room to talk about being out of character.
"So that"s it, then," Fitz was saying, pretty much to himself. "Just make your apologies and slip away quietly. Like none of it ever happened."
234.
"That"s a.s.suming any of it did," Sam said.
The sun was still high over San Francisco, and the basilisks were basking on the hills across the bay. Professor Joyce ambled across the lookout area at the base of the Golden Gate, towards where the Doctor stood gazing out at the water.
He was just behind the police-line tape, which filled in for the stretch of railing that had been demolished in the sudden storm the other night. Some of the piers were still underwater, and heavy ships were scattered over the harbour, winching up the sailboats that had sunk in the storm.
"I thought I"d find you here," Joyce called out cheerily. "I just wanted to "
"Shh," said the Doctor, and pointed. An old man on a park bench was feeding the Mandelbrots, whorls of colour gathering at his feet. In the far corner a pair of nomads appeared to be haggling intensely with a Basardi, with much gesturing in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge.
"Now that the scar"s healed, the ones who want to leave can take off," he said. "But I think some of them aren"t interested in going. Do you know, I could actually learn to like it here. . . " "
" Now Now he decides this," Joyce said to no one in particular. he decides this," Joyce said to no one in particular.
The Doctor grinned. "Of course. I could hardly like it if I had had to be here, could I?" to be here, could I?"
Beside him stood a shifting ma.s.s of coloured panes, glittering in the sunlight.
A plaque at its base identified it as Blue Blue, a modern-art kinetic sculpture provided by the National Park Service. Even as Joyce watched, a few more bits resolved themselves into their usual police-box shape.
"Just wanted to thank you before you left, son," Joyce said more quietly. "For the Henches. It"ll take a while to redirect their conditioning, of course, but with a little training they"ll be quite a help round the lab."
"My pleasure," said the Doctor. "I couldn"t resist the chance to give your team some hench-backed lab a.s.sistants. But I"m not leaving yet: I"ve got one more important thing to take care of."
Joyce raised an eyebrow at him. "You mean Dr Holloway, don"t you?"
"Ah, no. Actually I called on her the other night."