I insist upon accompanying the Doctor in his investigation, the welfare of the child overshadowing any previous motives. We find ourselves outside a shed by the railway lines, watching Nancy stash several tins of food into a gap between some crates.
Getting to her feet, she jumps in surprise when she spots us. "How'd you follow me here?"
"I'm good at following," the Doctor relies cheerfully. "Got the nose for it!"
"People can't usually follow me."
He shrugs. "My nose has special powers."
"Yeah," a grin creeps across her face, "is that why it's so..."
"What?"
She chuckles, avoiding his amused gaze. "Nothing."
"What?"
"Nothing." And then after a pause, "Do your ears have special powers too?"
I quickly stifle my chuckles with a forced cough. The man sends me a pointed look before turning back to her. "What are you trying to say?"
She grabs her satchel from the ground with a faint smile. "Goodnight."
"Nancy, there's something chasing you and the other kids. It looks like a boy and it isn't a boy. And it started about a month ago. Right? The thing we're looking for. The thing that fell from the sky. That's when it landed. And you know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
"There was a bomb. A bomb that wasn't a bomb. Fell the other end of Limehouse Green Station."
He nods. "Take us there."
Nancy huffs, shaking her head as her eyes dart anxiously around at the abandoned tracks. "Soldiers guarding it. Barbed wire. You'd never get through."
"I have a couple of soldier friends," I carefully reply. "I'm sure they could be persuaded."
"You sure you wanna know what's going on in there?"
The man digs his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. "I really wanna know."
"Then there's someone you need to talk to first."
I take one more step towards her, trying my best not to overbalance as my heels land on a bit of uneven ground. "Who?"
"The doctor."
—
We don't go much further, crossing a bridge before taking shelter in the shadows. The Doctor peers through a pair of binoculars before passing them to me, allowing me a better look. I ignore the flashing lights and symbols around the edge of the image and narrow my eyes to further scrutinise the visuals I have been given.
Nancy hadn't been exaggerating about the security. At least a dozen guards are situated around the crash site, all armed with guns. Rustic barriers of wood and barbed wire encircle them, illuminated by several spotlights.
"The bomb's under the tarpaulin," the girl explains. "They put the fence up overnight. See that building? The hospital?"
"What about it?"
She shrugs and pulls her coat tighter around herself. "That's where the doctor is. You should talk to him."
"For now, I'm more interested in getting in there."
Following his gaze to the bomb, she impatiently repeats herself, "Talk to the Doctor first."
"Why?"
"Because then maybe you won't wanna get inside."
Walking away, the only thing to stop her is a hushed call from him, "Where you going?"
"There was a lot of food in that house. I've got mouths to feed. Should be safe enough now."
Snatching the notebook and a pen from the Doctor's pocket, I begin to make a sketch of the crash site. He doesn't react, instead focusing on Nancy again. "Can I ask you a question? Who did you lose?"
"What?"
"The way you look after all those kids. It's 'cause you lost somebody, isn't it? You're doing all this to make up for it."
She remains silent for a moment. "My little brother... Jamie. One night, I went out looking for food. Same night that thing fell. Told him not to follow me. I told him it was dangerous. But he just— he just didn't like being on his own."
"What happened?" My voice is suddenly hoarse, clawing my throat.
"In the middle of an air raid? What d'you think happened?"
"I'm sorry, Nancy. I'm so, so sorry."
"Amazing."
We both shoot the Doctor disapproving glares. "What is?"
Glancing back at us, he smiles thoughtfully. "1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it, nothing. Until one tiny, damp little island says, 'No! No... not here'. A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. Dunno what you do to Hitler. You frighten the hell out of me."
"You have no idea," I mutter.
He doesn't seem to hear. Clearing his throat, he gestures to Nancy. "Off you go, then. Do what you've got to do. Save the world."
——————
The hospital gates are locked when we arrived. A soft, electronic hum fills the quiet. Frowning, I look down to see the Doctor pointing something at the padlock. It looks like a pen or a wand, all made of metal with an end that glows electric blue. Within a few seconds, the lock smokes, cracking open.
We make our way through the dark corridors as quietly as possible, eventually emerging in a large ward dimly lit by warm lamps. Each bed is occupied with an unconscious patient in a gas mask.
The tapping of a cane against wooden floorboards alerts. Quickly turning, we find an elderly man in a white lab coat approaching us. "You'll find them everywhere," he explains wearily. "In every bed, in every ward. Hundreds of them."
"Yes, we saw. Why are they still wearing gas masks?" the Doctor says.
"They're not. Who are you?"
"I'm— Are you the Doctor?"
The man nods slowly. "Dr Constantine. And you are?"
Clearing my throat, I step into the light to spare his poor, squinting eyes the effort. "Nancy sent us."
"'Nancy'? That means you must have been asking about the bomb. What do you know about it?"
The Doctor approaches, hands deep in his pockets as if he is perfectly unbothered by it all. "Nothing. Why I was asking. What do you know?"
"Only what it's done."
"These p-people," I hug myself tightly as I start to shiver, "were they all caught in the blast?"
"None of them were."
Dr Constantine coughs, staggering back into the nearest chair. The Doctor does nothing to help, beginning to pace around him at a distance. "You're very sick," he remarks.
The man wheezes quietly, "Dying, I should think. I just haven't been able to find the time. Are you a doctor?"
"I have my moments."
Meeting the Doctor's gaze, I force myself to reply as calmly as I can possibly manage. "I'm not a doctor, but I have been trained to heal."
"Have you examined any of them yet?"
"No."
He eyes the patients warily, warning us, "Don't touch the flesh."
I reluctantly approach one of the beds but find myself stuck, uncertain of what to do. "Which one?"
"Any one," he says dismissively. The Doctor points his sonic device at one of them, being careful not to get too close. I peer over it, my attention once again drawn to the scar — identical to the one on the back of the little boy's hand. "Conclusions?"
"Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side. Partial collapse of the chest cavity to the right. Scarring on the back of the hand. The gas mask seems to be fused to the flesh but I can't see any burns."
"Examine another one."
He does so. After a pause, he looks to Constantine in confusion. "This isn't possible."
"And examine another."
Again, he seems to be shocked by the outcome. "This isn't possible! They've all got the same injuries. Exactly the same. Identical. Right down to the scar on the back of the hand."
I slump down in an empty chair, my knee bouncing nervously as I try not to look at the patients. "By Jove. H-How did this happen? How did it start?"
"When that bomb dropped, there was just one victim."
"Dead?"
He sighs, "At first. His injuries were truly dreadful. By the following morning, every doctor and nurse who had treated him, who had touched him, had those exact same injuries. By the morning after that, every patient on the same ward, the exact same injuries. Within a week, the entire hospital. Physical injuries... as plague. Can you explain that? What would you say was the cause of death?"
The Doctor frowns, leaning against one of the desks. Confidently, he offers an answer, "The head trauma."
"No."
"Asphyxiation?"
"No."
"The collapse of the chest cavity."
"No."
"Alright, what was the cause of death?"
Dr Constantine regards his patients in pity, his grip on his walking cane tightening. "There wasn't one. They're not dead."
He hits the cane against the desk's filing cabinet. All of a sudden, the patients are sat upright. They do not move, they do not speak, they just sit there like puppets.
I jump up from my chair, attempting to place it between myself and the creatures. "It's all right," Constantine assures us, "they're harmless. They just sort of sit there. There's no heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just... don't die."
"And there's no way to reverse it?" I murmur. "Can't you do something to help them?"
"I try and make them comfortable. What else is there?"
The patients lie back down again. The Doctor examines them with a pitying gaze. "Just you? You're the only one here?"
"Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now, I am neither. But I'm still a doctor."
"Yeah. Know the feeling."
My head snaps up, my eyes widening slightly. But there is no change to his face. It's like he never said it. Constantine draws in a shaky breath, "I suspect the plan is to blow up the hospital and blame it on a German bomb."
"Probably too late."
"I know. There are isolated cases—" A series of harsh cough double him over. "—isolated cases breaking out... all over... London.' The two of us approach him but he quickly raises a hand. "Stay back! Stay back! Listen to me. Top floor, Room 802. That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site. And you must find Nancy again."
"Nancy?"
Constantine's voice strains, as if each word had to be physically forced out, "It was her brother. She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me, but she m—" He chokes. "M— Mu— Mummy. Are... you... my... mummy?"
I back away in horror, feeling my shoulder brush against the Doctors' as we stare on in utter bewilderment. Constantine's face darkens and contorts into an agonised grimace. His mouth stretches out, becoming almost cylindrical. After one last pained wail, his face vanishes, replaced by a dull-eyed, hauntingly blank gas mask.
"Di Immortales!" Gasping for air, I feel a tear trail down my cheek, burning the skin like acid.
The Doctor says nothing. Instead, he heads back to the corridor we came in from.
A voice calls out in the distance, the voice of a girl. "Hello?"
The other voice finally snaps me out of my dazed state. Sending the creature that had once been Dr Constantine a final apologetic look, I rush through the doors, towards the two approaching figures.
Quickly coming to a stop, I remember what my goal had been and send the young, dark-haired man in uniform a warning look as he approaches. "Good evening," he greets us, reaching out to shake the Doctor's hand. "Hope we're not interrupting. Jack Harkness. I've been hearing all about you on the way over."
I assume that the girl is Rose, she fits the Doctor's vague description fairly well. Tearing her shy stare from Jack, she looks to the Doctor. "He knows. I had to tell him... about us being Time Agents."
"And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Mr Spock."
Sending Rose a disapproving glare, the Doctor turns back to me. "You too, right?"
"Pardon?"
"You and this one, you're working together. That's why you approached me, that's why you weren't surprised by my sonic screwdriver."
"Your what?"
Jack chuckles, meeting my weary gaze. "This guy's good."
—
A scan run by Jack only reaches the same conclusion. He groans loudly, beginning to pace. "This isn't possible. How did this happen?"
The Doctor shoots us a cold glare. "What kind of Chula ship landed here?"
Rose huffs impatiently, "He said it was a warship. He and his friend stole it, parked it somewhere — somewhere a bomb's gonna all on it. Unless we make them an offer."
"What kind of warship?"
"Does it matter?' Jack snaps. "It's got nothing to do with this!"
"Jack," my voice comes out as no more than a whisper but it manages to stop him in his tracks, "it all started at the bomb site."
Fear flashes across his face and his shoulders slump. "It was an ambulance." A hologram of the Chula ship hovers a few inches above the vortex manipulator on his wrist, a leather strap with a small screen and buttons attached to it. "Look, that's what you chased through the Time Vortex. It's space junk. We wanted to kid you it was valuable. It's empty, we made sure of it. Nothing but a shell. I threw it at you, saw your time travel vehicle — love the retro look, by the way — threw you the bait—"
"'Bait'?"
" We were gonna sell it to you, then destroy it before you found out it was junk."
Rose storms towards him, fury burning in her bright blue eyes. "You said it was a warship."
He shrugs. "They have ambulances in wars. It's a con. We were conning you, thought you were Time Agents. You're not, are you?"
"Just a couple of freelancers."
Scoffing, he gestures the her Union Jack t-shirt. "I should've known. The way you guys are blending in with the local colour. I mean, Flag Girl was bad enough, but U-Boat Captain? Anyway, whatever's happening here has got nothing to do with that ship."
"What is happening here, Doctor?"
"Human DNA is being rewritten... by a couple of idiots."
Avoiding their gazes once again, I hide my head in my hands. I feel sick. How could we have been so stupid? How could it have happened? Haven't the gods cursed me enough?
The girl frowns when Jack begins to pace again. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know, some kind of virus converting human beings into these things. But why? What's the point?"
There is silence for a moment. Rose examines the patients, the Doctor is busy working away at some kind of calculations in his head, and Jack and I are left to dwell on everything that had gone wrong. Everything that had gone wrong because of us.
"Mummy!" The patients sit up. Every single one echoes the same, dull call.
"What's happening?" Rose gasps.
"I don't know. Don't let them touch you."
Jack's hand clasps onto mine as we back away towards the exit. "What happens if they touch us?" the blonde calls to him.
"You're looking at it."
They move in, closer and closer until I was certain we were dead. My free hand reaches up to grip onto my necklace, tracing the owl printed into silver. I utter a silent prayer for mercy.
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