Big Bang Generation (11 page)

Bernice threw her arms wide, but again it was Ruth who spoke. ‘Benny is, like you, an expert at the long con. We've all been pretending to be a successful freelance archaeology team, going from planet to planet, finding rarities and then selling them on, usually the same piece to four or five gullible marks, making sure that we don't sell it to them within twenty-four hours of the previous one.'

‘Such as?'

Ruth threw a look to Bernice but still spoke confidently, assuredly. Boy, she was good at this. She started counting on her fingers.

‘Aloysius D. Campling, the Estatelands of Salvadori, Les Sourire du Starship Louvre, Jared Jones – we even sold stuff to the Braxiatel Collection…'

Globb nodded. ‘I never heard of half of them. And I've never heard of you, and I know most of the teams working my quadrant.'

‘The clue there,' interjected Jack, ‘is “most”. We're not a big gang but we're growing.'

‘Nah, don't like this deal. Too risky.'

‘Then how, dear sir,' said Jack, ‘do you propose getting back to your time?'

‘Why would I do that?'

And that was something Bernice and her team hadn't anticipated.

At which point Bernice stepped forward, and Kik the Assassin tensed, ready to protect her charge. Peter snarled, quivering his lips, showing some fierce canines. Kik the Assassin grinned at him, as if acknowledging his defence of Bernice, and stepped back. This little power game wasn't witnessed by anyone other than the Doctor.

‘Nah, lissen mate, this is my job, this is my gaff, and I'm callin' the shots, yeah?'

Globb frowned. ‘You what?'

Bernice shrugged and spoke in a broad East London accent again. This finally caused the Doctor to look at her in shock.

‘I could ask you the same thing, guv. I didn't ask you to follow us here, this is my turf, innit. So, if you don't wanna be part of our proposal then, get orf my planet.'

The Doctor was still staring at her.

Bernice looked at him and hissed. ‘Barbara Windsor?
EastEnders
? “Get aht my pub”? No? You're not getting it? Seriously?'

The Doctor finally spoke. ‘Have you completely lost the plot?'

‘You really think you can stop Cyrrus Globb?' asked Jaanson who, it seemed quite likely, had never even heard of Globb three hours beforehand.

‘This is my team,' Bernice said. ‘This is Shortie, she's my logistics expert. That's Dog-Boy, my personal security. Over there is Legs, he's a comedian and good with things that go “bang”. And they call me Da Trowel, cos I'm good at diggin' up information.'

Globb looked at each one in turn, then jabbed a finger towards the Doctor.

‘And remind me who is this? I don't remember seeing him on Aztec Moon,' he boomed angrily.

‘That, my darlin', that is the leader of this little entourage, this group, this gang. He was waiting here for us because we set all this up. You see, Cyrrus Globb, that is the man wanted on every civilised world for cons and grifts of the highest order. This is the leader of us all, this is the brains of this outfit – surely you've heard of the legendary Doc Tardis?'

All the Doctor could do was take yet another of those deep breaths that Bernice provoked in him, and count to ten. Slowly.

Thus the Doctor found himself deep within the exhibit rooms of the Power Station, a six-storey Victorian building attached to Hyde Park, and overlooking the Bay. Just.

It was a name only the Australians could give to a museum of important artefacts, managed and run by the afore-met Mr Thomas Gordon Taylor. Taylor was the direct descendant of Tomas Schneidter and who, it transpired upon reading the guide to the Power Station, had zero knowledge of the Glamour / lodestone / key that his great grandfather had fought so hard to find – and sacrificed so much for. Instead it was listed as ‘local unusual geological object found in the Blue Mountains National Park, not formed of basalt left by volcanic flow as per most indigenous rocks. The origins of this item remain shrouded in mystery. It may have significance to the Indigenous People, but if so, it has not been recognised as significant or culturally important by AIATSIS.'

‘Wonder what our friend Lue would think of that,' said the Doctor.

Bernice just shrugged and checked her stopwatch. ‘Everyone should have gone home by now, so we should make our way to the Glamour.'

The Doctor reached out for the stopwatch. It reminded him of the one Jack had used earlier. ‘Do I get one of those, you know, now I've been co-opted onto your team of conmen?' he asked sourly.

Bernice shook her head. ‘Have to be earned.'

‘I don't actually want one,' he muttered. ‘Mainly because I don't actually want to be here. I don't want to be a grifter.
I don't want to be responsible for committing a crime, and I don't want to be dressed up like some idiot at an Eighties throwback party.'

Bernice beeped his nose. ‘Yes you do. You're loving this.'

‘Am not.'

‘Am.'

‘Not.'

‘You are. You know how I know you are?'

‘Oh, do tell me,' he said.

‘Because you're the Doctor, and the Doctor I know, no matter what his face, loves a bit of mystery, fun, adventure and universe-saving-from-extinction. It's your modus operandi. You might be the only leopard who can actually change his spots, but the analogy still holds – it's what and who you are.'

The Doctor looked at her. ‘In your timeline, when did we last meet before all this kicked off?'

‘Years ago. On Skaro. Ace stole an Omega device.'

‘Skaro. Oh yes. I was very different back then,' the Doctor said quietly. ‘I have been through hell, literally. A war with the Daleks that destroyed Gallifrey, leaving me pretty much the last of my kind. Billions of people, from all races and planets were affected, I watched stars burn, and galaxies implode. I faced terrible decisions and in the end when I took a chance, I broke every law of time and rewrote history. I saved Gallifrey as it was by then, probably changed the future for countless people and planets. But it still didn't get me home, didn't bring my people back to me. Friends and family, perhaps they live again, but I'll
never know, Benny, because I can't find them. Beforehand, I knew that Gallifrey and the Time Lords were gone. Now I know they're not but I don't know what state I have left them in. In many ways, that feels worse.'

‘It isn't, though, is it,' Bernice said, holding her oldest friend's hand gently. ‘Because as always, you did the right thing in the end.'

‘But I want answers,' he said. ‘I want to know – I need to know. I feel…incomplete not knowing. Beforehand, I knew. I could move on, deal with things. Now it's just an endless jump from one planet to the next, hoping I might accidentally find a clue, stumbling in the dark. My friend Clara – you'd like her, she's clever and chirpy and infinitely rude to me, just like you – Clara said I was miserable and waspish once. And she was right. It's like I don't feel complete, for the first time ever. Once I had roots, then they were taken away. Now, I probably have those roots again, but they are out of reach.'

‘And one day, you'll get them back.'

‘How can you know that? Why say that if you don't know?'

‘Because,' Bernice said quietly, ‘I have faith. In the universe. It makes things right. You know why I think that?'

‘No, go on, amaze me.'

‘Because you told me that, when I was at my lowest. After a man I loved died and you were there to look after me – you went to extraordinary lengths to understand my grief and to empathise. I have never forgotten that,
even though I know you must have because you've had so much in your life to deal with and so many people to remember. But I never want to forget how kind you were to me after he died.'

The Doctor took a deep breath and closed his eyes. ‘Every time I visit France, I think of Guy de Carnac and what he sacrificed, Benny. No, I never forget the ones that truly matter.'

Bernice hugged him then, tightly.

‘Hugging, again, everyone does the hugging thing. I don't do hugging, really.'

‘Right here, right now, you do.'

And presumably recognising defeat, but perhaps also recognising a rekindled friendship borne out of tears and triumph many years ago, the Doctor returned the hug for a few moments.

Outside the Power Station, Ruth and Jack watched the windows from across the road, hiding in a doorway, hoping no one would notice them. Which was unlikely as they were in the heart of a city that rarely sleeps and, as they were discovering, was populated by people who never went home.

‘It's 2 a.m.,' Ruth said. ‘Why aren't they asleep?'

Jack was watching a young couple making out in another doorway. ‘We used to be like that once.'

‘Like what?'

‘Young, happy, in love, unable to bear being parted, just for a few hours' sleep.'

‘We're still like that,' Ruth said quietly. ‘Except I can totally bear being apart for a few hours. But that's to do with the snoring and the legs.'

‘Legs?'

‘Yeah, those huge long things are pretty much the length of my body, and at night they kick. When you dream, you fidget. And kick.'

‘I do not.'

‘How do you know? You're asleep. I'm not, I'm awake. Being kicked by giant grasshopper legs.' At which point, deciding this conversation was no longer necessary, Ruth stepped out onto the pavement.

‘What are you doing?' Jack hissed.

‘My job,' she replied. ‘Our job.'

‘Which was what?'

‘To keep an eye out and then do the thing.'

Jack pulled a device out of his pocket. ‘Who knew Benny carried things like this with her?'

‘Anyone who pays attention to what she said back in the White Rabbit on Legion, I imagine.'

‘I pay attention!'

‘Clearly not enough. Now come on, we need to be on the roof by two-fifteen local time.'

Jack watched as the happy couple down the street finally stopped kissing and moved quickly away, probably aided by him making a loud throat-clearing sound and ensuring that, when they looked at him, his red eyes glowed more brightly than normal in the dark.

He gave a final look around, grabbed his fiancée
around her waist and leapt the height of the old Victorian building.

Almost.

What he actually did was scale four storeys with ease, but the last two were a bit awkward. He'd later say it was Ruth's fault, that he wasn't carrying the additional – he was sensible enough not to use the word ‘weight', even though Ruth weighed very little as she was so small, but foolishly he did tell one person the story later and instead said ‘baggage', which went down like a lead balloon. But the gist was there.

And now so were he and Ruth, clinging on to a ledge four storeys above ground, silently. Ruth's wide eyes widened further as she looked down, and then realised Jack was holding on to the ledge with only one hand – the other of course safely holding her waist.

‘And now what?'

Jack considered this.

Which was unusual for Jack – he didn't ‘do' consideration; he was more an instant reactor to situations. ‘Go deal with these people who haven't paid their bills,' his father would say, and off he'd go, ready to face whatever hoodlums, Mafiosi and dark underworld characters owed the firm cash. ‘Go take this exceptionally dodgy-looking package that could be a bomb or the severed head of another crime lord's girlfriend to that war-torn planet in the irradiated sector that no one can survive more than thirty seconds in,' was another one of his father's suggestions. After a while, it occurred to Jack
that perhaps his father and his brothers and sisters wanted him out of the firm. Permanently. Dead.

It was one of those things he had been going to talk to them about when, on a mission for his dad, Jack had become embroiled with Bernice and Ruth for the first time. Then he'd lost track of them for a while. Then he'd found them. Then he'd found time-splintered alternative reality versions that weren't actually alternatives but just perfect duplicates. (Or maybe the originals and the ones he was now hanging out with were duplicates, who knew?) Either way, Jack's involvement with Bernice and Ruth was fraught, frequently dangerous and usually involved Jack wanting to take Ruth away to some quiet leisure planet, get married and settle down, as far from Legion, guns, crime lords and his home world of Kadept as he could, and be happy. It was all Jack really ever wanted – to be happy. Ruth made him happy. So why was he now thousands of years in the past on a planet he didn't like, helping Bernice and a strange grouchy man with an accent he couldn't really understand, and hanging dangerously off a tall building, knowing that the slightest misstep could kill Ruth?

Oh yeah, because he couldn't say no.

Jack loved Bernice, absolutely. Great mates. But one day he really would have to say to her that it was fine if she wanted to go off and be all clever and adventurous, but to do it by herself. Or with Peter. But not him or Ruth.

‘You'd better be thinking of a way out of this, Jack,' Ruth said, ‘and not daydreaming again.'

‘Again?'

‘You do that, you drift off. In moments of stress, you just cease to be in the present. It's very annoying. It's also endearing at times and probably a great self-preservation thing, but at other times, like when you're about to drop your wife-to-be from a height she's not likely to survive, it can be a disadvantage.'

‘I was thinking about that actually,' he said. ‘About it being a disadvantage. Mind you, being here in the first place might also be considered a disadvantage – and I'm not talking about hanging from this building. I'm talking about being on Earth.'

‘What?'

‘Well, when we get home – and I'm sure we will because Benny and this Doctor bloke seem to be pretty good at all this and haven't died yet – can we just say, “Thanks, Benny, but no thanks”? Go somewhere, get married, have kids, live a nice life away from Legion and grow runner beans, breed cats, watch old episodes of
EastEnders
, that sort of thing.'