2

The Doctor made his way through the barrier laid out across the single-track road leading into the town. Floodlights cast his shadow long and thin down the empty, pitted tarmac towards the dark outline of the blink-and-you’d-miss-it town in the distance.

He began to walk forward – hampered, clumsy and hot inside the heavy suit. The earpiece in his hood crackled with Major Platt’s voice.

‘UNIT have just confirmed your identity … Doctor.’

‘Good.’

‘“The Doctor”. That’s, uh … that’s all they called you. Do you have a name, sir?’

The Doctor smiled at that. He’d had a name once, long ago. Nine hundred years ago. So many memories in his head, many of them the memories of his previous incarnations, almost like someone else’s – memories so faded and indistinct they were barely the whispers of ghosts.

‘Just “the Doctor”. That’s all you need to call me.’

‘The Doctor, huh?’ The earpiece hissed, the channel still open. ‘Fine.’ Major Platt didn’t sound entirely convinced. ‘Well, you keep the comms channel open, OK, Doctor?’

The Doctor had no intention of doing that. ‘Yes, of course.’

Ten minutes later, the Doctor reached the outer buildings of the town: tired and abandoned clapboard houses, all sun-bleached wood and flaking paint. Fort Casey clearly had been a town dying a slow death long before tonight.

Beyond the reach of the floodlights and out of sight of the major’s men, the Doctor decided here was as good a place as any. He undid the hood and pulled it off, savouring the cool night air on his face. He unzipped and shrugged his way out of the rest of the biohazard suit, and kicked it off his feet.

Ridiculous outfit. It would be about as much use to him as a wet paper bag anyway.

He sniffed the air and instantly detected the sweet smell of decaying flesh. To some degree that confirmed what he already strongly suspected. This infection – this scourge, if it was indeed the same pathogen that had once wiped out countless Gallifreyans, was well and truly into its primary stage: absorbing and breaking down the organic matter it had already assimilated. Turning it into a usable, fluid organic matrix.

He proceeded up the small town’s main street. The street lights were still on, fizzing in the night, casting a sickly amber glow down on the dusty and potholed tarmac. To his right was a grocer’s store, a pink neon Budweiser beer sign blinking above the glass door.

The Doctor shone his torch at the store. At the front, empty wooden pallets advertised watermelons at three dollars each. He wandered over, aiming his torch at one of the empty pallets. A dark puddle of thick viscous liquid covered the slats of wood. The liquid had spilled over the side to the ground. With the beam of his torch, he followed a snaking trail of the goo – thin and insubstantial as a length of forgotten twine. It looked like a black artery as it weaved, like a hairline crack, along the ground to the building next door. There it widened as other arteries of the black liquid joined it, thickening it into a dense rope.

The ground floor of the two-storey building was a diner. Above were vacant apartments that seemed to be desperately seeking tenants. The ink-black liquid ran up the side wall, fanning out like webbing as it did so – tendrils of black feeling their way across the breeze blocks and cracked whitewash.

The Doctor approached slowly.

At the bottom of the wall, slumped against it, he saw the remains of what used to be a person. The Doctor squatted down in front of the body and inspected it. A pair of dockers’ boots, faded jeans and a checked shirt. Inside the clothes, an untidy jumble of bones held together by the last scraps of flesh. The skull was still topped with a few tufts of white hair. But no scalp. That was long gone, with every other scrap of soft organic matter. Black slime ran out of the cuffs of the shirt across the ground to unite with the other streams of organic soup.

Completely liquefied. The watermelons in front of the grocer’s store and this man, both equally useful, equally digestible raw material for the pathogen to absorb. Precisely what the Doctor was expecting to find, but had been hoping he wouldn’t.

The first stage looked well and truly established: infection, deconstruction and consolidation. It had evidently touched down in or near the town – one tiny pinhead-sized spore dispersed by the probe, possibly in the guise of a rock or meteor fragment, picked up on the heel of a boot perhaps, or the rim of a truck tyre. That’s all it would have taken.

The rest would be depressingly inevitable. And horrifyingly fast.

He panned his torch around and picked out more bodies in the main street. Across the road a car had mounted the kerb and tangled with some rubbish bins, the skeletal remains of the driver slumped half in, half out of the open door. Further up the street, a bundle of women’s clothing lay on the pavement and, beside it, a baby stroller over on its side.

‘They never stood a chance,’ the Doctor said with a sigh.

‘Hello?’ A voice from within the diner. ‘Is someone out there?’

A survivor? The Doctor shook his head. Impossible. There was no immunity to this thing. No human immunity anyway. He walked to the front of the diner and pulled one of the glass swing doors wide open. ‘Is there anyone alive in here?’

‘STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!’ A muffled voice. A female voice. The Doctor froze in the doorway, then raised his hands to show he was unarmed.

He saw a slight figure in a biohazard suit slowly emerge from behind the diner’s serving counter, the face obscured by an oxygen mask. ‘How … how are you alive?’

The Doctor smiled and took a step forward. ‘As my mother used to say, I’m rather special.’

The woman levelled the handgun she was holding at him. ‘You’d better stay right there! Right where you are!’

He looked at the name patch on her chest. ‘Captain Chan, is it?’

‘Captain Evelyn Chan.’

‘I presume you must be one of Major Platt’s investigation team?’

The woman dipped the gun slightly.

‘You know, the major’s rather worried that you haven’t been in touch recently.’

‘My comm system’s broken. I tossed it.’

The Doctor looked at her equipment belt. He noted a twisted attachment buckle and a small tear in her suit there.

She followed his gaze. ‘Some of that gunk got on to my communication pack. I could see it spreading! I had to … had to tear it off. Get rid of it fast,’ she said quickly. ‘But I’m not infected, OK? It didn’t get inside my suit. It didn’t touch my skin –’

‘I know,’ interrupted the Doctor, offering her a reassuring smile. ‘I know. If it had made contact with you, you would be a puddle by now.’ He looked around the diner. ‘What about the others in your team?’

A moment’s hesitation before she eventually replied. ‘I’m the only one left.’ Her voice hitched. ‘The others, they … they …’

‘What happened to them?’

‘Attacked.’

‘Attacked?’

The woman’s mask nodded slowly. ‘Strange things … crawling things dropped down on us, attacked us …’

The Doctor cursed under his breath. That meant the secondary stage was already under way. This thing was now building defensive constructs.

He took another cautious step forward and Chan quickly raised her gun and aimed it at him. ‘Stay there!’

‘It’s all right!’ he said quickly. ‘I’m also not infected. In fact, I assure you, I’m quite immune.’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing’s immune!’

The Doctor stepped sideways and sat down in a booth beside the window. ‘I’ll just sit here, Evelyn. If that’s all right with you?’

She came out from behind the counter. He could see her glancing in all directions: at the floor, under the tables and seats. She advanced slowly towards him. ‘Everything. Human, animal, plant. This thing has infected everything in this town.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes, that’s precisely what it does.’

She took several more steps towards him, her gun still levelled at his chest. She slumped down on a chair a couple of tables from him. ‘Nothing can do this! No pathogen can work across species boundaries like that! Jump from fauna to flora –’

‘No terrestrial pathogen,’ said the Doctor.

‘No terrestrial …?’ He saw Chan’s eyes narrow through the glass visor of her mask. ‘You’re saying … what? This has come from –’

‘Come from space, yes.’ The Doctor casually fiddled with the salt cellar on the table in front of him. ‘It’s a von Neumann seeding probe.’

‘What?’

‘Von Neumann. Named after one of your scientists, John von Neumann, who theorised about the development of such a creation – a genetically engineered pathogen designed to survive deep space, to drift until it finds a planet with a habitable environment. Then it revives from a dormant state and goes to work.’

‘Goes to work?’

‘It transmits like a virus at first. Starting from just a cluster of particles, infecting, converting cells by reprogramming their DNA. Whatever it comes into contact with, it infects. It reproduces millions of copies of itself from the raw material of the infected organism, then these infected cells work together at breaking down the structure of the victim.’

Chan nodded. ‘Yes … yes, that’s what we saw.’ She looked out of the window at the deserted street outside. ‘Everything organic,’ she said, nodding. That’s exactly what she’d witnessed. ‘Everything … seems to be necrotic, decaying to that black gunk.’

‘The pathogen’s primary stage is that process – acquiring organic mass. As much as it can and as quickly as it can. The liquid has a rudimentary intelligence, if you can call it that. It will attempt to converge on itself. To regroup, if you will. The more of the assimilated mass that is connected together, the more sophisticated its internal structure can become.’

‘Internal structure?’

‘That “black gunk” is a transmorphic fluid. It can restructure itself into anything it has acquired a genetic blueprint from, or even combine blueprints. The more of it that is connected together, the more sophisticated the constructs it can make.’

Captain Chan turned to look at him. ‘How do you know so much about it?’ The Doctor saw her eyes suddenly widen. ‘My God! This is not an isolated outbreak? Has this happened elsewhere?’

‘There have been millions of outbreaks, Evelyn. On many worlds, over billions of years.’

Her eyes narrowed again. She stared at him, silent for a few moments. ‘Just who on earth are you?’

The Doctor considered her question. He supposed he could take the time to explain who he was. He could explain that his people, the Time Lords, had once been attacked by this very pathogen. As a young man, he’d read about the infection on Gallifrey, so long ago now. The Spore had arrived more than a thousand years before he was born. Several hundred thousand Time Lords had died before they’d managed to deal with it, engineering an inherited immunity into their genes so that they would never be vulnerable again. He could explain all of those things, but time wasn’t exactly on their side. He decided to keep the explanation short and sweet. A quick answer would do for now.

‘You’ll find there are a few conspiracy websites that mention me. I suspect one or two governments have rather extensive files on me too. I’m known as “The Doctor”. Suffice it to say, I’m not from round here.’ He pursed his lips. ‘But I have developed a habit of dropping by from time to time.’ The Doctor sat back and straightened his morning coat. ‘But introductions can wait, Captain Chan. We don’t have a great deal of time. You said you were attacked?’

She nodded. ‘Crab-like things. Hundreds of them. Cut through our suits and got inside.’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I barely got away.’

‘You were the only survivor?’

Chan shook her head and glanced quickly at the swing doors behind the counter. ‘There was also Rutherford.’

The Doctor noted a dark and bloody handprint on one of the doors.

‘It was one of those black goo threads. Rutherford was trying to gather a sample. We thought it was just liquid.’ She shook her head, trying to make sense of what she’d witnessed. ‘But it kind of reared up and lashed out at him. Punctured right through his mask.’ She looked away. ‘I tried to save him. But he was dying within minutes, seconds even. I dragged him in there …’

‘He’s in there now? Through those doors?’

‘In the kitchen.’

The Doctor looked at the swing doors. Chan had grabbed a tea-towel and tied a knot binding together both the door handles. That wasn’t going to stop anything, but it meant she understood.

Best not to open them. Best not to step inside.

‘Keep that door firmly closed, Evelyn. Whatever you do, do not go in.’

She nodded quickly. ‘I looked in about twenty minutes ago.’ She let slip a choked sob. ‘It was horrible. Rutherford was …’

‘This thing goes through stages. Stage One is biomass assimilation and consolidation. That’s the stage that was happening before you arrived. In Stage Two it starts generating simple constructs – creatures, for sake of a better word. That’s a defensive measure. That’s what you’ve witnessed. Stage Three is … well …’ The Doctor stroked his chin. ‘That’s the most fascinating stage with this thing, actually. Really quite remarkable.’

‘What?’

The most curious thing in the Spore’s infection life cycle was the third stage. What the Time Lords had dubbed the ‘enquiry stage’. The mystery creators of the pathogen – perhaps long gone now – had built in a safety mechanism to ensure that the Spore never erased another advanced civilisation. Perhaps they feared a drifting spore might return one day and destroy their own homeworld? Perhaps they believed it unethical that their own creation might wipe out another intelligent species?

‘What’s Stage Three?’ prompted Chan.

The Doctor looked back at her. ‘At the centre of the infection, ground zero, the Spore will construct an intelligence matrix. A brain, if you will.’

‘A brain?’

‘Well, an intelligence at any rate.’

‘Why?’

‘It has a question it needs to ask.’ The Doctor shrugged. ‘Answer it correctly and the brain instructs every cell in its biomass to switch from reproducing cells to manufacturing a lethal toxin that eventually will destroy itself.’

‘Why would it do that?’

‘Answering the question correctly indicates intelligence. This pathogen is “programmed” to avoid wiping out intelligent life.’

‘And if we don’t give the right answer? Then what?’

The Doctor winced. ‘Then the Spore will continue to develop ever more sophisticated constructs – creatures that can run, swim, fly. Creatures that will carry the infection in all directions. It will become uncontainable.’ He pressed his lips together. ‘A week from now, every organic thing on this planet will have been converted to biomass.’

‘No way!’ breathed Chan.

‘The theory is,’ the Doctor continued, ‘it was created by an alien civilisation to “overwrite” the native ecosystems of other planets with their own. To render those planets hospitable for them centuries – even millennia – before they might one day need them as homes. A form of long-distance biological terraforming. That, or it’s some sort of ghastly weapon.’

‘But you … you’re saying we can communicate with this thing?’ Chan shook her head. ‘Actually talk to it?’

‘“Talk” is somewhat generous. It’s not like we’ll be exchanging penpal details.’

‘But it will ask us this question?’

The Doctor smiled. ‘Yes, and there’s the rub. Humans won’t understand it, let alone be able to answer it. Not for another fifty or so years.’

‘Another fifty years?’ Chan’s eyes widened. ‘Are you saying … you’re from –’

‘The future?’ The Doctor nodded. ‘And the past. You could say I get around quite a bit.’ He looked out of the window again. ‘And I’ve already wasted enough time. I need to locate the intelligence matrix as soon as possible. It won’t wait around forever to decide whether you’re a species worth preserving or not. I need to catch it before it starts creating airborne constructs.’

Chan looked at him. ‘You’re actually going back out there?’

‘Of course. And I suggest you stay right here. Keep the door closed until I come back.’

Chan shook her head. ‘I’m not staying here. Not alone. No way.’

The Doctor looked at the doors behind the counter. Nowhere was safe, to be fair, inside or out. Not now the Spore was building constructs. Perhaps she’d be better off staying close by his side.

‘All right then,’ he said, shrugging. ‘You can come along if you want.’