Cyberbint - Episode 2

'The international cyborgs' convention?' The Doctor was about to hand the paper back when an idea crossed his mind. He turned to the front page and examined the masthead in detail.

'What are you doing?' Martha regarded him with amusement.

'Checking the date. After all, the Guardian is notorious for its April Fool's Day editions.'

'And its typos,'she chuckled. 'It’s not April Fool's Day.' She handed him her phone and he glanced at the screen. 'It's really a thing …'

'They’ve got a website?'

'Yeah – they call themselves "bodyhackers".'

He raised his eyebrows. 'Catchy.' He carried on reading for a few moments.

'They're a mixture of people, by the looks of things,' Martha continued. 'Some of them have had surgical procedures. You know – like prosthetic limbs, that sort of thing. A few of them have augmented themselves, though.'

'Augmented?' The Doctor leant back in his chair and pondered for a while. 'That’s one word for it.'

'I'll get some refills,' she suggested brightly, and left him to read the website in detail.

When she returned a few minutes later, he looked up at her with a grave expression on his face.

'There's a world of difference between having a cochlear implant to let you hear, and having a chip embedded in your arm that lets you open doors.' He handed the phone back to Martha and let her read the display for herself.

The Doctor had followed his nose through the internet and found an article about Professor Kevin Warwick of Reading University. Prof. Warwick had been a leading proponent of cybernetics for many years, and – in the pioneer spirit characteristic of British scientists – had fitted himself with a number of microprocessors.

'Oh, I've heard of this guy before. He doesn't just open doors.' She sounded quite enthusiastic about the idea. 'Apparently he and his wife have had chips fitted so he knows when she's thinking about him, and vice versa.' Her face lit up. 'How cool would that be?'

'It would save a lot of missed calls, I suppose.' He looked into her eyes for a moment, suddenly serious. 'Your cousin …'

'Adiola? Yeah – I know—'

'That all started from experiments like this, remember.'

He became aware that a couple on the next table were eavesdropping on their conversation. He turned to them with a broad smile and pulled his psychic paper from his pocket.

'Waterstones, Cardiff, Science Fiction Appreciation Society – fringe meeting.' He put the card back and smiled again. 'It's only on occasions like this that the genre progresses beyond aliens and time machines'

He turned his attention back to Martha. 'It's a fine line between fiction and reality, after all,' he said in a low voice.

She laughed. 'If we'd written about all our adventures …'

'Nobody would ever believe it – and we'd win a few awards for sheer audacity.' He drained his mug in a single swallow.

'Another one? Or do you want to go and …?' She knew the answer before she’d phrased the question.

'Texas, January next year? Why not? It's got to be worth a look, hasn't it?'

'That's what I was thinking. Pop along, check it out, make sure it's nothing to worry about – back in the pub by teatime.'

'Well, in not quite the words of my old pal Richard Rodgers, I'm just a guy who can't say no.'

*

Hannah Reynolds eased herself into the comfortable armchair and looked into the eyes of the white-coated man sitting opposite.

She was in her early thirties, quite short and slightly chunky, with a vivid purple streak in her long black hair. Her arms and shoulders were covered in tattoos; some were expensive custom pieces, but the rest were messy DIY jobs perpetrated while drunk and/or stoned during her crazy teenage rampage.

Mike Harris scrolled through his laptop and pulled up the high definition photos of Hannah's tattoos. As one of Wales's leading cosmetic dermatologists, he'd been asked to repair the disfiguring damage of amateur body modifications on countless occasions. The NHS didn't allow for this sort of treatment at taxpayers' expense. Young single mothers like Hannah had little choice but to fork out for expensive laser removal, or bear the scars of their youthful indiscretions to the grave.

Mike had been drawn to Hannah's case immediately it had crossed his desk. After their first meeting, he was certain that she'd be his ideal test subject. She was exceptionally attractive, and truly regretted the hours she'd spent being pierced, bored and screwed in the Valleys town she called home. Mike had spent a decade researching his revolutionary procedure in the laboratory, and now he was ready to take it to the next level – human trials. It had been given ethical approval, and Mike's colleagues across the world were waiting for his preliminary results to be published. Hannah was healthy, intelligent, well-informed, and eager to sign up.

On any other occasion she would probably have ignored the small ad in Metro appealing for volunteers – but the money was good. Enrolling for an experimental technique and trousering a nice cheque at the end was better than scrimping pennies and submitting her epidermis to fifty-year-old technology, after all.

Mike leant forwards and took the clipboard from Hannah's confident hands. She'd signed the consent form; there was nothing to stand in their way.

'Now, Hannah, you do realise that this technique is still in its infancy.' Despite their shared enthusiasm, Mike still had to observe strict professional protocol. 'There might be side effects that neither of us can foresee.'

Hannah nodded. 'Yes, I've read the literature. But let's be honest – I could die in the dentist's chair. If we didn't take risks, Homo sapiens would still be living on the savannah because we were afraid of fire.'

'I have to say, that's exactly the sort of answer I was expecting from you.' He scanned the form quickly and noticed that she'd left one box unticked. 'You haven't opted out of being identified in the published data. Do you want to mark that bit?'

Hannah sat up in the chair, pulled her sleeve down self-consciously to conceal the self-inflicted scar tissue, and shook her head firmly.

'Mike, if you can get rid of these you won't need to worry about my name appearing in the Lancet. I'll be shouting from the rooftops.'

He laughed and countersigned the form with a reassuring smile.

'Well, in that case, let's get you booked in. I'm confident that in a couple of days' time you'll wake up feeling like a new woman.'

(To be continued …)

The Statues are Moving

A ONE-OFF DOCTOR WHO FANFIC SPECIAL FOR CHILDREN IN NEED 2015

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor was rocking out.

He cut a slightly comical figure: a tall, wiry man with tight curls of iron-grey hair and the first hint of lines on his craggy, oddly handsome face, intent on revisiting his long-lost rebellious youth.

He was striding around the brightly-lit control room, bathed in the golden glow of the central column. He had a gleaming tobacco sunburst Gibson Les Paul slung low across his torso; the Marshall stack behind him was shaking under the barrage of sound. His long black coat flapped like a cape as he whirled and gyrated, but his opaque black shades somehow managed to stay firmly in place. With the PA turned up way beyond danger level, the music was heavy enough to cause a localised spacetime distortion.

The last-but-one of the Time Lords was playing along to his Desert Planet Discs.

Halfway through ‘Voodoo Chile’ the door to the living quarters swung open. Clara Oswald stood there, shaking her head in disbelief. Her shoulder-length brown hair was slightly dishevelled, as if she’d just got out of bed. She was wearing a black poloneck jumper, a tartan miniskirt and black calf-length boots, and had a little bag slung over her shoulder. The pretty young teacher and occasional time traveller tried not to laugh at the sight of her friend windmilling his way through the massive Jimi Hendrix Experience outro.

‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ she yelled when he turned to face her.

The Doctor’s arms stopped flailing.

‘Sorry?’ He looked blankly at her. ‘You'll have to speak up!’

Clara ran across the room and tugged the guitar cable from the amp. It didn’t make any noticeable difference, though; the original multi-tracked stereo recording was still blasting from the TARDIS speakers.

‘I stole this guitar from Jimi Hendrix himself,’ the Doctor shouted amid the sonic onslaught. ‘Would you believe he was actually going to set fire to it?’

Clara grabbed his shoulder and pressed her face against the side of his head.

‘Turn it down!’ she screamed.

With a petulant expression on his face, the Doctor pressed a button on the console and the music faded quickly to background level.

‘Sorry,’ he said, as though nothing untoward had happened. ‘It’s a rubbish PA anyway – it only goes up to eleven. You were saying—?’

‘You’re a pain in the arse!’ Clara snapped, assuming the tone of voice she used when dealing with wayward pupils. ‘In fact, you’re impossible to live with!’

‘I’m impossible?’ he retorted, snatching off his shades and glaring at her, his fierce eyebrows bristling. ‘Is that a fax from Miss Pot for the attention of Mr Kettle, Impossible Girl?’

Despite herself, Clara laughed. She could never stay angry with him for long.

‘Look at this.’

She pulled out her smartphone, scrolled through the display, and handed it to her oldest, wisest, and undoubtedly most annoying friend.

‘Yes, I know – touchscreen technology. You humans never fail to amaze me.’

‘Not the touchscreen,’ she said patiently. ‘Read what‘s on the screen.’

He scrolled down for a few moments and turned slightly pale. Handing the phone back to her without a word, he started swiftly programming a fresh set of co-ordinates into the TARDIS navigational system.

‘“The Statues are Moving”,’ she said. ‘Does that mean the Weeping Angels?’

‘I don't know. I sincerely hope not,’ the Doctor replied in a low voice. ‘I‘ve met them before, and I’ve been lucky to get away from them every time. My friends weren’t so fortunate …’

‘We’d better go and investigate, though, right?‘ Clara suggested.

At that moment the engine noise died away. The Doctor turned to face her.

‘We’re already on the case!’ He swung round and an unexpected grin split his face. ‘Croeso i Gymru, as the friendly natives say.’

He crossed the room and flung open the main door with a dramatic flourish.

The TARDIS had landed in an almost empty car park. The sky was pitch dark and overcast; a light drizzle was falling, glowing in the sodium street-lamp glare.

‘Every time I come to the South Wales Valleys, it’s raining,’ the Doctor said, stepping out onto the gravel surface. ‘I sometimes wonder if it ever actually stops.’

‘What? You’ve been here before?’

‘Yes. Maybe – I don’t know for sure. This valley, the next one, the one over there …’ He pointed vaguely east. ‘They all look the same after a while. All full of huge chapels and surrounded by coal heaps.’

Clara joined him, and he locked the door behind them.

‘What does it say on your phone? Where exactly are the statues moving?’

‘The Bush Inn and Sports Bar.’ Clara slipped her phone back into her bag and followed the Doctor as he strode towards the road. ‘It’s just around the corner.’

They walked quickly past the bus station, ignoring a group of youngsters sheltering inside. They were kicking a football idly, smoking, and shouting abuse at each other.

‘Some of yours, I take it?’

‘No, I think teenagers are pretty much alike wherever you go.’

The Doctor chuckled. ‘I certainly wasn’t. All that angst-ridden rebellion stuff came much later.’

They passed a row of small shops and turned left into the main street of the town. Halfway along, on the left, a group of people were standing outside a large pub, chatting, laughing and smoking. A white hire van was parked in front of the building. Fast, driving, powerful rock music became clearly audible as they approached.

‘Are you sure this is the right place?’

He stopped in his tracks; she checked her phone and nodded.

‘Yeah, the Bush Inn. That’s it.’ She pointed to the recently repainted name in relief on the upper storey.

Something stuck on the window caught Clara’s eye, and she walked over to read it. Suppressing a smile, she turned back and beckoned him over. He read the notice and laughed loudly.

‘“Clay Statues” live, Friday, thirteenth of November.’ Clara chuckled. ‘They’re not aliens – they‘re a band.’

‘“The Statues are Moving”, indeed!’ The Doctor frowned at her. ‘You do realise we could have had UNIT and Torchwood on Code Red – just because of a viral marketing campaign! That would have been a very unlucky Friday the thirteenth.’

Clara shrugged. ‘It got us interested, so I supposed it worked. Anyway, you’re always saying you don’t get to go to gigs these days.’

‘Last time I was here I ended up at a gig in a pub,’ he replied with a wink. *

‘When was that?’

‘Ages ago. A lifetime ago. No – two lifetimes ago, come to think of it.’

He smiled and peered through the window.

It was a long, narrow building with a bar along one wall. The band were already playing, and a substantial crowd had piled in to watch and listen. She turned to him with a sly smile.

‘Well, we might as well have a drink while we’re here,’ she suggested. ‘I’ll get the first round.’

The crowd of smokers made way for Clara and the Doctor followed close behind, putting his shades back on as he stepped through the door.

The place was packed with people of all ages, and the music was even louder inside. The band were set up in the corner near the main window. There were only two of them: a stocky guy stood up front, barking into the microphone and strangling a bass guitar. He had longish dark hair and had made a vague attempt at a beard. Behind him, a sandy-haired chap with glasses and a mature beard pounded a large drum kit.

The Doctor surveyed the crowd with relief. There was no sign of alien technology whatsoever. He slipped his shades into his pocket and chuckled at the strange circumstances that had somehow brought him back to Aberdare on another wet autumn weekend.

Clara pushed her way through the crowd and squeezed in at the bar. The Doctor leaned against a pillar, a studiedly neutral expression on his long narrow face, afraid to let on that he was actually enjoying the music. A couple of minutes later Clara nudged him and pushed a pint of creamy lager into his outstretched hand.

‘Well, this makes a nice change from flying around the universe all night,’ she shouted into his ear. He grinned.

‘Aye, you’re right. In fact, it could be just what the Doctor ordered.’

They stood together by the pillar, enjoying their drinks and listening to the extraordinary music the two lads somehow managed to make. It was an unusual combination; but it worked.

The duo stopped for a break, and the Doctor gave them a friendly nod as they made their way to the bar.

‘They probably think you’re a talent scout,’ Clara said, and he smiled.

‘That was my excuse last time, too.’ Then he turned to face her, beaming with delight. ‘Or else I’m the eccentric old hippy who brings his daughter to gigs with him.’

‘You said it – not me!’ Clara smirked.

They chatted for a while with some of the other punters, and decided to stay for the second half. The Doctor bought another round, and watched in amusement as the unusual band started setting up again.

They were approaching the end of their set when the Doctor turned his attention back to his companion. He leaned close to her and bellowed into her ear, ‘Do they think they’d be even better with a lead guitarist? I can think of someone who’s pretty decent …’

Clara tried not to laugh.

‘I think you’re probably a bit too old,’ she said, suppressing a grin.

‘Rubbish – I’m in better shape than Keith Richards, and he should have died forty years ago …’ His voice tailed off. ‘Hang on a minute – you don’t think …’

He and Clara exchanged wary glances.

‘No – surely not. You mean …?’

‘The Rolling Stones might actually be shape-shifting aliens!’ A look of horror spread across the Doctor's face. ‘We'd better check that out ASAP!’

Without another word he drained his pint and barged his way urgently through the crowd, with Clara following in his slipstream.

THE END

* See 'Pit Stop'

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Episode 8

The outskirts of Cardiff, 2.07 p.m.

Squeezed into the rear seat of Andy's squad car between two bemused women, the Doctor closed Dave's laptop and handed it back to him with a wink.

'Very impressive,' he said in a loud voice.

The car was going 'blues and twos', tearing its way along Cowbridge Road towards the castle. Occasionally other drivers sounded their horns as Andy shot through the tiniest gaps in the traffic.

'And I'm not easily impressed, as a rule. Fair play to you, Dave. Project Précis – Print Recognition, Electronic Compression, and Information Storage. It does exactly what it says on the tin. In fact, it's a brilliant idea.'

'Diolch yn fawr,' Dave replied with a smile, somewhat surprised.

He'd only known the Doctor for a short time, but he'd soon been struck by the other man's sharp intelligence. When the Doctor had asked to look at Dave's blueprints, he'd agreed immediately, sensing that this mysterious man would find any flaws in his design in seconds. He'd been expecting his invention to come in for a barrage of criticism, instead of such lavish praise. True to form, the Doctor didn't disappoint him when he spoke again.

'Yes, it is a truly brilliant invention.' He sat back and stroked his chin. 'Of course, my people developed this technology ages ago. It did exactly the same thing. We dumped it because it didn't work.'

'It works perfectly.' Dave's smile vanished as quickly as Pam's Metro had earlier on.

'Yeah – technically, it's spot-on. But have you thought about the effects it'll have on society?'

Dave shook his head.

'Sorry, I'm not with you.'

By way of answer, the Doctor belted out the opening bars of the 'Hallelujah Chorus'. Pam tried not to laugh, and Andy resisted the temptation to join in. The Doctor stopped singing and faced Dave again.

'Now, imagine scanning the score of Handel's Messiah into your machine. The software analyses it, decides that the content is too repetitive, and erases all but the first "Hallelujah" because it thinks they're redundant. Or what about a bit of the Bard?' He struck a pose and declaimed, '"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day ..."' He frowned and looked straight into Dave's eyes. 'Error report: suggest deleting repeated words. Then again, if you want to really fuck things up, try feeding in some James Joyce or Samuel Beckett, and see what your software makes of them.'

He placed a reassuring hand on Dave's shoulder.

'Look, I've got a Reader's Ticket for the biggest library in the universe, and everything there is still printed on paper. People like books. They look nice, they feel nice, they smell nice, and you don't need any fancy equipment to use them. But with your invention, I only have to push a button and masterpieces of human civilisation vanish into the Odd Sock Vortex.'

'The Odd Sock Vortex?' Pam echoed.

'Yeah, you know. Like when you put a dozen pairs of socks in the washing machine, and when the cycle's finished, there are only twenty-three socks inside. Where does the other one go?'

'I always that was the Borrowers.'

Andy grinned as he shot through the traffic lights, threw the car across the junction and headed down St Mary Street.

'Oh, now you're being silly!' He pulled a face and pressed on. 'The thing is, there are little baby universes opening and closing all the time, like tiny transient bubbles in the fabric of reality. Stuff comes and goes every so often. I think you've come up with a way of creating baby universes on demand, and that's where the hard copies go.'

'Hang on, though – whatever's happened isn't a baby universe,' Karen objected. 'It's something different.'

'Yes, I know.' He gave Dave a meaningful look. 'The problem is, some bright spark not a million miles away from here—' He nodded in Dave's direction '—decided to build a baby universe machine on top of a rift in Space and Time. A hole in the fabric of reality. A bit of a dodgy combination, all in all.'

Everyone in the car was silent for a few moments. Andy had experienced some of the Rift's effects for himself. The others remembered the strange phenomena that had cropped up in the newspapers over the past couple of years. Most people in Cardiff had had a taste of what the Rift could do.

'That's not the only problem,' Pam piped up. 'Some other bright spark went and parked his spaceship on top of that same rift.'

The Doctor looked slightly guilty.

'You've got a spaceship?' Karen looked incredulous.

'Well, strictly speaking it's a space and time machine, but – yes, I've got a spaceship. And yes, I have to confess that I might have been partly responsible for all this.'

Dave glared at him as the implications of his revelation sank in.

'Partly?' Dave repeated. 'Only partly?'

The Doctor grinned back.

'I dunno. Six of one, half a dozen of the other?”

'From what you've just told us, it seems to me that you're almost entirely responsible, Doctor.'

He shrugged.

'Well, maybe ninety per cent.'

Dave's eyes continued to bore into him.

'I'll compromise on fifty-fifty. Tell you what – why don't we split the difference?'

Pam decided to change the subject, and nudged the Doctor sharply in the ribs.

'How many blokes do you know with twelve pairs of socks?'

'I bet Ianto has.'

'Yeah, you're probably right,' she chuckled.

The radio crackled, and Andy listened for a moment before acknowledging the message. He caught the Doctor's eye in the rear-view mirror.

'That was Gwen. They're waiting for us on site – and they've got company.'

He swung the car into Callaghan Square and headed towards the docks.

The Port of Cardiff, 2.21 p.m.

The humming noise from the warehouse had become so loud that everyone had been forced to evacuate the area. Even from two hundred metres away, it was about as loud as a rock concert. Golden light flooded from the windows and bathed the surrounding buildings in its unearthly glow.

The entire port facility was cordoned off with police tape. Kathy Swanson and Vince Price were standing guard just outside the gates, with a handful of uniformed officers nearby. Three green army trucks and a number of jeeps were parked near the fence, and soldiers were milling around in the car park. Jack, Gwen, Ianto and Martha were leaning up against their SUV when Andy's car shot into view and drew up a few inches from the bumper. His passengers got out with relieved expressions on their faces, and the Doctor performed the introductions as usual.

'Was it my imagination, or did we achieve light speed coming around Culverhouse Cross?' Karen gave Andy a dig in the kidneys.

'Don't be daft,' the Doctor said. 'If we could do that, we could just turn back time and stop this from ever happening.' He gave Jack and Martha a meaningful look. 'And as any fool knows, that's completely impossible.'

Martha winked at him and turned to a young fair-haired soldier wearing a red-trimmed cap.

'Doctor, this is Major Chapman. Major, this is the Doctor.'

Chapman shot to attention.

'It's an honour, sir, I've heard all about you.'

The Doctor groaned.

'Please don't salute, I'm not good with authority figures.'

Instead they shook hands warmly. He introduced Dave to the young officer, and explained the professor's involvement in the proceedings. Chapman beckoned Jack over and led the three men towards the police line. As they walked, each man took the opportunity to update the others on developments.

It seemed that the effect had just reached Swansea. Torchwood's own equipment had been taking regular measurements and the phenomenon appeared to be gaining strength. An hour into the crisis, UNIT had been called in and given full powers to act in order to prevent the situation from worsening. The only problem was that nobody had the faintest idea what action to take.

'Well, I'm here now,' the Doctor reassured the harrassed officer. 'I'm sure I'll think of something.'

He nodded polite greetings to Kathy Swanson and Vince Price as they came to the gates. Price glowered at him by way of answer. The police had obviously been cut out of the loop, and he wasn't happy about it. Dave caught sight of Julie Jones and Mohammed Khan sitting in a police car a few metres away, and he waved at them. Julie raised her hands to give him a half-hearted wave, and a glint of silver caught the Doctor's keen eye.

'Why is she wearing handcuffs?' he demanded, turning to Price.

The diminutive policeman strode up to him and looked up into his face, trying to exert what little authority he still had.

'Everyone in that warehouse has been arrested pending further investigations,' he announced.

'Well, in that case you can un-arrest them ASAP!'

Price took an involuntary step backwards as the Doctor loomed over him, his eyes blazing.

'We're going to need all the help we can get.'

He ducked under the tape and walked slowly towards the warehouse, with the others following a few paces behind. All eyes were on them as they walked towards the glowing building. They didn't get far before they were forced back by the deafening noise emanating from within. They retreated to the gates again, shaking their heads in a vain attempt to rid themselves of the after-effects of the sound. Ianto ran to the cordon and slung what appeared to be a set of headphones over the fence. Jack caught it neatly, grinned, and clamped it over his ears.

'Ear protection! That boy thinks of everything!' he bellowed into the Doctor's ear.

Ianto threw another set of modified ear defenders to the Doctor, and two more sets to Dave and Major Chapman. As soon as they were wearing the safety kit, they found themselves in near-silence. Jack gestured to the others to follow him towards the warehouse. To the Doctor's amazement, Martha's voice rang in his ears.

'You're not the only one with tricks up his sleeve, mate.'

'We developed these a few years ago,” Ianto's voice added. “They've got built-in comms on a secure channel. You can talk to each other, we can hear you, and you can hear us.'

'Fantastic!' The Doctor turned and gave Jack's colleagues a wave.

Gwen waved back and her anxious voice came through the tiny speakers.

'Take care, guys.'

'I always do,' Jack retorted in an ironic tone. He pointed at the Doctor. 'It's this bloke who gets me into trouble every time.'

The Doctor raised his middle finger and Jack laughed. He put a hand on Dave's shoulder.

'Professor Dave Probert, this is your big moment.' He grinned. 'Take me to your Reader.'

The four men advanced to the warehouse and the Doctor tried the door. To his surprise it swung open immediately. He turned to Dave and raised his eyebrows.

'Tell your friends they should have locked it up after them,' he teased. 'Anyone could have just walked in here.'

Dave chuckled and followed him into the building, with Jack and Chapman bringing up the rear. The Doctor squinted into the dazzling glow flooding from Dave's machine and walked towards the stairs.

'Blimey, it's bright in here! Ianto, I don't suppose you've brought any sunglasses.'

'They've never really suited me,' came the disembodied reply. 'I always look like I'm in the CIA whenever I wear them.'

'Where's all this light coming from?'

Dave was shielding his eyes with his hand. Chapman was staring, open-mouthed, at the glowing mass in the middle of the empty warehouse. Jack sprinted past the Doctor, sat down at the nearest workstation, inserted a flash drive into the USB port, and started typing rapidly.

'That's pure energy from the Space-Time Vortex, funnelling through the Rift.'

He took a few strides towards the machine and shoved his sonic screwdriver into a gap on its side.

'It's amplifying the effect of your machine, and radiating it out from here so that it's processing every piece of paper in its path,” Jack added, looking at the results flashing up on his monitor.

'Oh my God.' Dave was awestruck by the realisation of what was happening.

'Still, at least it's only one specific frequency.' He looked relieved. 'If it was the full spectrum, most of South Wales would have been swallowed by now.'

'How do we stop it?' Chapman's voice was querulous.

'Your guess is as good as mine,' Dave sighed.

'What's the power source?'

'It draws its energy from hydrogen fuel cells.'

Julie's voice came over the airwaves, and the Doctor's face fell.

'Oh, great!' Jack groaned. 'It'll be around for fucking years.'

'They said that about Laserdiscs,' Ianto quipped.

'Can you reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?' Martha suggested.

'Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?' the Doctor echoed sarcastically. 'Martha, it's 2009, not the 1970s!'

'There is one thing we could try.'

Jack's firm tone suggested that he'd already come up with a definitive plan of action. He strode to the Doctor's side and tapped the Vortex Manipulator that never left his wrist.

'Could this be modified to increase its teleport catchment area?'

'Yeah, I imagine so.'

Their eyes met and they were silent for a few moments.

Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?' Jack nodded earnestly. 'Okay, let's do it!'

He pulled his sonic screwdriver from the machine and waved it over Jack's wrist.

'A little bit of that old Time Lord jiggery-pokery …'

The bright blue glow from the tool was a tiny glimmer amongst the golden light that surrounded them. Dave and Chapman looked on, completely lost. Jack gestured towards the doorway with his free hand.

'You two, get clear!' Jack shouted.

Without needing any further encouragement, they turned and sprinted from the building.

'Gwen, Martha, tell everyone to get as far away as possible. Major, can I scrounge some high explosives from your boys?'

'How much do you need?' He sounded surprised.

'As much as it'll take to blow this thing to Hell!'

The Doctor put his sonic screwdriver back in his pocket and looked into Jack's eyes. The other man winked at him, ignoring Gwen's and Ianto's frantic objections coming over the comms.

'I'll be okay. Trust me,' he said quietly.

'That's meant to be my line. I'm the bloody doctor here, Jack.'

'Ianto, I'm going to need some coordinates from you.'

'What's going on, Jack?' There was desperate concern in his voice.

'Ianto, just do it! I need the latitude and longitude of a point in the Bristol Channel. It doesn't matter where – just as long as it's out to sea, away from the shipping lanes, and far enough from any of the islands that a big bang won't cause any damage.'

'And don't forget there's a nuclear power station on the other side,' the Doctor added.

'Okay – can you give me a few minutes?'

'Yeah, take your time. I'm not in any great rush.'

'You're completely insane, you do realise that?'

The Doctor held out his hand. Jack smiled, shook his head, and wrapped the Doctor in a bear hug for a few moments.

'Let's go!'

They ran outside and were almost knocked down by a UNIT truck with a young corporal at the wheel. He leapt from the driver's seat and saluted them as they charged up to him.

'Don't salute!' the Doctor yelled.

Jack lifted the tarpaulin at the rear, peered inside, and whistled.

'Hey, Doctor, there's enough firepower here to blow a hole in the world!'

'Well, try not to make too much of a mess.'

Jack climbed into the cab, slammed the truck into reverse, and revved the powerful engine. The soldier was already sprinting back to the safe area. As he dived through the gates, Martha and Gwen burst through the gap and hurtled towards the Doctor and Jack. Martha seized the Doctor's arm and dragged him towards the gates, her eyes filled with terror. Gwen ran to the driver's side of the truck and grabbed Jack's arm, trying to pull him from his seat.

'What the fuck are you doing?' she screamed.

'Saving the world!'

He pushed her away and Gwen clutched at his coat, her incoherent shrieks filling their ears. He shoved her to the ground, slammed the door, and gunned the engine again. She rose to her knees, tears pricking at her eyes. The truck reversed away from the building, and the Doctor and Martha helped Gwen to her feet.

'He's fucking mad,' she sobbed.

She looked over her shoulder as Jack reversed the truck as far as the perimeter fence.

'He'll get blown to smithereens.'

The Doctor placed his hand on her chin and she found herself looking into his eyes.

'Gwen, you know him better than that,' he said gently. 'He'll be fine.'

He squeezed her hand and pointed to the gates, a two hundred metre dash away. He winked at Martha.

Now, I bet you can guess what I'm going to say next.'

'Oh yes. Just like old times.'

She gave him a huge smile. Gwen looked from one beaming face to the other and back again.

'RUN!' they chorused.

The three friends cleared the distance to the gates in what Pam assumed was an attempt to break the world record. They stormed through the police cordon and came to a halt, panting for breath, back at the SUV.

Ianto was still at his laptop. They conferred for a while as he relayed the on-screen information to Jack. With a guilty glance towards his colleagues, he touched a control on his headset. The comms went dead. Whatever he and Jack were saying was for nobody else's ears. The Doctor looked down at Ianto, trying to read the young man's emotions. Gwen was still weeping on Martha's shoulder.

Ianto murmured softly into his microphone, trying to control the tremble in his voice. Finally he pulled off the headset and looked up from his monitor.

'We've got about two minutes. Time to get clear,' he announced.

He closed the laptop and climbed into the driver's seat of the SUV without another word. Martha put her arm around Gwen's shoulders and helped her into the back seat. Andy started his own car and reversed out of the way. The Doctor, Pam, Dave and Karen got in, lost in their own thoughts. Andy sped out of the car park, the SUV following close behind.

Nobody dared to look back as they headed out of the docks and back to the main road.

Suddenly the Doctor shouted a single word: 'Barrage!'

'Nice one!'

Andy activated the lights and sirens, slammed his foot down, and gunned the car towards the Welsh Assembly Building. Ianto caught on instantly and swung the wheel, tailgating the squad car past the Norwegian Church and towards the Cardiff Bay Barrage.

Several hundred people had gathered along the waterfront, transfixed by the sight of the light flooding from the docks, wondering what on earth was going on. They scattered as the vehicles shot along the narrow path. It was less than a minute's drive to the barrage, and everyone piled out before the engines had stopped running. Even from here, the sound of Dave Probert's machine was clearly audible. The Vortex energy formed a shallow golden dome over the whole of the city, stretching as far as they could see.

The Doctor sprinted off along the barrage and onto one of the concrete islands between the sea-locks. The others followed in his wake, and soon they were all leaning over the metal railings, staring out at the sullen grey waters of the Bristol Channel. He glanced at his watch.

'Now, if Jack's plan works, we should hear the result any second—'

The humming sound died in an instant. Everyone turned in the direction of the docks. The golden glow which had enveloped the city was no more.

'Now …'

The Doctor's voice tailed away.

Far out in the Bristol Channel, a blinding flash illuminated the surface of the water.

A tower of water erupted from the sea and rose high into the air, mushrooming out as it lost speed. A few moments later, a colossal explosion shook the entire barrage. Out of instinct, everyone threw themselves to the ground. A low rumbling sound like a distant earth tremor resounded around the bay for several seconds before fading away.

The massive column collapsed as quickly as it had arisen, and the Doctor got to his feet. He peered over the side of the concrete structure. The sea level had dropped considerably in the aftermath of the explosion, but was now rising rapidly. An enormous circular wave was building on the horizon, thundering towards the shore on both sides of the channel.

'It's a shame we haven't got time to get to Minsterworth.' There was a tinge of sadness in his voice. 'This is going to be one hell of a Severn Bore.'

'Never mind the fucking Severn Bore, you heartless bastard!' Gwen screamed, tears pouring down her cheeks. She ran to the Doctor and pounded her fists against his chest. 'What about Jack?'

Martha leaned over the railings, squinting out towards the mighty oncoming wave.

Barely visible amongst the raging waters, a tiny figure was racing towards them.

'He's okay,' she grinned.

The Doctor shielded his eyes and looked along Martha's pointing finger. Everyone else followed his lead and there was a collective gasp.

'I don't fucking believe it,' Karen muttered.

Jack was standing upright on a narrow flat object, his feet firmly planted a short distance apart, riding the crest of the monstrous wall of water. He gave them a cheery wave as he came closer.

'No way!'

Ianto grabbed the comms headset and patched it through to his laptop. Soon, Jack's voice was issuing from the computer's onboard speakers.

'Did I ever tell you I was the Boeshane Peninsula surfing champion three years in a row? Man, this takes me back!'

As he came into clear view, Pam covered her mouth with her hand.

'He's bollock naked!'

'It was bound to happen,' Ianto muttered.

The wave was losing height and speed as it approached the shore, and soon they could see that Jack's makeshift surfboard was one of the truck doors, blown off in the explosion. He jumped off when he was a few metres from the barrage, and swam strongly towards the sea-lock. A moment later the mass of water smashed into the concrete pilings and drenched the Doctor and his friends in spray. They cried out and retreated to a safe distance. The water subsided again, and they all ran back to the railings. Jack was bobbing in the water beneath, a euphoric expression on his face, roaring with laughter.

'Wow! Now that's what I call a wave!' he yelled, punching the air. 'Sorry about the clothes, ladies - that coat weighs a ton when it's wet, and I didn't fancy drowning on top of being blown up!'

Everyone started laughing and cheering. Martha kissed the Doctor, Gwen kissed Ianto, the Doctor kissed Karen, Gwen kissed Dave, Martha kissed Ianto, Pam kissed the Doctor, Karen kissed Ianto, Martha kissed Dave, Pam kissed Ianto, the Doctor kissed Gwen, Karen kissed Dave, and finally Gwen kissed Andy. His eyes lit up, and the Doctor grinned.

“Don't I get a kiss?' Jack asked over the comms.

'Yes – just before I kill you again, you fucking mad bastard!' Gwen shouted down to him.

The Doctor unfastened a lifebelt from its mountings and threw it to Jack.

'Yeah, right, thanks – like that's going to make any difference to me,' he groaned.

Ianto was tying a length of rope to the towbar of the SUV. He gave the free end to Gwen and she threw it down to Jack. A few moments later, his arms and naked shoulders appeared over the top of the platform. He flashed them a dazzling smile.

'Can someone please get me a towel? I'm freezing my nuts off here.'

The Vulcan Inn, Adam Street, Cardiff, 7.04 p.m.

The Doctor returned from the bar and placed the tray of drinks on the table. As well as the regular crowd, the pub was crammed with people who had been watching the extraordinary events in the Bay. Liz the landlady was working flat-out. She hadn't known such a busy Monday evening for a long time. Everyone was discussing the mysterious happenings of the day, coming up with ever-wilder speculations as to the cause.

Jack, Martha, Gwen, Ianto, Andy, Pam, Dave, Karen and Major Chapman were sitting together in the corner by the door. After the day's adventure, the Doctor had prescribed them all a healthy dose of alcohol to settle their nerves, and they'd headed for one of Cardiff's historic pubs to watch the evening news on TV. Almost everyone was in the corner was in celebratory mood.

Only Karen seemed subdued. She'd missed her copy deadline, and been well and truly scooped. BBC Wales had filled its evening bulletin with a hastily cobbled-together and heavily-spun version of events, studiously omitting any mention of the explosion out at sea or the instantaneous disappearance of an entire warehouse from the docks.

The unveiling of Dave's invention had been completely ignored.

'Perhaps it's for the best,' he'd said during the weather forecast, and the Doctor had nodded his agreement.

'Yeah. It was a nice idea, Dave, but more trouble than it was worth.'

One of the regulars came back into the pub, the smell of fresh cigarette smoke on his breath.

'Dunno know what's occurin' down the Bay, but it's all lit up like Christmas,' he said casually as he returned to his pint.

The Doctor glanced at Jack and a worried expression crossed his face.

'Not again?'

They ran out to the car park beside the pub and looked southwards. High above the docks, a circle of golden light was expanding into the blackness. The glow of the circle dissipated through the low cloud, feathering at the edges to a faint corona. The others joined them, staring up into the sky.

'What the fuck …?' Gwen muttered.

The Doctor turned round and looked at Karen.

'What's the Principle of Conservation of Matter?'

'Mass cannot be created or destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space, and changed into different types of particles,' she replied immediately.

'Exactly!' He pulled a face. 'Or, to paraphrase the great Spike Milligan, everything's gotta be somewhere! And there's another scientific law that we've all forgotten about.' He glared at Dave. 'The Law of Unintended Consequences.'

The circle had stopped expanding, but was steadily increasing in brightness. Suddenly, a deafening whooshing sound reached their ears. It seemed as though a great gale was howling its way inland. Everyone leaned forward to avoid being swept over by its force. Martha shouted something, but her words were torn away by the wind. Something slapped into Pam's face and she pulled it away, holding it at arm's length so that she could see it properly. It was a copy of that week's Big Issue.

A stream of paper, several metres wide and almost as high as the pub, was gushing from the sky. Within seconds the Doctor and his friends were up to their ankles in litter. The rest of the customers had come outside to see what was happening, and were struggling to stay upright as the blizzard of paper swept around them.

'Fucking brilliant!' Gwen cried. 'It's like a tickertape parade!'

'I think we'd be safer indoors!' Jack bawled.

They took the hint and all ran back into the pub, slamming the door behind them.

For a few minutes everyone thronged by the windows as the torrent of paper continued, with only occasional comments from the crowd. When it was about knee-deep it started to subside, but continued to rain down.

'Oh my God, it's like the morning after a match day,' Gwen gasped.

'This is going to take some clearing up,' Liz murmured as her customers wandered back to their drinks.

'Nice bit of overtime for the council though,' Ianto replied.

The fall had eased off by the time they finished their drinks, and only small pieces of paper floated past the window as they left the pub.

The Doctor and Martha kicked their way through a deep drift which had gathered in the doorway and stepped outside. They found themselves trudging across a thick bed of paper debris half a metre or so above ground level.

Jack joined them just in time to hear Pam say, '1941.'

'No way!' he cried. 'There's at least four of me there already – I can't go there again.'

'Not the year 1941,' the Doctor explained patiently. 'The 1941 train from Cardiff Central. Pam's got to get home somehow.'

'I can't see the trains running tonight,' Andy said. 'If leaves on the line or a bit of snow bugger them up, they'll have no chance in all this.'

'Well then,' the Doctor said, taking Pam's hand, 'I'll give Pam a lift. It's not far to the Bay. We'll take the TARDIS.'

Cardiff Bay, 8.14 p.m.

They'd hardly seen a soul on the walk to the Millennium Centre. The downpour had clogged the streets. No traffic was moving anywhere, and near the railway station a gang of small children were rummaging in the pile of paper.

The TARDIS was in its usual spot near the water tower when the group of friends arrived at Roald Dahl Plass. The Doctor fished the key from his pocket, unlatched the door, and looked around. Pam stood beside him. His pals from Torchwood, along with Andy and Major Chapman, were smiling, but Dave and Karen looked sad. It was time for goodbyes again.

The Doctor stepped forward and held out his hand.

'Dave, it's been a pleasure. You're a genius. Shame it didn't work out, but full marks for effort. One thing's for sure, you've saved me from the nightmare of a boring day kicking around in Cardiff.'

'Thank you, Doctor.' He cheered up slightly and shook the proffered hand. 'I hope we meet again some time.'

'So do I. If we do, I'll take you to the library. You'll love it!'

He turned to Karen and smiled.

'And don't worry about not getting the big headlines this time. I knew a journalist once who couldn't report anything we got up to – they'd have locked her up in a mental hospital.' She smiled. 'Of course, if you really want a story, you can always come with me. There's plenty of room.'

'Believe me, there's never a dull moment with this guy,' Martha added.

Karen shook her head.

'It's really nice of you to offer, Doctor, but no thanks. I don't think I could take the pace.'

'No problem. It's been fun, though, hasn't it?'

'Oh fuck aye!' she beamed. 'See you around.'

She stood on tiptoe and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. Then she and Dave linked arms and walked off towards the city centre, sending a flurry of paper into the air with every step they took.

Major Chapman walked forward and shook the Doctor's hand.

'Thanks for your help. I don't know what we'd have done without you.'

'UNIT never does,' he replied with a wink. 'It's a good thing I stick around.'

Chapman snapped a salute and the Doctor groaned.

'Don't do that!'

The young officer gave him a wry smile and bade the rest of them goodbye before strolling off towards the Assembly Building.

'So here we are again,' Martha said softly.

The TARDIS door had opened slightly in the breeze, and she could see the soft glow of its interior through the gap. It brought back memories of their time together. The Doctor seemed to read her thoughts as she gazed past him.

'What do you think? One more trip for old time's sake?'

'No, mate.' She shook her head and gave him a sad smile. 'I owe Tom a night in for once.'

'Fair comment.'

He hugged her and she kissed him.

'See you soon.'

'And we'll see you soon as well,' Jack said firmly. He winked at his old friend. 'You never know when you're going to need our help, after all.'

The Doctor shook his hand, then Gwen's, Ianto's and Andy's in turn.

They stepped onto the lift platform and raised their hands in farewell. Pam watched, speechless, as they descended into the Hub, deep beneath her feet. The paving slab rose back up to fill the space, and there was no indication that anyone had ever been there.

'And then there were two!'

His voice echoed from the front of the Millennium Centre. He turned to look into her eyes. 'You could come with me.'

'No thanks, Doctor.'

'Okay.' He nodded. 'Aberdare it is.'

He led her into the TARDIS and shut the door behind them. He ran his fingers over the central console and the controls lit up instantly.

'Oh yes! All fuelled up and ready to go!'

'Can you do me a favour?' she asked.

He stopped flicking switches and moving levers, and looked up at her expectantly.

'Don't drop me off by the pub. After today, a spaceship appearing from nowhere would be the last straw. If you could take me a bit nearer home, that'd be great.'

'Yeah, no problem. Let's have a look.'

He peered at a small screen set into the console.

'Right – I've got a country park, with a couple of big lakes and a bus stop nearby – it seems nice and tucked away.'

'That's perfect! I can walk home from there.'

'Okay, let's go.'

He pressed a large button and grinned. The central column began to rise and fall, and the groaning sound Pam had heard the previous evening filled her ears. No sooner had the sound begun when it faded away again, and Pam looked worried.

'That didn't take long.'

'I know – top of the range, this is! Nought to c in 3.2 seconds.'

She turned to leave, but he ran to the door and stood with his back to it, blocking her exit.

'Final answer?'

'Doctor, I can't. I've got a life here. Anyway, it's been the trip of a lifetime already.' She kissed him. 'Thanks for everything.'

'No – thank you, Pam.' He moved aside to let her pass. 'See you around.'

'No offence, but I really, really hope not!'

She smiled, opened the door, and stepped into the night air. She turned to see him framed in the doorway, his hand raised in farewell.

'Bye, Doctor.'

'Pob hwyl, Pam,' he said softly.

The door closed and she was left in semi-darkness.

She turned away with a tear in her eye and walked to the bus stop, just a few metres away.

Immediately she realised that something was wrong. The bus shelter was made of timber, instead of the vandal-proof plastic or concrete structures she was used to in the valleys. There was a metal post with a timetable just outside the shelter, and Pam looked at it with a growing sense of alarm.

The sign at the top said COSMESTON LAKES. It was a place she'd only ever heard of, somewhere between Barry and Penarth. Without stopping to think, Pam sprinted back towards the TARDIS.

'Doctor!' she screamed. 'We're in the wrong place!'

She was a few inches from the door when the groaning sound started up again. She stood and watched helplessly as the TARDIS slowly faded from view. Presently the noise died away too, leaving her alone and miles from home.

Pam sat in the shelter for a couple of minutes, wondering how on Earth she would explain this to Vicky the following day. She shrugged, took out her phone, and dialled the number for Directory Enquiries. She'd have to take a taxi home from a place she'd never been to before. In that respect at least, Pam Griffiths had had a fairly average day.

THE END

St Donat's Arts Centre, 1.22 p.m.

Dave Probert was the centre of attention in the bar, a glass of wine in his hand and a satisfied smile on his face. Around him was a fascinated group of politicians, industrialists, businessmen and academics, all eager to buttonhole him for a couple of minutes' worth of private chat. A little clique of media people lurked near the bar, hoping for a snappy soundbite for the headlines. Karen was chatting to a couple of technicians from S4C. Everyone agreed that the professor's demonstration had been one of the most remarkable things they'd ever witnessed.

Just over three hours before, he had stepped from the podium and walked up the aisle between the rows of seats, rather like a magician seeking a volunteer for his next trick. In one sense, that was exactly what he was. There had been no shortage of willing hands in the air.

His eyes had settled on Karen Samuels, who had shown such a keen interest in his talk. He'd invited her to join him at the front, and to bring a newspaper with her. Rather timidly, she'd dug out that month's Cosmopolitan from her bag, risen from her seat and followed Dave to the front of the room.

He had shown her how to place the magazine into the feed mechanism of his invention. Intrigued, she'd watched as he keyed some commands into its control panel. A webcam positioned less than half a metre away, and transmitting to a large video screen behind the podium, had allowed the rest of the room to share Karen's viewpoint as the machine came to life.

'Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, I have nothing up my sleeve,' he'd quipped, and his audience had chuckled. 'And now, please watch closely.”

A low humming had filled the room. It had grown louder before cutting off abruptly, and everyone in the room had gasped in unison.

The magazine had vanished.

The glass plate where it had lain was empty, and Karen had automatically reached into the space, her fingers exploring the void for themselves.

'That's impossible!' she'd cried after a few moments.

'No – that's science!' Dave had replied.

He'd removed a flash drive from the device and handed it to Karen with a grin.

'There you go – this month's Cosmo, reduced to a more manageable size.'

Karen had been speechless, and Dave had turned to face his audience again.

'It's been converted into a PDF file in a few seconds, but with the superfluous text filtered out. All the advertisements, all the repetition, and all the redundancy are stripped away by intelligent software, leaving just the key information. How long would it have taken you to scan every page by hand? Now, you can read it on any computer, email it to anyone in the world, or burn it to DVD so you can store it forever. That's the beauty of this technology – there's no time-wasting, no nonsense, and most importantly, nothing to go into the recycling bag.

'Even now, down in Cardiff, my team is starting to process the entire paper records of the university's IT Department. We reckon it should take a few hours to convert everything to PDF. But of course, if we do get any teething problems, they might have to work through lunch.'

The audience had laughed again. Gradually the laughter had turned to applause. It had spread throughout the theatre until everyone was standing, cheering wildly.

Dave had stood with a modest smile on his face, one hand on his invention, as camera flashes lit up the room. The public launch of Project Précis had been nothing short of a triumph.

Karen finished her glass of wine and excused herself, heading straight into the toilets. She locked the cubicle door behind her and switched on her mobile phone. If she could ring her story through to the newsdesk, her editor could run the story of Probert's invention before the evening news broadcasts were aired. Although 24-hour TV news coverage and the internet were largely killing off local newspapers, print journalists still enjoyed the thrill of the chase for an exclusive story. Scooping the competition was a time-honoured tradition in the press, and this would be Karen's biggest story so far.

She hit the speed-dial and waited. Nothing happened, and she checked the display. There was no signal. Tucked away on this isolated part of the Welsh coast, her phone was out of range of a mast.

'Fuck it!' she hissed. 'Useless piece of shit!'/div>

She thrust the phone into her pocket, left the toilets, and walked into the foyer, looking around for a payphone.

She was making her way towards the reception desk when the door flew open and a tall slim man charged in, colliding with her in his haste. He stopped short and put his arm out to steady her before she fell against the desk.

'Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay?'

'Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. No damage done.'

Karen looked him up and down, taking in his smart suit, long coat and spiky brown hair. He looked rather like an eccentric art teacher. His eyes gleamed as they regarded each other for a moment.

The door swung open again and a uniformed policeman ran into the foyer, followed by a casually-dressed blonde woman. They stood panting at the tall man's side, but he seemed to have taken the run in his stride.

'You might be able to help us, actually. We're looking for Professor Dave Probert. Do you know where we can find him?'

'Yeah. But the press conference finished ages―'

'Doesn't matter!' There was a definite note of urgency in the policeman's voice. 'We still need to speak to him. It's really important.'

'He's just down there – you can't miss him, he's the main attraction.'

Karen pointed them towards the theatre and smiled.

'But I need to speak to him as well, and I was here before you. I'll only be a couple of minutes, I need to make a phone call first.'

'What is it with women and phones?' the tall man cried. 'You're all obsessed with them!'

He grabbed the blonde woman's hand and sprinted off down the corridor, while she struggled to keep up with him. The policeman was a few metres behind. Karen shrugged and leaned on the reception desk, wondering how far she'd have to drive to find a phone box in this part of the country.

The Port of Cardiff, 1.29 p.m.

Julie slammed the phone back into its cradle and swore loudly. Khan looked across at her, his eyebrows raised.

'Sorry,' she muttered.

'Still no joy?'

'Straight to voicemail every time,' she grumbled. 'I don't know what the hell we're going to do!'

'Plead innocence?' he suggested with a wry smile.

'This isn't funny!' she snapped. 'It's already happened all over south Wales, and it keeps spreading. At this rate, it'll hit London by tomorrow lunchtime at the latest – and then we'll be well and truly fucked!'

She got to her feet and leaned over the railings, glaring down at the source of their anger. The machine was glowing faintly orange, and its humming was threatening to overwhelm their conversation. Khan picked up the phone and hit the redial button. All they could do was to keep trying.

St Donat's Arts Centre, 1.29 p.m.

Dave was chatting with a couple of ministers from the Senedd when the doors burst open amid loud shouts. Everyone turned to stare at the three new arrivals, who stood framed in the doorway. A piercing fingers-in-mouth whistle rang out above the hubbub, and immediately the room fell silent.

'We need to see Professor Probert!' a clear voice announced.

'That's me.'

Dave walked into the middle of the room, wondering what the fuss was about. The tallest of the three strangers stepped forward and extended his hand to the bemused professor.

'Great to meet you, Professor. I'm the Doctor – can we have a word?'

'Doctor who?' Dave replied.

'Don't start all that,' the stranger groaned.

'I demand to know who you are! You've gatecrashed a private function, for one thing …'

'We just want to ask you a few questions, Professor.'

Andy had appeared at the Doctor's side, his warrant card in his hand.

'Would you mind co-operating with us, sir?'

Dave's face spoke of his reluctance.

'I'd hate to have to make this an official matter,' Andy hinted.

'Maybe if you had a look at my credentials …'

The Doctor pulled his psychic paper from his pocket and handed it to Dave.

'UNIT?' Dave looked concerned as he read the paper. 'I always thought they were a myth.'

'No, UNIT's real, and so is Torchwood. I help them out from time to time – and this is one of those times when they need my help. And we really need your help, Professor.'

Dave nodded slowly. The Doctor led him to a corner of the room and ushered him into a chair, with Andy and Pam flanking him in case he decided to make a run for it. The Doctor flipped a chair around and sat down, resting his elbows on the back, gazing into the professor's eyes.

'So, what can I do for you – Doctor?' he asked, sounding defeated.

'Tell me how your machine works,' he said in a straightforward voice.

Not on your life!' Dave started to rise to his feet, but Andy pushed him back into his chair gently. 'It's taken me twenty years to develop this technology – I'm damned if I'm going to reveal its secrets to a complete stranger.'

'The thing is, Professor, I'm afraid it's gone a bit wrong,' the Doctor said quietly.

'Impossible!' Dave leaned back, his self-assurance unruffled. 'We've been testing it for weeks without any problem. And the demonstration was perfect – flawless.'

'Okay – if you won't tell me how your invention works, will you at least show me? As one scientist to another. Nothing wrong with a bit of peer review, is there?'

Over the centuries the Doctor had found that the soft-soap approach, combined with a bit of mild hypnotic suggestion, usually worked. This was no exception.

'With pleasure.' Dave smiled. 'It's in the next room.'

He led the Doctor and his companions through the bar, exchanging pleasantries with friends as they passed, and back into the theatre. The house lights were on, and the place seemed much bigger when empty. The machine was still standing alongside the podium, and Dave led them up to it, a confident smile on his face.

'Here it is, Doctor. Has anyone got a newspaper?'

Pam handed him that day's Metro, and everyone watched as Dave fed it into the machine.

A few seconds later, even the Doctor was lost for words as the paper vanished. Dave removed an SD card from a slot at the rear and handed it to him.

'See, Doctor, it's as simple as that – completely harmless.'

'Have you ever read The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy?'

The Doctor was already on his haunches, examining the device in minute detail, and he looked up at Dave with his eyebrows raised.

'Yes, a long time ago,' he admitted.

'That was what the first edition of the guide said about planet Earth.' He stuck his sonic screwdriver into the feed mechanism and pulled a face. '"Harmless." Then they revised it to "Mostly harmless" – a bit like your gadget, really.'

Dave looked offended and drew himself up to his full height.

'I can assure you, Doctor, this "gadget", as you call it, is as safe as houses.'

'Yes, it is. I've just given it the once-over, and it's squeaky clean.'

He sprang to his feet and pocketed his screwdriver.

'But it's not this gadget I'm worried about.'

He advanced towards Dave and stooped down so that their eyes were only a few inches apart.

'Professor Probert,' he continued in a near-whisper, “where's its big brother?'

Cardiff Central Police Station, 1.32 p.m.

Ianto looked up from the laptop and smiled across at Gwen. She was still poring over the online records of every call received since the previous evening. The number of calls was increasing by the minute, and the affected area was growing in size. They'd received their first call from Llantwit Major a couple of minutes before, and their colleagues in Avon and Somerset were in constant radio contact as the effect spread across the Bristol Channel.

'It's down by the Bay!' he announced, a triumphant note in his voice.

'What is?' Gwen asked absently.

'Whatever's causing all this.'

Gwen swung round in her chair and gave him a huge smile.

'Do tell!'

'I've correlated every reported incident against our timeline, and I've come up with this.'

He turned the laptop so Gwen could see the screen.

Vincent Price and Kathy Swanson looked over his shoulders, each as baffled as the other. The display showed a satellite photograph of the city and its surrounding area, with a series of concentric circles superimposed on the image.

'What are we looking at, exactly?' Price growled.

'Here's the hospital.' Ianto pointed to a large complex north of a dual carriageway. He proceeded to point out other key features of the city as he spoke.

'Here's where we are; here's the cafe where we first noticed what was going on; here's Waterstone's―'

'The bookshop?' Kathy said in surprise.

'Yeah – they rang us earlier to say they'd had to close,' Gwen explained.'Apparently they had nothing left to sell except CDs and mugs.'

'Anyway, once I'd collated the times of the reports, I was able to plot them against the locations.' Ianto turned to face the two police officers. 'Whatever's responsible for all this is generating some sort of wave, propagating from a central source. It's like ripples on a lake, radiating out from that source. So I ran the figures through one of our programs, and I got this.'

He slid his finger over the trackpad, zooming into the centre of the innermost circle. The image resolved into a birds-eye view of a warehouse, surrounded by cranes, lorries, and shipping containers.

'I know where that is,' Kathy announced. 'It's the Associated British Ports facility.'

'We'd better get a team over there right now.'

Price was in severe danger of smiling, but he managed to control himself.

'With respect, I don't really think a team will be much good, Chief Superintendent. This is a job for the experts.'

Ianto closed the laptop and picked up his coat. Price stepped out of his way, hopelessly out of his depth and unconsciously deferring to the younger man.

'Gwen, can you radio Andy and get him to put the Doctor on? We're going to need him ASAP. I'll tell Jack to meet us by the main entrance to ABP. Better get Martha down there as well, in case anyone gets hurt. See you outside in two minutes.'

'Yeah, sure thing!'

Gwen grabbed the radio as Ianto ran from the room, closely pursued by the two officers.

St Donat's Arts Centre, 1.38 p.m.

The Doctor was leading Dave, Andy and Pam out of the building when Karen ran up to them.

'Professor! Professor! Sorry to interrupt – I was just wondering if I could have a few minutes with you.'

'This isn't really a good time, Miss Samuels,' Dave replied, one hand on the door frame.

'Please, Professor – this is a really big story. If I can get it into tonight's paper, it'll make my career!'/div>

'You want a story?' The Doctor stopped in his tracks, swung round, and walked back to the doorway. 'Come with us, I'll give you a story!'

'Who are you, then?'

The Doctor grinned.

'I'm the Doctor.' He indicated his companions. 'This is PC Andy Davidson, this is my friend Pam. And here's your headline: Extra-terrestrial helps top secret organisation save the human race from disaster for the umpteenth time.'

Karen stared at him, open-mouthed, for a moment.

'You're having a fucking laugh!'

'No, not at all! Actually, make that: Incredibly brilliant and stupendously handsome extra-terrestrial helps top secret organisation save the human race from disaster for the umpteenth time.'

'You're serious, aren't you?'

Karen might not have seen six impossible things before breakfast, but she'd seen one impossible thing before lunch. Nothing could shock her now.

'I'm completely serious. And extremely modest to boot.' He winked at her. 'You'll have the biggest story of the year. Just one thing – have you got a tape recorder?'

'Nobody uses tape recorders any more.' She laughed, and took an MP3 recorder out of her pocket. 'It's all digital these days.'

'Yes, I think that might be part of the problem.' He gave Dave a meaningful look. 'Still, hang on to it – you're going to need it where we're going!'

Andy's radio crackled into life, and he walked away to answer it. He returned a few moments later and handed it to the Doctor with a wry grin.

'It's for you.'

The Doctor held it to his ear and listened as Gwen babbled Ianto's findings to him. His expression grew more and more worried as she spoke, and he turned to Andy.

'How far's Llantwit Major?'

'Couple of miles away,' Andy replied casually. 'Why?'

“It hit there about five minutes ago.'

He gave the radio back to Andy and frowned at Karen.

'Out of interest, where's your notebook?'

'In my bag.'

'Are you sure?' He grinned. 'Fifty-fifty? Phone a friend? Ask the audience? Is that your final answer?'

Karen rummaged in her bag for her shorthand pad, but there was no sign of it.

'It was here a minute ago,' she said after a few moments.

'Oh, I dare say it was,' he winked. 'Look!'

He pointed to the noticeboard just inside the door.

As his companions turned to look at it, the posters pinned to it winked out of existence. There was no slow dematerialisation, or unnatural energy shimmer. All the paper simply disappeared before their amazed eyes. Everyone turned to look at the desk. A moment before, there'd been a display of leaflets and programmes in a plastic dispenser. Now, the counter was completely empty.

'Oh, my God,' Dave said in a low voice.

'Believe me now, Professor?' he asked, trying not to sound smug.

'Yes, I believe you. What the hell's happened?'

'It just so happens I've got a theory – I'll tell you on the way back. And you'd better sit in the front. You're navigating!'

Next Episode

Episode 6

The Port of Cardiff, 9.46 a.m.

In an anonymous office amongst the cranes and containers of Cardiff's port facilities, dozens of white-coated technicians working in shifts had been monitoring a bank of display screens for the last two weeks. In a neighbouring warehouse, over the past six months, Dave Probert's brainchild had slowly taken shape. A hand-picked group of researchers in electronics, artificial intelligence, software engineering, and mechanical engineering had assembled his creation according to his brilliant and subtle design specifications. Strict security precautions had ensured that only the prime minister, a few senior cabinet members, top-level government advisers, the military top brass, and Probert's own team knew what Project Précis was designed to achieve.

Project Précis was classified Top Secret, and had been ever since Probert had first mentioned his idea to a colleague a couple of years before. Some months later, the prototype he'd demonstrated to an invited audience in Westminster had convinced the prime minister to fund his R&D proposal.

At every stage of the construction, he had visited the site personally to inspect the progress on Project Précis. The engineering work, requiring tolerances of hundredths of a centimetre, was perfect. All the component parts been tested and double-tested. Each line of the software had been coded, debugged, checked, and refined until every possible bug had been eliminated. Only was Probert was satisfied with the result of everyone's work did he announce his press conference. His academic reputation rested on a successful launch.

From a mezzanine floor overlooking the control room, a post-doctoral researcher named Julie Jones surveyed the technicians. At her workstation, the combined results from each set of monitoring instruments were summarised into one at-a-glance printout. She had been Probert's star pupil from her earliest time at university, and he had immediately recruited her to oversee the day-to-day affairs at Warehouse 17. Julie had supervised the construction work under his watchful eye, and knew every detail of the device. For this reason, Probert had delegated her to look after the initial switch-on of the full-scale model, while he was busy schmoozing with the politicians, businessmen and media down the coast at St Donat's.

Julie felt a pang of anxiety as she examined the latest set of readings feeding back from the device next door. One of the monitors was registering some unanticipated activity. She ran the test program again and got the same result. She caught the eye of one of the senior programmers and signalled down to him. Half a minute later, Mohammed Khan appeared at her side, scanning the printout quickly.

'2011 last night?' he murmured. 'I was here then – nobody noticed anything unusual. I suppose it could have been a faint trace of a solar flare – or just a glitch in the power supply.' He shrugged and gave her a reassuring smile.

'Do you think we should tell Dave?'

'No, I wouldn't worry about it. It's the only blip in the entire fortnight. He'll be in the middle of his presentation, anyway.'

'Yeah, you're right. It can't be anything serious.'

She glanced up at the clock. It was approaching 9.50. She flicked a switch and spoke into a microphone mounted on her desk.

'Ladies and gentlemen, Project Précis will go live in just over ten minutes.' Her voice rang out across the entire office building. 'Please be sure you are at your workstations for the initialization of the device. Thank you.'

Khan winked at her and headed back towards the stairs.

The Vale of Glamorgan, 1.02 p.m.

The police patrol car barrelled along the A48, its lights and sirens scything a clear path through the queue of traffic.

The Doctor was in the passenger seat, using Pam's mobile phone to get regular news updates. It seemed that the mysterious phenomenon was self-propagating – the lunchtime headlines from BBC Wales announced that the effects had spread as far as the Valleys, and almost as far west as Cowbridge. Initial reports were also starting to starting to filter through from the outskirts of Bristol. Occasionally Andy's radio would crackle into life as Gwen relayed the latest information.

'If this carries on, we're going to lose everything,' Andy said.

'Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. I'm sure we can sort this out somehow.'

The Doctor started scrolling idly through the phone's menus.

'Pam, can this get Radio 2?' he asked casually.

Pam, holding onto the back of his seat in fear of her life, squeaked a reply.

'Brilliant – I love Ken Bruce's show! I'll have to get one of these,' he enthused.

A brown signpost at the next junction pointed the way to St Donat's. Andy hurled the car off the dual carriageway and onto a smaller country road. An approaching tractor had to swerve into a hedge to let them shoot past.

'Not far to go now,' he remarked, and Pam breathed a sigh of relief.

'Thank God for that – just let me know when it's safe to open my eyes.'

St Donat's Arts Centre, 9.46 a.m.

'Another dream we were sold in the 1970s was that of the "paperless office",' Probert told his audience. 'Every couple of months Tomorrow's World used to promise us a future in which paper would be a thing of the past. And yet look at the amount of paper we generate these days. Yes, we have "paperless gas bills" and "paperless banking", but in reality the paperless office is just a myth. There's always got to be some sort of hard copy backup somewhere in the system.'

He called up a new slide. This one showed a curve rising slowly at first, but increasing sharply in gradient as it departed from the origin.

'This is an approximate representation of the information content of human society over time, which I've adapted from Georges Anderla's work in the 1970s.'

He indicated the origin of the graph, and Karen grinned. She'd come across Anderla's model of information some years before. She was also aware that almost everyone else in the room was floundering by this point.

'Here, we have the start of the Common Era,' he said. 'In Anderla's model, the sum total of human knowledge can be summarised as one unit of pure information, in the mathematical sense. According to Anderla's hypothesis, two thousand years ago it would have been possible for one single person to know everything that there was to be known. And it took all of fifteen hundred years until the quantity of information doubled.'

He followed the gradually rising curve with his pointer, until he hit a vertical line.

'When that happened, it was the time of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and the Renaissance. It was a major breakthrough, at least in Europe. Human society took a leap forward as the total amount of information doubled. Each increase in information lays the groundwork for the next increase. It's a slow process at first. But as time moves on, the development accelerates.'

He traced the graph with his laser pointer. Karen overheard a couple of sharp-suited media types behind her, wondering what the old man on the podium was talking about.

'It only took about 250 years until the next doubling occurred – and Humankind entered the next step of its intellectual evolution. That was the start of the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, the birth of the scientific method, steam power, the mass-production of consumer goods, and the beginning of the modern era.'

He picked out the next step of the graph, and Karen nodded. Most of the people around her were completely lost. Undeterred, he continued tracing the graph with his pointer.

'We hit eight units of information here – around the year 1900. There were major revolutions in music, art, and literature, the birth of radio, the dawn of the atomic age, the foundations of psychology, and the beginnings of modern medicine. Not even the most polymathic of people could have become au fait with all the developments of human knowledge by this stage.'

He continued to trace the curve upwards and looked out at his largely unappreciative audience.

'And this is the problem we face today. The information content of our society increases exponentially over time. There are more journals and more papers published in more and more specialised fields every week of the year. It's impossible for any researcher to keep abreast of all the developments in even a very narrow academic niche. And every new piece of information needs to be published, catalogued, indexed, cross-referenced, peer-reviewed, cited, and archived for posterity. It's the foundation for the next stage in our evolution as a species, after all.'

Cardiff Bay, 1.17 p.m.

Captain Jack Harkness had made his way back to the Hub and was sitting at his computer screen, trying to analyse the time-line which Gwen and Ianto had emailed to him. After dropping Martha off he had headed straight back to the Bay, figuring that some part of his vast collection of alien technology would prove useful. However, after running every program he could think of, and even after skimming the Torchwood archives back as far as 1879, Jack was still none the wiser. He cast a wistful glance towards Toshiko's absent workstation.

'I could do with your help, Tosh,' he murmured. 'This has got me beat!'

The only reply was a mocking silence.

Jack took another gulp of his coffee and leaned back in his chair. It was up to the Doctor now.

St Donat's Arts Centre, 9.51 a.m.

Dave Probert called up the next slide. Karen recognised this diagram as well – it was the mapping of an iterated periodic function known as a Feigenbaum graph. He pointed out the blurred section at the right-hand side.

'Georges Anderla missed one vital point. He never had to take the effect of the Internet into account. Now we have all manner of charlatans making spurious claims, which are presented as fact. We can't separate the wheat from the chaff. If we do the mathematics, we eventually reach a point where information doubles and doubles and doubles – until the graph becomes chaotic. According to some researchers, we will hit this transition point soon – very very soon, in fact.'

The next slide flicked up onto the screen. It was a satellite picture of Hurricane Katrina, on course to skirt New Orleans entirely, according to the US Weather Bureau.

'The problem with chaotic systems is that we try and use them to make sense of our lives, because we don't understand the true nature of non-linearity. I'm sure we all remember Michael Fish's famous forecast of 1987, when he told us that there wasn't a hurricane on its way. The fact is that the weather forecast can never be accurate, because there are too many variables in the ecosystem for us to make predictions. The best we can hope for is an educated guess based on past experience – or a sound-bite that comes back to haunt the Met Office every time they get it wrong.'

His audience chuckled. He pressed another key on his laptop and the slide changed. It was the Mandelbrot Set, the iconic and instantly recognisable representation of Chaotic Dynamics.

'In the same way, the vast increase of information in the collective human consciousness makes it impossible to assimilate everything we read and hear and see. As a society, we're heading for a collective nervous breakdown. We have to address the problem of unmediated information increase now – or risk the imminent collapse of our civilisation altogether.'

University Hospital of Wales, 12.53 p.m.

Martha was addressing a hastily convened emergency conference. Ranged around the table were the top consultants, clinicians, nurse managers, IT experts, administrative chiefs, and Staff Nurse Maria Bowen. Martha had insisted that her old friend should be allowed to sit in on the meeting.

Her extensive experience working with UNIT and Torchwood – not to mention her time spent travelling with the Doctor – had prepared her for pretty much any eventuality, but none of the people around her had ever experienced anything like this. In spite of frequent Major Incident exercises, nothing had prepared the emergency services for the present crisis. Until she'd walked into reception and presented her credentials to a bemused security guard, nobody had had the first idea what to do.

Professor Alan Marsh, one of the most experienced cardiothoracic consultants in Wales, was pressing her for more information as she outlined the situation.

'We saw the wave at first hand, Professor,' she replied. 'We were in the Bay when the effect occurred. It must have spread out from its original source and reached this point soon afterwards. We were just wondering ourselves what was going on when Maria rang me.'

'By "we", I presume you mean Torchwood?' a hard-faced woman at the end of the table demanded.

Maria knew her by sight. Helen Williams was a senior administrator, and was feared throughout the entire NHS Trust for her fierce temper and humourless approach to people.

'Yes, ma'am.' Martha gave her a sweet smile.

For a supposedly Top Secret organisation, Torchwood's activities had made them notorious throughout South Wales. Most high-level people in local government or the public services lived in fear of the day when the black SUV with the tinted windows appeared in their car park.

'But so far you have no idea what's caused this mysterious event, or what we do to stop it?' the same woman added.

'We're working on it, ma'am,' Martha replied. 'My colleagues are doing everything that they can to identify the source and – hopefully – put a stop to whatever's going on.'

'Staff Nurse Bowen,' Helen Williams said in a cold voice, turning to face Martha's old friend. 'I believe you initially decided to involve Torchwood in this.'

'No, ma'am,' she said honestly. 'I just decided to phone Martha – Dr Jones. It was a personal call. We were at the Royal Hope together when ... Well, I'm sure you all remember what happened.'

A low murmur went round the table.

'I thought Martha might have some idea what was going on.'

Helen Williams opened her mouth, but Professor Marsh spoke first.

'Well, it's a good thing you did, Nurse Bowen. I'd rather have Torchwood on our side than working against us.'

Nobody else spoke – Marsh was the most senior person at the meeting, and the others would have to accept his decision. He turned to face Martha again and gave her an encouraging smile.

'So, Dr Jones, what do you need to know?'

St Donat's Arts Centre, 9.55 a.m.

Dave Probert flourished a sheaf of paper, and Karen's ears pricked up.

'Some years ago, I gave this paper on the future of information storage, at a conference in the United States. I stood on a stage like this and addressed the leading minds in the field. I experienced the same reaction then as I'm experiencing now from most of you. Most people's eyes glazed over within the first ten minutes. My work was laughed out of court. I was denounced as a fraud and a dreamer, by the sort of small-minded people who thought that we'd still be using big reels of magnetic tape to programme their computers in the year 2009.'

He was approaching the climax of his presentation, and the excitement in his voice was palpable.

'I've been involved with what we now term "information technology" since its infancy,' he smiled. 'I've also been a fan of science fiction since I was a teenager. People like me have never been afraid to look at what the experts say is possible, and fly in the face of received wisdom. If this is science-fiction, then I'll go and work for Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.'

He rode the wave of laughter, walked off the stage, and wheeled a bulky device about the size of a photocopier back to the podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to present the future of data storage.” He glanced up the clock. It was nearly 10.00. In just a few minutes his demonstration would begin in earnest.

For no reason that she would ever be able to explain, Karen shivered.

Next episode