The Door In Time Two men and two women separated by millennia of human history, brought together by a man from out of time.
Kai: A Time Lord, a man who escaped a war no-one escaped.
Nimue: A druid priestess gifted with second sight and the power to move with her thoughts.
Lieutenant Daniel Carter: An American flyer stationed in Britain during the Second World War.
Effie Scott: After sixty years, two children and the death of her husband, she thought she had lived a full life already.
Gabriel Anderson: The only survivor of Hypatia, a hub of intergalactic travel in the fiftieth century.
--
Episode Twelve: The Storm Of Never Kai: Time itself is coming apart. We can trace the faults back to a single source.
The Shadow Proclamation foyer, filled with hundreds of angry aliens.
Tarokka: You who bade us put down our weapons and let the Vas Murb live!
Effie: ... Yes?
Tarokka: They have vanished!
Amelia: Amelia Earhart. Any idea what we're doing here?
Kai: A dead zone in space. Hostile waters... And we need to see what's in there.
The Door bursting open on a perfect black circle in space.
Gabriel: Where
are we?
Kai: A planet that shouldn't exist. In the eye of the storm.
Gabriel: There's no way this is natural.
Kai: No. This whole thing was built. This is the control platform for that. And that was built to destroy... everything.
The Storm Of Never
by Craig Oxbrow --
Kai: Well. Here we are then. Uh... if anyone wants to stay inside, just say so.
Effie: We're no safer in here, are we?
Kai: Well... no.
Effie puts her scarf on.
Nimue: We are not here.
She shrugs on a coat and follows.
Gabriel steps out, pulling his collar up.
Dan and Amelia huddle a little closer together.
They look up at the black circle in the sky above them, then look away.
Kai checks his watch.
Kai: Ah. Yes. We need to go this way.
Gabriel: Why?
Kai: There's a structure up in those peaks.
Effie looks back at the Door. It shifts between different recent forms, unable - or unwilling - to blend in here.
--
The group stop as they hear lasers firing ahead of them.
Kai: That way.
Dan: Sounds like a fight.
He pulls his pistol.
Effie: A
big fight.
He keeps it in hand as they advance towards the hill, and look down.
Above them, a series of rickety metal spires has been attached to a jagged cliff face.
Beneath them, we see dozens - hundreds - of beings fighting each other.
Effie: What is this?
Kai: The final battle.
She looks at him questioningly.
Kai: Every power that could survive being pulled here. Every power that could make it here by choice. All trying to get to that tower. To get away. Just to survive. Or to control the black light.
Amelia pulls out a pair of field glasses.
Amelia: I'm seeing... I don't know what I'm seeing.
Kai reaches over to borrow them.
Kai: Cybermen. Sontarans.
Different Sontarans. Andrat. Rutans. Axos. Some sort of... something I don't recognise. Oh, there's the Vas Murb. (grimaces) And Daleks. Of course.
Everyone looks down.
Kai: We need a plan, or a distraction...
Effie: A Door?
Kai: Can't risk it. We might never land again.
Dan: Well... how about a spaceship?
Kai: Eh?
Five different kinds of space fighter roar overhead, blasting at each other.
Dan: Hey, it's the guys that shot at me!
Gabriel: Complain later! Run now!
They run full tilt around the edge of the battlefield, towards the tower.
Some of the fighters see them and fire at them. Others see them and move to defend them.
Cybermen in white metal armour with glowing blue eyes advance towards them. A Vas Murb squad dash over to join them, laying down suppressing fire against
a group of Sontarans in red armour.
Vas Murb: You! Time travellers! Can you end this?
Kai: If you can get us up there!
The commander taps on her communicator, and one of the ships above peels off from the air battle to start cutting a path through the ground.
Vas Murb: Move!
The travellers run, the Vas Murb covering them
Cyberman: Delete! Delete! Del
awwwrk! Sontaran: Sontar-HA! Sonta-AAAGH!
Dalek:
EXTERMINATE! Effie: At least somebody's enjoying himself...
A black Dalek with two massive blasters in its central casing trundles through below them, scanning for life with green light shining out from its eyestalk.
Running, the travellers reach an access shaft.
Kai: Up here!
The Vas Murb take up defensive positions.
Vas Murb: Go!
Kai nods and lead the way up the ladder, followed by Nimue and Gabriel. Effie hesitates, looking the commander in the eye.
Vas Murb: End this nightmare.
Effie nods slightly and steps back, grasping a rung of the ladder as the alien soldiers move out, covering the entrances to the shaft. They start firing to cover their retreat.
Amelia pulls Dan back towards the ladder as he levels his pistol at the entrance.
Below them, beams fly through the air in both directions.
Dalek:
EXTERMINATE! A few more shots, screams, and then silence.
--
Kai reaches the top of the ladder, helps Nimue back up, and then pauses, looking around.
Kai: What...?
The tower is lashed together from a dozen different kinds of technology, but the brass marked with ornate circles and hexagons looks very familiar.
Gabriel helps Effie up, then Amelia.
Effie: What is it?
Kai: I... know this place. No. I don't know. It can't be. But I've seen it...
Effie: It's real. It's here.
We're here.
Kai: I know, yes, but... Cora...
He shakes his head.
Effie reaches out to him - and finds herself reaching for her coat to throw over her summer dress, in 1968.
Young Effie: What -
--
Nimue sees herself from outside, in a stone circle, praying at an altar. An older, bearded man in robes stands over her.
Druid: We beseech you, spirit, grant this child the gift of second sight!
She flies through the air towards herself, and into her own head...
--
Effie: That scanner... it said there were two of you...
Nimue turns and looks at her. And her head moves slightly faster than a swirling blue light that almost looks like her head.
--
Gabriel sees the blackened hall turn into the well-lit corridors of Hypatia, then change again.
Gabriel: No!
--
Dan and Amelia hold hands, and see fleeting glimpses of planes and sky, but they never quite fill their vision.
Kai: Where did you go?
Effie: I... Did I vanish? I was young... it was that day again... What about you?
Kai: The... raid I lead against a Dalek laboratory... when all my team... Sorry. I'm feeling less and less confident about this as I go on.
Effie: You were confident?
They share a wan smile.
Kai: Come on. We should keep moving. The source is this way...
He pushes a tarnished metal double door open, and the travellers look in at the central floor of a three-storey room.
Built around a rotating sphere of absolute darkness. A halo of light ripples around it, ever changing.
Kai: A microcosm of the circle.
He looks around at the banks of machinery surrounding it on every level, with images of the sphere and the corona on every screen.
In one corner, the wreckage of a Dalek vehicle.
Kai: Some sort of... reality sense. So whoever built all this can analyse its effects on time. So they can know what this thing is doing to the universe. And... affect it?
Effie: Someone's trying to adjust reality?
Stranger: That's right.
The cloaked figure of the stranger looks down on them from on high, then pulls back his hood.
Kai looks up and his eyes widen.
Kai: It's me.
--
Another Kai, with shorter hair, dropping his cloak now, wearing a black three-quarter coat over a British Racing Green shirt, black trousers and hiking boots.
He runs down a creaking spiral staircase to meet them.
The other travellers look from one Kai to the other.
Gabriel: I take it you don't remember doing this?
Kai shakes his head, looking at his other self.
Kai: How are... we here?
Kai2: When I escaped from the Dalek laboratory, I found the TARDIS gone.
He points to the battered Dalek machine.
Kai2: I stole that from the base, and tracked the source of the storm here.
Kai: Yes, but -
Effie: Let him explain, Kai.
Both of Kai look at her.
Effie: You know what I mean.
They nod slightly.
Kai: The black circle?
Kai2: A weapon. A final weapon.
Kai: Whose? Ours or theirs?
Kai2: (shrugs) Does it matter?
Kai grimaces.
Effie: What does it do?
Kai2: Draws in everything. Even time.
Gabriel: Then why are things coming out?
Kai2: My fault, I'm afraid. It’s all I can do to keep it in stasis. Things slip out. The field is collapsing...
Kai: The centre cannot hold.
Effie glances up at it.
Effie: So... why were you trying to set me up with another man when I was eighteen?
Kai2: Oh. That. Yes. Sorry. I had to see how far the interconnections with... (glances at Kai) went.
Effie: You temporarily destroyed my whole planet.
Kai2: Yes. But...
He shrugs.
Gabriel: Still, why were you getting involved in her affairs?
Effie: What do you mean, my
affairs? Gabriel: Ah, well, I meant, what I said -
The blast doors behind them clang with heavy impacts.
Kai2: If we could get on...
Nimue: We need a
plan.
She looks from one Kai to the other.
Nimue: One that will
work.
Kai: Everything that should be out is out, everything that should be in is in, and then destroy this... thing forever.
His other self nods slightly.
Kai2: That will take power. More power than a broken Dalek time capsule.
Kai nods, and raises his cane.
Kai2: Why
do you have a cane?
Kai: I had to attach the sonic to
something.
Kai2: ... I used a
key.
He brings out a thin key with a yellow light at the end.
Kai: ... Oh.
His other self shrugs.
Kai: Uh, anyway...
The Door materialises, a gleaming, clean brass door marked with Gallifreyan symbols.
Then the skylight above them shatters inwards, and a dozen pallid creatures start to climb in.
Effie: What are they?
One of the creatures grabs a power cable and wrenches it free to swing down on it.
Dan: Look like gremlins to me!
Behind them, a group of humanoids with midnight blue skin and half-face helmets chase the creatures down, firing wildly at the floor below.
Kai2: Get into cover!
Kai starts to run for the Door.
Kai2: Hook the console up the control panel! We have to calibrate the circle!
He bolts towards one of the computer banks, dodging laser bolts as he goes.
Kai flinches as he watches this, as he spools the cable out from the Door to the control panel.
Kai: (quietly) Hm. I rather like me in this form.
Dan fires above the gremlins' heads and they skitter away, shrieking, pursued by the blue aliens.
The other Kai brings down a second blast door, separating the lab from the rest of the tower.
--
The supports attaching the tower to the cliff creak. Dust starts to fall from around the bolts holding the struts together.
--
Kai2: That should keep them out for now... Everyone! I need you around the sphere! You can anchor it to the original reality!
He gestures for Kai to take the position opposite him at the controls of a console.
Kai: Will they survive this?
His opposite number half smiles grimly.
Kai2: They're more likely to than we are.
Kai nods.
Effie: What does
that mean?
Kai: The Daleks were right. Neither of us belong in this reality any more.
Effie: But -
Kai2:
NOW! He throws a switch. The black circle above turns red, swirling clouds over burnished grassland.
Kai: Gallifrey...
He turns to his other self.
Kai: What are you
doing?!Kai2: What I have to.
Kai leaps at him - and as he lands, the platform gives way.
The travellers tumble into absolute darkness.
To Be Concluded
Roll credits! --
Next Time... Nimue screaming as blue light blazes out of her eyes.
Hypatia station shattering, reforming, shattering again.
Dan and Amelia running through a storm of laser bolts.
Kai facing off against Kai.
Effie shielding her eyes from a harsh fiery light.
--
The Door In Time Unlocked Here we go.
Yes, I came up with the armies of alien invaders fighting each other before I knew about The Pandorica Opens. Really! (I'll happily admit that my first three episodes had anachronistic clockwork people, killer animated statues and disembodied shadows reaching out for people in an abandoned futuristic facility, but hey. Nothing with gas masks!)
The revelation that the Stranger was another Kai was something I'd mentioned to his player as a possibility, as we discussed possible reasons for him to exist in a universe where Time Lords no longer belong, and the fact that he died a hundred deaths in a time loop created by the Daleks and escaped from there into normal time.
Effie's player noted on hearing this that the Stranger's exchange with her in The Girl That Time Forgot ("No, I was going to fix that next.")
did sound a lot like Kai now that she thought about it...
Extra geek point: The alternate versions of the classic Whoniverse monster armies have all appeared here or there. The white and blue Cybermen are from the Doctor Who magazine comic "
The Flood" (which was nearly the Eighth Doctor's regeneration story),
Dalek Storm is a fan creation based on designs for the never-filmed special "
The Dark Dimension", and the Sontarans in red are from "
Shakedown: Return of The Sontarans", a licensed film spinoff.