Archive of Our Own

“We’ve landed. I’m going out. You coming?”

Will looked up from his computer. David stood in the doorway of the tech lab, his arms folded over his chest and his expression as flat and emotionless as his tone had been. Will could glean nothing from his stare, so he asked the obvious, as he had the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. “Where are we?”

“Cruise ship.”

Will nodded. “Right. Another safe, vanilla, and ultimately boring destination.” After a deliberate blink, he sighed. “Aren’t you sick of this yet? It’s been four full weeks. When is it going to end, mate?”

“That,” David said, spitting the word at him, “is entirely up to you.”

“Ah, so all you’ll accept is complete capitulation. I can either say that I was wrong and you were right, or ask to be taken home.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“No!” Will cried, pounding the desk. “That’s not what I want. You know what I want? I want you to think about what I said. Seriously. I want you to think about the advice that I gave you, not the insult you think it was. I want to talk it over with you. And I want my friend back.”

David’s laugh was harsh and cold. “You want your friend back? I wasn’t the one who crossed that line. I wasn’t the one who presumed to –” He inhaled sharply and his eyes flashed gold for a brief moment. He composed himself, and when he spoke again, his tone had flattened. “No. I will ask again. Are you coming?”

Choking back a sarcastic response, Will rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Sure, why not? Let me go put on something decent.” He dragged himself from his chair and headed for his room, pushing past David, who did not bother to move aside.

They stepped out into a relatively narrow carpeted corridor, only wide enough for two people to walk comfortably abreast. It stretched straight ahead with four doors along each metallic wall, spaced perhaps six metres apart. At the far end, another door, larger and heavier than the others with a dogwheel in the centre, stood closed. As David secured the TARDIS’s door, Will noticed that the craft had disguised itself as the end of the corridor itself, filling the entire space like a normal wall with a locked utility closet. He opened his mouth to remark on this clever bit of camouflage, but thought better of trying to engage David over a triviality.

“A cruise ship, eh, mate?” he said instead as he gazed at the plain, utilitarian walls. Next to each of the smaller doors, a black glass panel with a small bank of square buttons adorned the wall, and the lack of doorknobs hinted that the doors slid open. “Space cruiser,” he stated.

“Aye. One-month pleasure cruise through the Crab Nebula, sailing through the remains of an exploded star.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“No more so than a high-end cruise through the Caribbean. Well, if you’re living on Jerrhinus Major, which is right next door. From Earth, it’d be prohibitive.”

“Makes sense.” He turned to David. “So what are we doing here?”

“Whatever you want. It’s a cruise ship.”

“So, buffet, take in a show, swimming pool, shuffleboard?”

“Aye.”

Will waited a moment for David to either elaborate or lead him off to something interesting, but when the man just stood there, expressionless and staring, he threw his hands up and strode off. “All right,” he groaned, “let’s see what this place has to offer.”

The doors along the corridor, each sporting a designation placard above the combination doorbell/comm panel beside it, obviously opened into passenger suites. Each panel listed the species and number of the occupants, though in this section, all were human; Will surmised that different species were housed in different areas to ease accommodation. At the bulkhead door ahead, David pushed ahead of Will and pressed a large button on the wall. The wheel spun and disengaged, and the door swung open automatically.

“The circuit is only engaged if the ship is operating normally, so any problem and the doors become manual.” David patted the door as he stepped through.

“Nice to see the safety precautions,” said Will.

“Aye. They’ve had centuries of disaster to perfect this.”

The next section was a repeat of the previous one. The third, however, had three rooms before an intersection, then another three rooms after that, then the far bulkhead. However, Will only barely noticed the difference as his gaze was drawn to the arm on the ground, protruding out of the first open door they found on this ship, the last one on the right before the cross hall. Blood coated the fingers and streaked up the sleeve.

David and Will dashed up, but stopped dead, jaws dropping open as they surveyed the room. The woman at the door had been stabbed multiple times, probably with the large bloody mirror shard lying by the lacerated hand of the woman crumpled a few feet in. The second woman had been clawed repeatedly but had also suffered a smash to the head, most likely from the chair that lay nearby. David dropped to his knees to check both for signs of life whilst Will spun away, trying to keep his breakfast down.

“Both gone,” David said. “How did this –?” Jumping up, he strode to the interior comm panel and punched a button. “Security?” he called. “Hello? Security and medical to room, er, room twelve-four-omicron-trapezoid-eight. There’s been a fight. Don’t know what happened, but we need help.” He waited a moment, then barked into the speaker, “Hello?”

Will turned back around, keeping his gaze high above the grisly tableau. “No answer?” he asked as he looked around the suite’s sitting room. Opposite the entry door, two sofas faced a giant screen that he surmised streamed any media the guests might want. He glimpsed through doors in the left and right walls two bedrooms and the en suite. The violence had been limited to the entrance area; the shards of the mirrored doors of the entry storage closet lay scattered under the overturned chairs from the nearby dining table.

“Nope. No acknowledgement at all.” He pointed at the display. “Right channel, says ‘Security’ right here.” He tapped the button again. “Hello, security?”

“Try medical? Or the bridge?” He stepped around the bodies and crossed the room to check the rest of the suite.

David tried his suggestions, then threw his hands up. “No answer from anyone,” he called.

“Maybe it’s broken. Rest of the place is a mess, too, though no blood. It only got deadly right here,” Will said as he returned. He hopped across the hall and pressed buttons on the opposing room’s outer panel until the display read “Security” and spoke into it. “Hello, security? Is anyone there?” After a few more tries, he shook his head. “Nope, no answer here either.”

David had taken that time to pull the first body into the room and stepped out, letting the door slide closed behind him. “Nothing I can do for them, but we’ve got to notify the authorities.” He pulled up a map on Will’s comm panel. “There. That’s the nearest security station, just two sections ahead, and that is a concierge, a bit further on. One of those.”

“Right. Come on, mate.”

They ran down the hallway, stopping only to wait for the automatic doors to open, and dashed to the desk fronting the security station, only to find it unmanned. David pounded on the desk, yelling, “Hello? Security? We need help here!” but his cries met silence.

Will skirted the desk to knock on the inner door. “Hey, anyone in there?” He waited only a moment before tapping the access panel, though he expected it to be locked. To his surprise, the door slid open. “Strange,” he murmured, then choked and stumbled backwards.

“Will?” David was behind him in a moment to steady him, then nearly fell back himself at his first glance at the scene inside. Three men in security uniforms lay sprawled across the office, two of them with caved-in skulls most likely inflicted by the batons lying nearby and the third with a throat slit by the utility knife still in his hand. He pushed Will back toward the desk but stood there himself, goggling. “What in the world is going on here?”

“They were fighting, right?” Will asked as he retreated back to the corridor and leant on the wall, forehead against the cool metal.

“What?”

“I couldn’t look. I tried to look again but I couldn’t. They were fighting, like the two women, right? Not some serial killer making the rounds.”

“Aye, looks like it. Let me think.” David made no move to enter the room but observed as much as he could from the door. After a half minute, he tapped the panel and the door slid shut. “But why?” he said as he joined Will. “One fatal argument’s rare enough, but two within fifty metres?”

“Think something’s causing it?”

“Must be. People don’t just start killing each other like this. But I don’t know what it could be.”

“Some space bug?”

“Maybe. Lots of diseases out there that can affect behaviour, make people irrational and violent. Don’t know of any this bad, though.” David glanced back at the door with a puzzled frown. “Can’t be space fever.”

“What’s that?”

“Psychological condition that the first interstellar explorers encountered. You know, going spare after staring into infinity for years. Thing is, it really does take years to manifest, but this cruise is only a month, and the symptoms are different in each person. This is too consistent.” He jabbed a finger toward the security office. “That is not space fever.”

“So, a disease you haven’t heard of?”

“Seems likely. There are a billion out there and I’m not a doctor or a xenobiologist. But that means –”

“– that I’m likely infected,” Will finished for him.

“Aye. Well, it could be in the food, but we should assume airborne. You’ll be fine, though. The TARDIS biofilters will get it. I’m probably infected, too, but my regenerative healing should be able to counter it. All right.” David glanced up the corridor. “I need to get to the bridge. They need to know about this.”

Will didn’t want to believe it, but it needed to be said. “I’m pretty sure it’s all over the ship already.”

David’s shoulders sagged as if under the weight of the world. “I know. It’s why no one answered our calls. Well, if it’s already spread there, I need to stop this ship before it makes port, keep it quarantined forever. Maybe fly it into a sun.” He strode back to the desk and pulled up a map on its terminal.

“Hop there in the TARDIS?” asked Will, pointing back the way they came.

“Nah.” He pointed at a spot on the screen. “That’s not too far, up a few levels, and I need to gauge how far it’s spread, not to mention definitively establish what’s actually happening. And I’m hoping I can find at least a few survivors. You go on back.”

Will frowned in disbelief. “No!”

David jerked his head back toward his capsule. “You go on. I won’t be long, an hour at most.”

“No way, mate. I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not,” David stated matter-of-factly. “We’ve got to get this thing out of you.”

“No, we don’t. I’ve got plenty of time.”

David snorted. “How do you figure that?”

“This ship’s been sailing for what, a fortnight?”

“A little under, yes.”

Will pointed back down the corridor. “The blood on the two women was fresh, and they hadn’t started to smell yet. I’ve got at least ten days before I go crazy.”

David stared at him with a sceptical frown. “You don’t know that.”

“Mate, even if I’ve only got two days, that’s plenty of time, and I might be able to help.”

“I don’t need the help, but I do need to know that you’re safe.”

Will threw his hands up. “Why are you arguing? We need to hop to it, but here you are, arguing over nothing. You always have to argue when I make a suggestion. I hate that about you.”

David frowned at him. “I wasn’t arguing. We were working out what’s to be done and there’s no need for you to risk– no! You know what? Fine!” His eyes rolling in exasperation, David spun and strode down the corridor toward the concierge station, which led out to the nearest public areas of the ship. “Let’s go. Get this taken care of as quickly as possible.” Fuming, Will followed him three steps behind.

Evidence of the problem appeared more frequently as they left the passenger compartments. The next pair of bodies lay in the middle of a corridor, their fight entirely public, and Will wondered out loud how many they’d missed, hidden behind the closed doors of the suites. When they emerged from the corridor onto Recreation Deck 12-⬨-45T, they stopped dead, shocked by the sheer number of bodies littering the common area between the swimming complex, the exercise gym, the skating rink, and the racquetball courts. Thick silence blanketed the vast room. Will couldn’t take it anymore; spinning on his heel, he dove to the floor and left his breakfast there.

Clasping both hands to his head, David tore at his hair, mumbling under his breath. “This is horrible. I didn’t even think. I mean, I knew it was likely everyone, but I didn’t realize what it really meant, what it would look like. What am I supposed to do? What can I do?” He dragged his hands down his face then, growling low in his throat, dropped down next to the one person he could still help. “Are you all right? You should go back to the TARDIS, Will. I’ll take care of this. You go on.”

Will coughed and choked, then mopped at his mouth with the back of his hand and took a deep, calming breath. “No, no, I’m okay, I’m fine. I can handle it. I know I’m just a stupid human to you, but I’m not a baby. You don’t have to coddle me. Let’s go.” He pushed off the wall to stand up and turned back to survey the room. David remained kneeling a moment more watching him with a concerned frown, then jumped to his feet.

“No. Wait here a moment, Will. Let me go around and check everyone. I don’t want to walk on if there’s a remote chance there’s someone we can save. And maybe we’ll figure out what really happened here.”

“This was just a huge melee, wasn’t it? Everyone fighting everyone else.”

“No, I don’t think so, not quite. I mean, look at that woman there by that table. All these other people, you can see evidence that they were fighting each other, multiple wounds, ripped clothing, blood on their hands, improvised weapons. But that woman, other than the hit to the face that did her in, she’s got none of that. She might have been taken by surprise, but –”

“-- but whatever is happening, she wasn’t affected by it yet, at least not enough to start swinging herself.” Will scanned the room quickly and pointed. “That one, too, whatever that is.”

“That’s a Midroth, from Parseniut Prime. There’s a large colony of them on Jerrhinus Major.”

“Then this thing infects aliens, too.”

“Oh yes. I’m not immune to it. I just have something extra fighting against it. At least I hope so.” He clapped Will on the shoulder. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

As David moved from person to person checking for survivors, Will watched him doggedly, trying to inure himself to the violence, as he knew full well that this wouldn’t be the last nor the worst they would encounter. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he turned to scan the exercise gym, which, unlike the other walled recreation areas, was fronted with glass and hadn’t been as crowded as the main deck. Its mirrored walls made the area appear much larger than it actually was, reflecting the mats, weights, and machines as well as the corpses strewn about. Some of the equipment lay overturned and one of the mirrors had been smashed by a free weight. When David began his work in there, Will turned away, quite sick of the entire scene.

“Not a one,” David said as he returned, the words sounding more like a sob than a phrase. “All dead. All violently dead. All freshly dead. Not a single survivor.”

“Yeah, thought so.”

“Though, I noticed another thing strange, in the gym.”

Will glanced back toward the machines, mats, and mirrors. “What’s that?”

“A number of them took their own lives, like that one at the security station. And another few in the locker rooms,” he added as he pointed in the general direction of the pool and the racquetball courts. “There were a couple in the centre area as well, but percentage-wise, they were rather rare there. It’s strange enough that some of them turned their violence inward, but the differences here are statistically significant and I’m wondering if –”

“David!” Will shouted over him. “Mate, we don’t have time! I’m on a clock here and don’t appreciate your self-indulgence.”

David thumbed over his shoulder, back toward the security room. “I thought you said you had plenty of time.”

“Arguing with me again? Just shut up and come on. We’ve got to secure the bridge.” Will stomped away across the deck, taking special care not to step on anything, with David in tow.

They encountered many similar scenes but continued their hike across and up the enormous space cruise ship, stopping only when one of them saw something that hinted that someone was still alive, though each instance turned up no good news.

“And that’s another thing,” remarked David as they passed a double door with a sign that proclaimed it to be “The Captain’s Ballroom”, informing them that they were nearing their destination. “Shouldn’t there be at least one survivor? One person left standing, the final victor? How does everyone kill each other? Or are there survivors hiding somewhere?”

Will stopped and screamed, “Oh, bloody hell, David! Do you ever shut up? I am sick of hearing your whinging, prattling on about whatever comes into your head. Just cos you’re a Time Lord, you think all your thoughts are buffed in gold, shining words of wisdom for us stupid apes. Let me tell you, no one wants to hear it, certainly not me, haven’t ever, not since that first day I made the mistake of knocking on your door!”

“And there it is!” David exclaimed, his voice ringing triumphantly down the corridor. “I knew something was wrong with you, and it just boiled over.”

“There is nothing wrong with me. I only just realised, finally, how annoying you are.”

“And it can’t be an infection. Nothing can multiply fast enough in a half hour to produce this much of an effect.” With sudden realisation flashing in his eyes, he thrust a hand down the neck of his shirt and pulled out his neural inhibitor pendant. As he removed the chain from his neck, he gazed around with unfocused eyes, then exhaled heavily. “I am so stupid! It’s a psychic influence. I can feel it now. That’s how it affected everyone and why it’s working so quickly on you.”

“I said, there’s nothing wrong with me.” Will scowled at him. “You know, I hate you. I really hate you.”

David held out the inhibitor. “Will, put this on. It’ll stop what’s happening to you.”

“There is nothing happening to me!”

“All right.” David advanced, hands up to keep him calm, and the inhibitor in his palm flashed under the lights.

Will backed away, feeling behind him for the wall. “Stay away from me,” he shrieked and turned to run. “Bloody alien, stay away from me!”

David leapt and tackled him, using his superior strength and the martial training he’d received from his sister to keep him pinned to the floor and immobile whilst clamping the inhibitor to his clavicle.

“Get offa me! Get off!” Will screamed, fighting to free himself, but then he stilled.

“Will?” David murmured in his ear when he’d been quiet for a few seconds.

“Oh my lord.” Will took a few deep breaths. “I’m, I’m all right. Really. What was that?”

“Psychic coercion. That’s what happened here. Something is psychically forcing people to get angry and fight. I can hear it.”

“All right, all right. Good to know. Now can you get off me?”

“Yes, but keep the inhibitor on. I expect it’ll take a bit to neutralise the effect entirely.”

“Okay.” Will took the device from David and held it plastered to his chest. Once free, he stood up and looped the chain over his head, then sighed with heavy relief as he dusted himself off. “So you said it’s a thing doing this, not a person?”

“I think so. I’m sure there are some telepathic races with enough power to affect several thousand people all at once, but what I’m sensing, it feels too steady and regular to be an organic lifeform. And…” His eyes unfocused for a moment, then he clapped both hands to his face over his eyes, possibly to prevent tears. “I can’t hear anyone. Everyone’s dead, Will. Twelve thousand people dead.” Steepling his fingers before his lips, he took a deep breath and centered himself. “I am sure it’s a device.”

Will stared at David’s hands to prevent himself from falling apart and forced his focus on the problem. “A device planted on a spaceship to make everyone kill each other. Why would anyone do this?”

“I don’t know. Too many possible motives. Maybe it’s a political thing. Or maybe they want a single person dead and you can’t tell whodunit because you can’t even tell who the real target was. But there is a silver lining here.”

With the tiniest hint of a smirk, Will nodded. “It’s a device, so all we need to do is find it and turn it off.”

“Right.” Pulling out his sonic phone, David tapped and swiped a few times then, when it started to whirr, swept it up, down, and around. “There,” he said, his sonic pointing towards the floor, vaguely back towards the TARDIS. “It’s coming from that direction. I’ll keep triangulating and we can feed the data to the ship’s computer so it can pinpoint the location and give us a path. Let’s go.”

“Are you going to be all right, mate?” Will asked, tapping his temple to reinforce his meaning.

“For a bit, but I’ll succumb eventually just like you. We’re going to have to buddy-breathe.”

Will tapped the medallion on his chest. “Just let me know when to hand it over.”

“Will do, but don’t be shy about forcing it on me if you have to.”

They sprinted off, past the ballroom and the upper decks’ main dining room, then through two long corridors of various amenities and services, to the large private lift up to the deck house. David called it down with the sonic and a minute later, they emerged onto the bridge, both steeling themselves for yet another shock.

Knowing that there was little he could do to help, Will forced himself to focus instead on the chamber itself. “Very Star Trek.”

“Aye.” David hopped over the two bodies at the lift and sat down at a console. “Space isn’t much of a consideration on a ship like this, so why not make it comfortable? Okay, first things first, stop this ship dead in the w– er, dead in space.” He began typing and turning dials.

Walking over to look at the console next to David’s, Will ran a hand along the panel below the keyboard. “Still got physical controls and separate visual displays. I always thought the touch screens would be too vulnerable to errant taps. You could butt-dial yourself into a tailspin.”

David’s genuine laugh, the first Will had heard in almost a month, sounded a little disrespectful in the current circumstances but slightly relieved the oppressive atmosphere. “Or you could fall asleep and warp the ship to the Delta Quadrant. But wait, wait…” He tapped another two buttons, then stared at the screen, fingers twitching above it. “Okay, okay… yes, we’re slowing to a stop. Now.” He pulled up a map of the ship on his screen and began feeding his data into it.

“Though I’ve always wondered,” Will said as he sat down, “why is the bridge on a spaceship always at the top and front? It doesn’t need to be. You don’t have to look forward out the window like you do on an ocean cruiser. Wouldn’t it be more defensible to be in the center of the ship?”

“Will, will you please just shut up? I am sick of –”

They both stared at each other, then Will pulled off the inhibitor and held it out to David. “Here. You need this now.”

“No, not yet.” David held up his hand to stop Will from interrupting. “Yes, I am feeling it and it’s probably worse for me because I’m naturally psychic, but I really am still fine and I’d like to keep you on it as long as possible, and me off it. I have a feeling that each time, the coercion is going to affect us faster and faster, so we need to draw this out.”

“All right,” he said as he put the pendant back on, “but one more like that –”

“Yes, I agree. But I’ll work harder on resisting it now. I can feel it trying to work its way in and –” His eyes widened in horror. “Oh my god, Will.”

“What? Are you okay?” He grabbed the inhibitor again. “Do you need this?”

“No, no, it’s not that. We were wrong. It’s not broadcasting violence, or anger. It’s broadcasting hate.” His eyes locked onto Will. “It’s trying to make me hate you.”

“Okay,” Will said, nodding slowly as he thought it over. “But that doesn’t make a difference. Same outcome, one way or the other.”

“No, it’s not the same, not at all. A person can hate without attacking or killing. That part’s a choice. That woman by the table, she must have been affected, but she didn’t attack or kill. She made her choice. All those other people chose to kill. Oh god.” The blood drained from his face, leaving his complexion ashen. “If this thing makes me hate you and I kill you because of it– No! No!” He thumped the sides of his head with both hands, reminding Will of a character he once saw on the telly, looking exactly the same, berating himself for a moment of weakness. “I can’t think like that. Focus, David, focus.”

To push him back on the right path, Will pointed at David’s screen. “I think it’s done.”

“Yes! Come over here.” The map of the ship now displayed a room number and a fan of lines from the upper deck converging on a spot abaft of the ship’s midpoint. “Argh!” he groaned. “It had to be far.” He swiped around the screen to spin the ship this way and that, revealing that the chamber was located in the lower decks. Then, he typed a couple of queries that first drew a path through the ship then highlighted another area in the ship.

“That’s our route.” He tapped the indicated area. “And that’s the recreation deck by the TARDIS, so you see it’s further astern and down eight decks from there. And now…” He typed a bit more. “Now I’ve pushed it to all the screens on the ship. The screens on the route will be green, and the ones off the route will be red.”

“Brilliant.”

“And…” He typed a bit more, finishing with a flourish on the very last keystroke. “Now all of the bulkhead doors are open.”

“Brillianter.”

“You mean ‘genius’. And now.” David stood up and, looking around at the bodies, stepped over to the one with the most stripes on his epaulets. “Now for the worst part. Will, do you have your pocketknife?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Just give it here. I mean…” He clenched his fists and forced himself to breathe. “I’m sorry. I’m going to need the inhibitor soon. But, for now, please give me your knife.”

Digging it out of his pocket, Will handed it to David. “What are you going to do?”

David bit his lip before explaining. “The passenger suite doors will all be locked, and they can’t be opened from here, guest privacy and all that. I can sonic them open, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be there for every door or that I’ll be lucid enough to use it. So, we need keys that will open every lock. Only the captain and the senior crew have them, and they’re chips implanted in their hands, so that they can’t be stolen.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Aye. Look away, Will.”

Will turned away and tried to ignore the sounds behind him, thinking hard about how airy and friendly the bridge would look under normal circumstances. Presently, David stood back up and said, “Okay, it’s done.” Will turned back to find him cleaning two tiny disks, the knife, and his hands on his denims.

“Okay. Here’s this back. Now, let’s get them on.”

Two minutes later, David and Will wore matching wrist cuffs of duct tape (“Still the mending of choice, centuries later.”) securing the chips to their bodies.

“Nice,” Will said. “Can’t lose them and don’t have to fiddle with them, at the low, low price of all my arm hair.”

“Such a sacrifice. All right, give me the inhibitor. I won’t be able to hold on much longer.” David sighed with relief as the psychic whinge in his head silenced. “Oh lord, I really think it’s worse for me than it is for you. It’s certainly faster. You can’t hear it, but I can, and I can’t ignore it.” He shook his head violently. “All right. It’s time. We go straight there, at a fast jog, stopping only to buddy-breathe. And if I say to go on without me, do it, because they might be the last coherent words I’ll ever say. Got it?”

“Yes. Let’s go.”

Once they left the private lift, the optimal path led them away from the route they had taken to get to the bridge. They circled all the way around the crew quarters to a lift that went further down than the one they had taken earlier. From there, they had a long but straight shot through several bulkheads to a service ladder that went two decks up.

“Of course the path you picked was rubbish,” Will spat. “We’ll never get there at this rate.”

David turned to inspect the map on a nearby comm panel. “You’re going to need the inhibitor soon. But, no, this is right. This shaft gets us to another lift that goes further down. Otherwise, we’d have to go all the way around another recreation complex.”

“If you say so.” Spinning the dogwheel on the door, Will pulled it open and peered up the shaft. “This is a climb.”

“Then here, take the pendant,” said David, holding it out to him by the chain. “It’ll be much harder to trade off mid-ladder.”

From the exit of the shaft, it was a short jog to the lift, then a longer ride down. David looked rather peaky and he stumbled out as the doors opened and collapsed against the far wall of the corridor.

“David!” Will was right beside him, pressing the inhibitor to his chest even though the chain was still around his own neck.

David’s eyes cleared and he hung onto Will for stability. “I can’t keep it out, Will. I let my guard down for a moment and my mind fills with bile.”

“Okay, okay.” Will pulled the chain over his head and onto David’s neck in one motion. “You keep this. You need it more than I do.”

“For now. We’ll have to switch back long before we make it there.”

“Then we need to pick up the pace. Come on.”

They sprinted to the final lift in the path, which took them to the level they needed. From there, they followed a route through the guest suites around a kitchen and dining complex into the lower port passenger entrance and welcome bay. This was the first large public area on their route since leaving the bridge and Will stopped and choked at the grisly scene.

“Oh, god, I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten. I tried to forget,” he said, gasping for air. He sneered at David. “Why do you always bring me to places like this?”

“And that’s my cue.” He pulled off the inhibitor and looped the chain over Will’s head without stopping to ask. “There, better?”

“Yeah, much.” Will scrubbed at his face, then gaped. David stared at the floor, his eyes shining brighter gold every second with regeneration leakage he could no longer restrain, and his breath was laboured. “But you’re not.”

“No.” The word was barely audible. “I’m trying, but I can’t, I can’t…” In desperation, David grabbed the inhibitor and yanked it to his chest, pulling Will off-balance. He caught him, thrust his mobile into his hands, and rasped into his ear, “Go! Now! Get to the room. Find the device. Use that.” Will stumbled away, grasping at the inhibitor to make sure it was still secure on his neck, then glanced one last time at David, who had staggered back into the corridor and was pounding his head with his fists. David looked up and screamed, “GO!”

Will dashed off, across the welcome bay and into the first set of suites astern of the lower port entrance, David’s anguished cries as he fought to control himself chasing him, spurring him faster. Will clung to the fact that the path was relatively direct, with only one detour around a centralised guest storage room, and clearly marked by the shining green comm panels.

As he veered into the detour, David bellowed behind him, “You’re a liar and a traitor! I took you in, I helped you, I taught you, I showed you the universe, I saved your stupid little town!” David’s shoes pounded on the carpeted deck behind him and his shouts crashed down the corridor. “And then you betrayed me! And now you’re a thief! Come back here! Come back here and face me!”

Though he kept on, Will knew that he couldn’t outrun him; David was physically superior in every way. As he sped around the next corner, he caught sight of David charging into the corridor behind him and nearly fell over his own feet in panic, stumbling a few steps before recovering. A half-baked and fully-desperate idea flashed through his mind, and he slammed his duct-taped wrist against the nearest suite’s access panel.

He pulled himself through the door as soon as it slid open enough to admit him. Though smaller than the room they’d found the first victims in, it was furnished as nicely, just as he’d hoped. There were no bodies in the main room of the suite, so its guests either were in one of the bedrooms or outside somewhere. Panting heavily, he turned toward the door and waited.

David burst in moments later, his eyes shining so brightly that his face was obscured except for his toothy, unhinged grin. “There you are. Oh, I am going to enjoy this. I will finally rid myself of you.”

Will gulped and backed away, shielding himself with his hands. “Now, let’s calm down and be reasonable, mate.”

“‘Mate’?” David spat as he advanced. “I am no ‘mate’ of yours. A god is not a ‘mate’ to a cockroach. I am going to –”

Will’s stare jerked past David and he jumped back in surprise. “Oh my god, look!” he yelled, pointing.

David spun on instinct and fell silent and still, the golden shine in his eyes fading to nothing as he stared at himself in the mirrored closet doors. For a moment, Will thought he saw tears starting to form in his eyes, but then David roared at his reflection and began screaming unintelligible words.

“I’m sorry, mate. I’m so, so sorry,” Will whispered as he slipped behind David and ran out into the corridor. The only thing he could do for him now was to end this as quickly as possible. Just two more turns and three more corridors and it would be all over.

Behind him, the ranting ceased. Something heavy smashed something glass. Then the ranting resumed.

As soon as Will turned the last corner and stepped through the nearby bulkhead, he threw himself against the door to close it so that he wouldn’t be distracted by what was happening behind him. He ran on, silently thanking the TARDIS for not translating whatever it was David had yelled at himself.

Suite 4-11-Λ-⬠-2 was just like the one he’d left David in except that it was on the outside of the ship and had a large picture window for gazing at the cosmos. It also wasn’t empty. A man and a woman lay sprawled in the middle of the room, well away from the table near which what had been a romantic meal for two now lay scattered on the floor. With only a glance to spare, Will couldn’t tell who had killed whom.

Scanning with the mobile, he pinpointed a chest of drawers in the bedroom and he found hidden among the clothing in it, a palm-sized device that looked remarkably like a hand transmitter for a garage door, with a single large button and a small light that shined yellow. With no other idea of what to do, Will pressed the button. The light blinked three times, then remained on.

“Did that work?” He had no way of telling if it had turned off without risking himself, either by taking off the inhibitor and waiting to go crazy or by going back to see if David still wanted to kill either of them. So, he punched the button again. When it blinked three times and remained on as before, he punched it one more time, reasoning that an odd number of presses was more likely to turn it off than an even number of presses.

“All right, Plan B” he sighed, admitting silently that he didn’t actually have a Plan B.

Dashing back to the main room, he held the device under the brightest light he could find and inspected it for any seam or crack that he could try to pry open with his knife, but he found only a hairline seam. Trying to split that with his knife would waste precious time.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Plan C.”

Darting into the en suite, he dropped the device on the hard floor, placed the heel of his trainer on its smooth top, then bounced his full weight on it.

Crack!

Another couple of bounces and the casing collapsed. The technology inside looked like nothing he’d ever seen, but he immediately recognized the battery. He pulled it out and the yellow light went dark.

“Okay!” He sprinted out, back toward where he’d left David, both hands cupping the remnants of the device. As he ran he considered how he might smash it to bits, just in case it was still running. However, when he skidded into the room, David was nowhere to be seen. The mirror on the wall had been smashed, as Will had expected, and one large shard of mirrored glass near the door was stained with blood.

Will growled in frustration. David might have recovered enough by now to come back, but Will couldn’t wait for that, needed confirmation that the device was disabled as soon as possible, and he ran out. He expected that in his rage, David had either retraced his steps or headed for the TARDIS, so Will headed back to the welcome bay, as he had no idea how to get to the TARDIS from here.

The moment he entered the bay, he spotted David lying face down across the threshold of the inner airlock door. He dashed across, leaping over the bodies, and slid to his knees next to him. “David! Can you hear me? Talk to me.”

“Aye. I’m fine.” He rolled over onto his back, revealing his shredded, bloody jumper, and pointed at it. “Healed too fast.” He then thumbed at the airlock. “And then I couldn’t get that open. Can’t even kill myself properly.”

“Bloody hell, David! Thank God you’re all right!” Dropping the device on the floor, Will threw his arms around him then just as quickly jerked back as he remembered that this familiarity was no longer welcome.

“No, Will, it’s okay.” Rolling over again, David pushed himself up and settled himself cross-legged in front of Will, then reached over to grasp his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Will shook his head. “I’m sorry, mate. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to, but I had no idea what else I could do.”

“No.” He squeezed Will’s shoulder again before dropping his hands to his lap. “You did exactly the right thing. Neither of us would be here if you hadn’t. That was a brilliant bit of quick thinking.”

Will closed his eyes, his head lolling forward like he was too exhausted to hold it up anymore. “It suddenly occurred to me why the people in the gym had killed themselves.”

David nodded. “The mirrored walls.”

Will swallowed hard against sudden nausea. “I hated turning that against you. I felt like a monster, manipulating you into suicide.”

“But you also knew I could survive almost anything I could do to myself. It was the right thing to do, and it bought you the time to finally end it. Don’t fret about it, my friend.”

Will frowned at hearing that last word, but when he looked up, David was already staring across the bay, his eyes slightly golden. Apparently the moment, if there had been one at all, had passed very quickly, and he looked away to hide his regret. His gaze fell on the broken device, and he picked it up.

“Here’s the thing. I had to break it open, but it’s still mostly intact.”

Taking it from his palm, David whistled a long, low note as he inspected it. “And this is why these things are banned the galaxy over.”

“Why? What is it?”

“A psychic manipulator, maybe home-made but probably black market. You tune it to a specific person, but once it’s done, you can plant an emotion in their mind. Usually used as an electronic love potion. Let me guess: there were two people in the suite, having a romantic dinner or maybe Netflix and chill?”

With a disgusted smirk, Will tapped his nose.

David nodded. “Yup. One was trying to force the other to love them.”

“I’m not sure which one. The device was in a clothes drawer, but I can’t tell the gender differences in these fashions.”

“Thing is,” David said as he stowed the broken device in his pocket, “these things are notoriously faulty and difficult to use even if they’re working properly. I expect it simply broadcast hate rather than send love to one person. This was both a human rights and an engineering disaster.”

“Yeah.” Will blew his cheeks out and began climbing to his feet. “All right. What’s next? Get this ship back to Geronimo Major? I hope it won’t take long, or this place will be foul. The two of us couldn’t even make a dent in cleaning it all up.”

David grasped his arm. “Will?”

He stopped mid-climb, leaning over the man on the ground. “Yeah?”

“Sit back down. Please.”

Will settled in front of David, mirroring his cross-legs.

David gazed at him for a moment, biting the tip of his tongue before finally taking a deep breath. “Will, I have to apologise. I am sorry. I am genuinely so sorry.”

Will frowned. “What for? For that?” He thumbed over his shoulder, toward the suite corridors. “Come on, that wasn’t your fault and you know it. And don’t even think about that ‘I have a choice’ bullshit you were spouting, cos that’s bollocks if I’ve ever –”

David waved him silent. “No, not that. That’s all irrelevant. Will.” He paused to catch Will’s gaze and hold it. “I am sorry for the past month. I’m sorry for accusing you of trying to meddle in my affairs, and for, for…” Faltering, he fought himself for control. “I will speak the plain truth. I’m sorry for lying to you, for implying that you were just a, just a… a hitchhiker, of no consequence, when you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Leaning away, Will held his hands up. “David, stop. You don’t have to do this. It’s okay. I understand. We’re good.”

“No, Will, you don’t understand. I need to do this, for both of us. Please let me speak.” His gaze dropping to the floor between them, he tugged at his ear as he thought of how to word his thoughts. “You see, you injured my pride. It hurt more than I want to admit, and all I could see was red hot anger. I think I’d convinced myself I was better than you, and there you were, telling me I was wrong, rebuking me.”

“But that’s fair,” Will protested. “You are better than me. You’re a Time Lord. You’re light years ahead of me.”

“No!” David exclaimed, pounding his fists on his thighs. “I am not better than you and I need to realise that. Smarter? Yes. Stronger? Yes. But better? There’s more to being a man than intelligence and strength, and I think my behaviour has demonstrated some of the ways in which I trail miles behind. But!” He held up his hand to stop Will’s next interruption. “Let me finish.”

He scrubbed his hand over his mouth. “All that, that was a month ago. A month of fuming that you thought you could do my job better than me. A month of torturing you for challenging my superiority. I didn’t even have the decency to tell you why, though I admit I didn’t really know myself.

“And then this happened.” Bowing his head toward the airlock door, he swept his hand behind him, across the bay, across the crumpled bodies scattered throughout. “Of course, we didn’t know what was actually going on, but I could tell you were affected because you were acting strangely. You were yelling me that I was doing things wrong, and you were angry and malicious, and the first thing I thought was, ‘That’s not Will.’ There was no concern in you, in what you were saying. No patience, no love or friendship, not even any cheek. And suddenly the entire past month snapped into focus. I was the problem, not you. You were still you, offering your advice and support, but I let my anger– no, no, that is not right. I let my pride blind me. You were still my best mate, always been, but I’d been a right arse.”

David looked directly into Will’s eyes and waited a moment to ensure that he understood. “Will, I am sorry. For all of it. I– I–”

“Mate,” Will said, shaking his head. “None of this was necessary. I’m not blameless either, you know. I could have been a lot nicer when I said what I said. It’s no wonder you took it the wrong way. But,” and he held up a hand as David drew breath to speak, “for what it’s worth, I accept your apology and I forgive you. As I said earlier–” His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in shock. “Whoa, was that really only an hour ago?”

“Seventy-three minutes, thirteen seconds.”

He shook his head in wonder, then sighed. “As I said earlier, all I want is my friend back.”

“I’m back,” David assured him. “We’re back. And I hope this won’t stop you from knocking me down a few pegs in the future. Because I really need it.”

“When have I ever kept my big mouth shut?”

A hint of mischief crept into David’s eyes. “Though, I won’t say if I think your advice was good or bad. I’d like to discuss it with you, but certainly not here. That’s for another time. And also, just so you know, I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive you for that jab about the Doctor,” he said with a wink.

Crossing his arms, Will turned his nose up and sniffed. “I say what I see. You do with it what you will.”

“All right, then. If I must be the Doctor…” David jumped up and held his hand out. “Come with me.”

“Gladly.” Will took his hand and David pulled him to his feet.

David smiled. “Come on, Will. We’ve got work to do.”