End Game: Just a Dream
A short story by Mark Ritchie

Fifth of The Darkness In Men series and part of the Fifth Doctor Fiction collection

...Now...

When I was in the sixth form, we always used to have a lot of spare time on our hands. Doing three A-Levels didn't exactly fill up our time. So we read and played poker and scrabble and talked and discussed things. My friends being who they were, we would often get onto deep philosophical topics and end up debating things.

Now, I know I'm not the smartest banana in the bunch, but my friends, being normal human beings, I could get along with them well, even if some of them were off the chart smart. It was never the same with the Doctor (super-intelligent being from the other side of the galaxy) and Nyssa (super-intelligent being from the other side of the universe). Yeah, they tried not to make me feel too down, tried not to patronise me, but sometimes it couldn't be helped. They'd launch into a debate about nucleic enzymes or something like that and I'd be left to wander round the TARDIS. I found the cinema once, and spent a week just watching all the James Bond movies and Ridley Scott (local boy made good - we grew up in the same town) while the Doctor and Nyssa experimented with polymer chains (I think).

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes...

One discussion we had in the sixth form came from Andrew's disgust at Terry Pratchett's choice of the Chrysler Building for his luxury item on 'Desert Island Discs'. Gillian maintained that it would be impossible to house the aforementioned building on a desert island because there would be no solid foundation (no sense of whimsy, our Gillian). By the by, we got on to the topic of what each of us would want if we were stranded on a desert island. Amy dithered about listing dozens of books so we narrowed it down to one book, one film and one record. I chose the movie 'Short Cuts' - narrowly beating 'Goodfellas', 'The Crow Road' by Iain Banks and, for my record, I requested '1' by the Beatles. Amy then of course said it had to be a studio album, no 'best of', and since I don't like any single album by the Beatles enough (even 'Revolver' has its fair share of tracks on it I don't like) I ended up choosing 'Crest Of A Knave' by Jethro Tull. My luxury item was of course my guitar.

The thing is, if you were ever stranded on a desert island, what makes you think you'll have the choice?

I certainly didn't.

That's how I ended up with no videos (as if there'd actually be anywhere to plug in a VCR anyway), the book I was reading at the time and therefore had it stuck in my pocket - 'Night Walk' by Bob Shaw, and certainly no records. Fortunately for my sanity, I did have the foresight (or blind luck) to take my guitar.

...Then...

"Peace, tranquillity, the soft sound of the surf lapping against the sand..." the Doctor allowed himself to take a deep breath of the salty air and let it out loudly. "What more could you want?"

"Well," I said, tuning my guitar, "it's certainly better than Mars."

"Untouched by civilisation," Nyssa said in awed tones.

The Doctor was looking down the coast. The island stretched out for about three miles, and was about a mile wide. "As far as I can tell, Nyssa," the Doctor said, "this planet doesn't have any indigenous life."

A few gulls cawed overhead.

"Except for the animal life," Nyssa said.

"Yes. Certainly no sentient life. I wonder where my fishing rod is? I haven't used it in centuries."

The Doctor wandered off back down the beach to where the TARDIS had landed.

I started to strum out 'Love You To' from 'Revolver', although my guitar was a poor substitute for a sitar. I wondered if the Doctor would take me to India so I could pick one up.

I felt Nyssa's hand stroking the back of my neck, wrapping one of my tufts of hair around her index finger.

"You really didn't have a good time of it on Mars, did you?" she asked softly, as though her voice might disturb the quiet serenity of the island.

"No," I confirmed, "I didn't."

"What's the matter?" she asked. Her question caused my fingers to pause. The note faded into silence, only her question hanging in the air. It was almost deafening.

Inwardly, I swore. I couldn't lie to Nyssa. "For the past six months, you, me and the Doctor, we've been crusading around the universe, righting wrongs and singing songs, well," I allowed myself a small smile, "sort of. But the way I left things hanging back home with my mam, not to mention my dad. I really think I need to go back..."

I caught the look of disappointment on her face.

"Not forever," I added. "After seeing what I've seen, I couldn't live back in dreary South Shields again. But I just need some sense of closure, you know?"

Nyssa shook her head. "I never got to say goodbye to my father," she said, her voice wavering. I could see the tears beginning to collect in her eyes. I put the guitar down and embraced her.

"It'll alright, kid, I promise. I'll be alright."

...Now...

What happened after that I don't know. Some freak storm hit the island and I was dragged into the sea by the current. I still can't believe they left me here. I mean, it wasn't as if the TARDIS would float away now, was it?

Or could it?

For all it's infinite rooms and everything (but Nyssa said that they once jettisoned twenty-five percent of it - how can you jettison twenty-five percent of infinity?) and the ever-present hum which you think is going to drive you up the wall but you don't actually notice after a while, from the outside it could just be a rickety old blue box with chipped paint and a cracked frosted glass window. It could have been washed out to sea. Is that where it is now?

I found myself washed up on the shore what my watch told me was a few hours later. My guitar, tucked beneath a tree along with my jacket (a long leather affair just in case the Doctor landed us somewhere halfway decent - I want to look cool - and my usual trenchcoat had gotten filthy on Mars, covered in dull red Martian dust) was okay. But no Doctor. No Nyssa.

I was alone on a desert island with no source of food or water. I guess I did what any sane person would have done; I went through and played and sang every Beatles song possible, then every Jethro Tull song. I was about to begin the Joni Mitchell back catalogue when the hunger pangs became too much.

...Two Years Later...

If someone told me something and then I found out that I'd just made them up in my head, like an imaginary friend or something, would that, ultimately, mean that I told myself something? I mean, imagine this guy, the Doctor was actually real, but he can't be can he? I mean, what is the likelihood of a guy travelling around the universe with a bevvy of beautiful women in tow, none of which he actually has a relationship with? And to top it all off, this guy saves the universe on a regular basis. It's like something out of a bad John Rackham novel. And that guy ate bad cheese to try and promote the creative juices. Nutter.

I look back over some of the things I wrote; I must have been delirious or something. Suffering from starvation.

I eventually found some fruit growing along the other end of the beach; cut a few trees down and built myself a shelter. Not that I need it, the weather barely changes. The storm I wrote about, it seems impossible that that could have happened. I've been living here for two years now. Or at any rate seven hundred and thirty days. I'm not sure what the years are on this planet. The days seem to be pretty much the same. But I'm twenty-four now. In a few months I'll be twenty-five and have clocked up my first quarter of a century. It's all, as my dad used to say, downhill from there.

Earth. I know Earth exists. Existed. Will exist. Whatever. I have my old cigarette packet - it's all battered now, but the "Made In England" stamp is still there.

How did I get here then, if not for the intervention of a lunatic Time Lord? I know this isn't Earth. I've eaten too many weird fish that I know didn't swim in Earth's oceans.

***

Nyssa. Nyssa. I rolled the words round my mouth. They didn't seem to fit. I haven't spoken for months. I haven't spoken to another living soul for at least two years. I keep the days numbered in my diary.

I can still smell her, you know. Feel the touch of her against me; feel the outline of her naked body pressing against mine.

I lost my virginity to a girl named Jean Lloyd. She was the same age as me. We met through a mutual friend named Ford who I lived with for a while. It just happened. There was no love there, and no remorse when I woke up and she'd gone. We spoke in a pub a few days later, while I had been out getting the latest 'Nightshade' videos. There were no feelings there. We liked each other, sure. But I didn't love her. And she didn't love me. That was fine. We were just two friends having a good time and a little experimentation.

It was perhaps telling that we hardly spoke after that. Ford was busted for possession of drugs, LSD, and I moved into a new flat by myself. I drifted away from his circle of friends, but didn't find any of my own to replace them. There was just Jones.

Jones.

Hmm. No one knew who he really was apart from me. He was a millionaire; his father had invented some widget for stress or something, it made the office executives go nuts. They loved it. Unfortunately, Jones' dad was killed in a car crash. He left all his money to his only son, who, like me, was something of a loner.

We had an unspoken agreement; I never asked him for money and he would make sure I was okay. He topped up the rent (without my knowledge, supposedly, but I knew) when it was a little down. Working in the bookies a few days a week and holding a stall down South Shields market on a Friday barely paid the bills.

We were doing fine, me and Jones, and then Jones left. He met a girl and moved on, down to London actually. He occasionally phoned and made sure I was okay. But even though I said I was, I wasn't.

And then. The Doctor came into my life.

Or did he?

Maybe I was abducted by aliens or something. Maybe I stowed away on a space shuttle. Maybe this is all just a dream and I'm still at the bedsit. I don't know. That whole thing is a bit fuzzy, if I'm honest. The memories of the Doctor are clear, but if they are true memories and not merely some feeble fantasy I've concocted in my head to cover over the gaps...

But Nyssa. She was the most beautiful girl in the universe. There was love there. It wasn't like Jean. I cared about Nyssa. I cared about her more than I cared about anything or anyone, even myself.

How could a man give so much of himself? It can't be real, can it? She was perfect.

...Then...

"Doctor?"

The Doctor looked up from the console. He had a smudge of oil on his nose and a soldering iron in one hand.

"Yes, Robbie?"

"I've been having these dreams... About Cybermen. About this guy named Prospero. He's an evil bastard. I thought it was just me, you know, articulating Nyssa's fear about the Cybermen, you know, after what happened to Adric, and with Tegan leaving so suddenly, I thought it was just me trying to put myself into her shoes. But, when we were on Mars..."

The Doctor looked at me, his brow furrowed, the soldering iron forgotten in his hand. "Yes?" he prompted.

"I wasn't going to mention my dreams, I've dreamt some weird shit in my time, but on Mars, Nyssa had the same dream as me. And it's freaking her out." I paused and shifted myself slightly. My palms were wet. I had no idea why I was so nervous telling the Doctor about this. It was probably all rubbish. "And," I said, "if I'm honest, it's freaking me out a little too. I know she's got all these weird alien powers and everything, she's not human. But, Doctor, can you just tell me what it is?"

"It's just a dream, Robbie," he said, clapping a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"But Nyssa, she's a telepath, isn't she?"

The Doctor's face wrinkled, "Not exactly, she's more, well, the best thing to describe it would be like static electricity, she has random thoughts and images... nothing solid and constructed, nothing more than the odd fleeting glimpse, a whispered word, a scattered image... they're drawn to her. You understand?"

"Like a charged balloon, right? When you put it near some pieces of paper, if it's been rubbed enough, it'll pick them up?" I asked, having never been a physics genius.

"More or less. It's nothing to worry about, Robbie. Anyway, it takes two telepaths to communicate on that level. Otherwise it's just meaningless static."

He turned back to his soldering.

Just a dream, I muttered to myself under my breath, and went to find Nyssa.

...Now...

Of course, if that event didn't actually happen, could it not be true that it is more than just a dream? I've had the occasional 'Prospero vs. The Cybermen' dream. It always seems so real. And I'm there, and I know things I shouldn't know. But I forget them when I wake up.

...One Year Later...

Jean Lloyd had blonde hair, didn't she?

No. It was brunette.

No, it was blonde. Naturally blonde. That last time I saw her at a party at Ford's, a week or so before he got done, she'd dyed it brunette. Claimed it made her feel more intelligent. She was just about to head off to university. Felt the need to put on an intelligent face. What did I get in my A-Levels? Two Bs and a C.

Why didn't I go to university?

Yeah. My dad threw me out. That's it. I couldn't afford it.

I spoke with my mam when she'd come to the flat me and Ford were living in. Damp climbing slowly up the walls. The curtains froze to the window in winter. It was winter.

"I can give you some money, Rob," she said. She always called me Rob. To dad I was always Robert. To my mam I was always Rob and to my friends I was Robbie. "You really wanted to go to university. You did get accepted by Eastport."

"It's too late," I told her, gazing out of the half frozen window at the world outside. It seemed as if all the colour had been drained from it. All the life. There was just a dull, all-pervading grey. "If I wanted to start now, I'd have to wait until next September."

Jethro Tull's 'Thick As A Brick' started up of the stereo. My mother, never a big one for music, glanced in annoyance at the speaker by her foot.

"Here, I'll lend you the money anyway."

She handed me a slim envelope. I didn't expect much; we were a simple working class family from the North East. I looked in; there was about two hundred pounds there. I hugged my mam and thanked her. Two days later, my dad came round and demanded the money back. I'd already spent it on stock for the stall. Videos. He swore at me and hit me. I hit him back. We both had had a little too much to drink. He never spoke to me again. And he stopped my mother from speaking to me. As far as he was concerned he didn't have a son.

***

A police box. Now why should that mean something to me?

The image floated into my head as I woke one morning. A police box. In the middle of a junk yard. A junk yard in black and white. There was a mannequin standing nearby with its head smashed in; part of it's cranium hanging loose inside the cavity.

Why should it be in black and white? Could it be a picture out of an old movie? Probably. Everything I remember seems to come from an old movie. Even memories I know that are true; like the sixth form party where Gillian got drunk on Archers and lemonade and ended up throwing up in the bogs is mixing in with a melange of school movies. Dazed and Confused. Gregory's Girl. Detroit Rock City. All movies which I usually rented out with Ford and had a few cans. It was cheaper than going out.

***

I caught a shark this morning. Four foot long. Well, I'm calling it a shark anyway. It looks like one, although I doubt that the chances of parallel evolution creating a shark on two planets probably separated by light years is much in favour of my ideal. They probably call in a sharoid or something. That's if there's any other sentient life on this planet. Is it even possible for a whole eco-system to develop without a dominant species evolving?

What was that the Doctor had once said? "Evolution is only God's excuse for his mistakes."

Was that the Doctor? Who is the Doctor? Doctor Sawyer, my GP who treated me for chicken pox when I was eight? Doctor Indiana Jones? Doctor McCoy? Quatermass? No, he was a professor wasn't he. Was he real? I met a Bernard Quatermass once, during a sixth form project. He was up from London and me and Andrew had managed to get an interview with him for our project on the British Space Program. Professor Bernard Quatermass. Claimed he used to be head of British Rocket Group, aligned to something called UNIT, but neither me or Andrew had heard of either of them. Mr Miles, our headmaster claimed ignorance as well, although he did point us towards some documents in the library at Newcastle. Documents which claimed in the late sixties/early seventies, there were several evacuations of London. For unexplained reasons. There was a stamp on the file which said UNIT. We never got any further than that.

But if that was Quatermass, who was that guy off the telly. That serial thing that Hammer made into those movies? Quatermain?

Does it actually even matter anymore? For all I know, Earth's been destroyed. Maybe Earth has been gone for millions upon millions of years and I'm the last remnant of humanity. Maybe once I die no one will remember Jethro Tull. No one will remember 'The Wasp Factory'. 'Lawrence Of Arabia' will be cast to the wind. I never saw that movie. Every time it was on, I just ended up getting bored at the prospect of four hours of deserts and orchestra music and ended up watching 'Jaws' again.

***

I brushed the hair out of my face and looked out at the calm blue sea. How long had it been? I'd stopped taking count after three years. Twenty-five. I, Robert James Bainbridge was then twenty-five, almost twenty-six. How old am I now? At least twenty-eight. I felt old.

Two of my strings on my guitar broke months ago; 'Aqualung' is now unrecognisable. There's gaps in 'Big Yellow Taxi' and there's no way I can even attempt to play 'Everybody Hurts'.

Sometimes I think I've lived my entire life on this beach and all my memories are just dreams. Yeah; just a dream.

I stood up and walked along the beach, feeling the surf lap at my ankles. Then, out of the blue, I see something impossible.

It's a big blue box.

There's some words on it. If my copy of "Night Walk" hadn't disintegrated years ago I might recognise some of the words.

The door opens and out steps the most perfect girl in all the world.

"Nyssa!" I scream. She hasn't changed. Everything's wonderful. The Doctor's just mistimed the landing by a few years. So I'm older. Who cares, I've kicked my smoking habit.

Suddenly, the world erupts into a flurry of light and sound. Gulls cawing. I realise that the Doctor hasn't come back for me. It was all just a dream.

...Then...

A movie-house in New York 1963. It's showing 'From Russia With Love'. Nyssa, sitting beside me, was poking at her popcorn.

"What is this?" she asked me.

"Popcorn," I replied. "Corn that's been popped. Then you pour a load of salt on it. It's snackfood."

She placed a piece in her mouth and chewed.

"I don't like it."

Then the movie fades out and a small, nervous guy, sweat beaded on his forehead. "I'm sorry folks, but we've just received some shocking news... President Kennedy has been shot."

Gasps rose up from the audience.

"Now now now," the little guy said. "We don't have any confirmation of what exactly has happened, but in light of the possibility, I'm afraid we won't be showing the rest of the movie. We'll be handing out refunds at the box office. Thank you."

While all around us people were nervously chattering, uttering the words "Russkies", "Duck and cover" and "atomic bomb", I merely sat stock still. I knew this would happen. In my time it had come almost twenty years before I was born; I had never lived in a world where Kennedy hadn't been shot and killed in Dallas in 1963. It, to me, was like living in a world where Michael Jackson wasn't a huge pop star. To me, it had just never been.

...Now...

But it didn't happen like that.

The Doctor and me had been standing outside a TV shop watching events unfold. We'd been shopping. I took it as Christmas shopping. Snow was starting to fall, and then, once the day was over, the world had lost its innocence. Standing there, outside in the snow (the Doctor having brought us to 1963 because he had a "feeling" he should be there), I could see how this one event, this one crazed madman's shots, could have so much impact on the world. Because of Kennedy's death, the space program would get side-tracked. It was all a little too much to take in.

"Doctor?" I looked around me.

Surprisingly, he wasn't there.

If I couldn't trust that memory of Kennedy's death, what could I trust?

"LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!" I screamed.

Then I heard the voice; the first voice I had heard in years. "The module is failing." It seemed to phase in and out.

Reality crackled around me. And then exploded into nothing.

***

"Robbie?" a girl's voice. Just a dream. I tried to open my eyes but they were caked shut by some sort of gel. I clawed at it; it came away sticky in my hands.

"Robbie!" a more urgent male voice said. "Don't, we'll get it off."

I felt water running across my face; pure water, not salty. I drank it in greedily, then, I felt the gel beginning to slide off my eyes in sticky strands.

At last I managed to open my eyes.

I looked into the light. It was. It was Nyssa and the Doctor.

"Are you okay?" Nyssa asked.

"If this is all just a dream," I said, "I'm going to be super-pissed."

***

"The Ruin?"

"The Ruin," confirmed the Doctor. "They're a race of memory parasites. They live off sentient beings memories... personalities and the like, and they can create a reality for other people. Like what you experienced. We Time Lords, well, we drive the Ruin mad. Too many memories and conflicting personalities you see, so they've learned to avoid us. You, however, were kidnapped during that storm."

I looked over at Nyssa; she was staring into the lake. She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. Pensive thought. "So, I'm still me, like I was before? Cause I've got years worth of memories in my head. I mean, are they just fake or what?"

"I don't know, Robbie. I'm not exactly sure how the Ruin's module works. I do know it implants scenarios, in your case the island. But, subjectively, you've only been gone for two days."

The tell-tale spots that signalled the beginning of a migraine began speckling in front of my eyes. This was all just too much to take in.

"I need a favour then Doctor," I said.

The Doctor shoved his hands deep in his pockets and looked expectantly at me.

"I need to go home, back to South Shields. I need to square things with my family. I don't know what was real and what was just the Ruin messing my head up..." my voice trailed off when I saw his brow furrowing. That usually meant one thing: I'd said something he didn't like.

"What?" I asked.

"What do you remember about meeting Nyssa and myself?" he asked in a low conspiratorial whisper so that Nyssa couldn't hear.

I thought about it. "An alien invasion, a foothold in South Shields. These aliens were going around the country with a fairground and slowly brainwashing the whole population. Why?"

"That's not what happened," the Doctor said. "It was the Ruin. They were draining people's memories and..." his voice trailed off into silence.

"And what?" I asked him, my voice starting to crack with panic.

The Doctor sighed. "You were their agent, Robbie. I broke down your conditioning. Made you who you were supposed to be, who you were before the Ruin got inside of your head. But I can't be sure that there's no lingering Ruin influences there. This simulation might have been to deduct how much of the Ruin you still have in your head."

"You mean I might not be me?"

"I mean," the Doctor said, slowly and deliberately, "that you might have Ruin protocols still implanted in your neural synapses."

"So you won't take me back home because of these protocols I might have stuck in my head?" I asked, indignation gripping me.

"No, no, I'll take you home, Robbie, I promised I'd look after you."

"Promised? Promised who?"

The Doctor's gaze followed the shore of the lake to where Nyssa was sitting.

