'What an exciting life you must lead.'

'Not really,' said Domnic with a sigh, 'because it never changes. Whatever I dream, whatever I write down, it's always a lie.'

'That's what happens,' said the Doctor, 'when you just wait for change instead of making it happen. What you're about to see, by the way it's real.'

There was something in front of them. A new shade among the jungle colours; hard, straight lines that belonged to the city, the domain of humans.

A chunky, fat cabinet, nestled between the trees. A rich, dark blue. Some sort of a store shed? But why all the way out here? And why did it display, in bright, backlit letters, the legend 'POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX'?

Domnic's mind raced, trying to find the logic in the blue box's presence because, without that logic, he was afraid he would wake up again.

'Go to it,' said the Doctor, beaming like a proud uncle. 'Touch it.'

Domnic ran his hands over the cabinet's surface, concentrating on the feel of the wood on his skin. It was rough, solid, real. And there was more.

Something behind the wood. Something that Domnic couldn't quite feel with his fingers, couldn't describe, but it was there. Something powerful, straining to get out. It was intangible, unknowable, and yet he was sure that it was real too.

'And while you're there,' said the Doctor, 'have a good walk round, get used to the size of it. It'll save you some time later on.'

It was a dream after all.

There was no other explanation, no way that the doors of the blue cabinet could really have opened into the room that Domnic was now seeing.

His first impression was that the huge, round chamber was alive as alive as the jungle outside. Coral clung to its walls, support beams twisted and branched like trees, cables hung like creepers and trailed like roots along the floor. But there were ceramic handrails and metal grille flooring beneath Domnic's feet, and a mushroomshaped control bank that looked as if it had been gutted and rebuilt out of spare parts.

Had it not been for his disappointment that none of this was real, he could have been proud of himself. It looked as if his mind had spewed up images from throughout his life, from everything he had ever seen on the TV, and crammed them together at random and yet somehow, impossibly, made the whole thing work.

When he woke up, he was going to write a great story about this.

For now, he let the Doctor a ma.s.s of energy and authority who still seemed obdurately, impossibly real lead him past the console, past an incongruous chair and through a doorway. Expecting to emerge from the back of the cabinet, Domnic laughed to himself and shook his head to find three corridors stretching away from him, more corridors crisscrossing them. The walls had the same organic, encrusted look as the ones behind him.

They took one turning after another, their route twisting and looping back on itself until Domnic had lost all sense of direction. The Doctor was thoughtful, as if he couldn't quite remember where he had left something. Then he braked sharply outside a door, pushed it open and announced, 'This'll do!'

This room was round too, but mercifully small, cluttered with an a.s.sortment of junk as eclectic as the lashups in the main chamber. Much of it appeared to be medical in nature and most had been patched up in some way or another. An ECG monitor had been left to rot on a trolley, wires hanging out of its back, while a bench was festooned with bottles and syringes, and a stethoscope lay draped over a battered refrigeration unit.

The Doctor swept a boxshaped machine from a dentist's chair, not seeming to care that it hit the floor with a crash and a tinkle of broken gla.s.s. He gestured to his guest to take a seat, but Domnic balked at the prospect.

'Hang on what are you planning to do to me?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Quick examination. Nothing to get your knickers in a knot about. I just want to see why your brain doesn't work the same as other humans'.' He grinned disarmingly and bounced on his toes but his hands were behind his back and Domnic didn't know what he had just picked up.

'You're a doctor, aren't you!'

'The Doctor. Not the same thing.' Doctor. Not the same thing.'

'And this... this... whatever it is... this police box. Police box! I should have seen... I was right last night,when I first... You're working with them, aren't you!'

'Er... no.'

'You want to open up my head and... and zap out bits of my brain.'

'There's no need to exaggerate.'

'You even sound sound like the police! I... I don't care if this is a dream, I won't let you...' like the police! I... I don't care if this is a dream, I won't let you...'

Domnic backed away, but in his panic he found the wall instead of the door. And the Doctor was upon him, taking him by the shoulder, guiding him firmly into the chair and before Domnic could recover his wits, could do anything more than just dig his fingernails into his palms and hope to wake up wake up, the Doctor had kicked a lever at the base of the chair so that it collapsed into a horizontal position. And then he was holding a bulky bra.s.s contraption, like a diver's helmet studded with control k.n.o.bs, and Domnic was still flailing, trying to straighten himself as the helmet came down over his head and he felt its weight on his shoulders, the chill of its metal against the exposed parts of his neck.

'Best think of something nice,' cautioned the Doctor. 'This might hurt a bit.'

The jungle looked different, though Domnic didn't know why.

He felt felt different lightheaded, as if some great pressure had been taken off his mind. different lightheaded, as if some great pressure had been taken off his mind.

The Doctor had busied himself about the helmet contraption, adjusting controls, clicking his tongue and occasionally asking Domnic if he could feel anything. Most of the time, there had just been a lowlevel buzz in his head though there had been one worrying moment when a circuit or something had blown out and the Doctor had attacked the helmet enthusiastically with a strange sort of soldering iron that gave off blue light.

Then, with no warning at all, something had sparked and sent an electrical pain through Domnic's head, causing him to cry out. The current had seemed to shudder through his entire skeleton, making his body tighten.

'Still think you're dreaming?' the Doctor asked now. He had been walking six steps ahead of Domnic, but he'd suddenly turned to face him.

'No... Yeah... I don't know.'

'Imagine something for me.'

'What? Like what?'

'Something in the jungle. A monster.'

'I don't want to.'

'Aw, come on, Derek.'

'Domnic.'

'You're supposed to be a writer, aren't you? Give me a story. Vast jungle like this, there's bound to be something in here, don't you think?' The Doctor was right in Domnic's face, smiling, but there was a malicious gleam in his eyes. 'Cos I'm sure I heard something a few metres back, you know. Sort of footsteps, padding after us. Could be zombies.'

Domnic swallowed nervously. 'I didn't hear anything.'

'Yeah, you did, you just don't want to admit it in case I think you're fantasy crazy. But that's not very bright, is it, Daniel? Not bright at all, because what if the monsters are real? And they could be, you know.'

'Stop it!' cried Domnic.

'Creeping up on us right now, and what good are you gonna be when they pounce? Standing there with your fingers in your ears and your eyes closed.'

'No! I... I... You're right, I can hear them! I can see them! I...'

The zombies, crashing out of the bushes, their arms outstretched.

'...can see... them...'

And yet, at the same time, they weren't there.

'...in my mind. I can see them in my mind, but...' But, to Domnic's astonishment, that was all.

'Result!' crowed the Doctor.

'What... what... what do you...'

'You're cured! For the time being, anyway.'

'Cured? Cured of what?'

'Microorganisms,' announced the Doctor, 'smaller than a single proton, thriving in the atmosphere of this world. They're all around us. They were in your brain until the feedback from my scanner drove them out. Won't work for ever, though. Give it a few hours, they'll be back.'

'You... you mean...' Domnic put a hand to his head, tried to concentrate. They were still in there, the zombies, but trapped somewhere deep down, where they couldn't get out.

He felt a sudden rush of fear. 'You've taken them from me. How can I... I can't feel my dreams any more, how can I write again? What have you done to me?'

The Doctor looked put out by his ingrat.i.tude. 'You'll get used to it,' he sniffed. 'Your dreams might be less vivid now, but they're safe. You can dream bigger dreams, without being afraid. Who knows? You might even dream something worthwhile, one day.'

And then he was off again, crashing through the jungle so that Domnic had to scramble to keep up with him even as his mind was racing to make sense of what he had said. Microorganisms? What did that mean? It sounded like fiction to him it sounded like science science fiction but there was no doubt that the Doctor had done something to him, fiction but there was no doubt that the Doctor had done something to him, changed changed something. something.

And he found himself wondering what it would be like to be able to dream like the Doctor. To be be like him. Or like Rose Tyler to travel with this strange and wonderful man in his blue cabinet. To have his mind blown like this every day. To be the Doctor's friend, his a.s.sistant, his companion. like him. Or like Rose Tyler to travel with this strange and wonderful man in his blue cabinet. To have his mind blown like this every day. To be the Doctor's friend, his a.s.sistant, his companion.

Somehow, he just couldn't imagine it.

THIRTEEN.

He had left it too late to struggle. By the time he realised what they were doing to him, he had been too badly outnumbered. His chances of getting away had been practically zero. So he'd kept up the pretence of cooperating with them, for a second too long.

Until Nurse Tyko had told him what would happen next.

And then Jack had struggled all right, pulling with all his strength at the straps that secured his wrists above his head to the cold metal trolley. It had taken the orderlies minutes to catch his kicking feet and to strap down his ankles, and he had given them a few good bruises in the process.

He hadn't cried out, though, hadn't shouted in anger or begged for mercy. He hadn't wasted his strength.

Tyko escorted him as far as the lift. As the doors rumbled shut between them, Jack strained his stomach muscles to lift his head, to shoot one final look of contempt at the young nurse. He wasn't sure what reaction to expect. Would he be ashamed and look away? Or would he gloat over his victory?

He did neither. Tyko's eyes were blank, neither happy nor sad about Jack's fate. As if it meant nothing to him: another day, another name on his pad.

The lift doors opened again and Jack was wheeled out into the less sterile surroundings of the ground floor the old part of the house, where the squeak of the trolley's front left wheel was softened by carpet. The ceiling was woodtimbered and the lights left blurred trails in front of his eyes as they rolled by.

Then strips of a heavy, transparent plastic batted briefly about his head and he was in a different part of the asylum altogether. A new part, one of the extensions he had seen from outside. A part where the walls and the ceiling, like those in the central block, were a dirty offwhite, where an antiseptic smell filled the air along with a faint whiff of ozone.

And a part where somebody was screaming, yelling their throat raw. Then the scream gave way to a plaintive whimper, which subsided in turn.

Jack could almost have believed that the sounds had been staged a way of heightening his antic.i.p.ation of what was to come except that antic.i.p.ation was probably illegal here.

This wasn't happening. No way did Captain Jack Harkness go out like this. He was fated to die in a blaze of glory, at a time and place of his own choosing when and where it really mattered not to live out his days as a vegetable on some backwater world. He was sure of that, confident in his own abilities. He would get out of this. He just didn't know how yet.

He hadn't struggled when they bound his wrists. But he had, instinctively, tensed his muscles and held his clenched fists as far away from the trolley as he could. The orderlies had thought they'd yanked his straps tight, but Jack had gained a little leeway around his right wrist. Just a little, no more. He'd been pulling on the strap ever since, surrept.i.tiously. He had been able to work it up to the base of his thumb, but it wouldn't slide over.

He was wheeled into a basic operating theatre, where a red sterilising light cast everything in a harsh glare. Against it, the face of his surgeon was a hazy shadow with his nose and mouth obscured by a halfmask but Jack had no problems seeing the tool he was wielding.

The surgeon thumbed a switch on the side of the pensized device and a thin wire extruded from it, its end flaring alight like a captured miniature star.

'I don't want you to worry,' said the surgeon. 'I'm just going to thread this wire up your nose. The brain has no pain receptors, so you shouldn't feel a thing. It's a simple procedure, not very delicate at all. It'll be over in seconds and you'll retain control over most of your bodily functions.'

'You oughtta know,' bluffed Jack, 'I'm a time agent, come here to investigate why this planet of yours is so backward. Harm me and you'll have a hundred warships up your b.u.t.t before you can blink.'

'Yes, well, Mr Harkness,' said the surgeon, not unkindly, 'that's exactly the sort of lie we'll be hoping not to hear from you again.'

And he leaned forward, until the glowing end of the wire filled Jack's world.

Jack was pulling on the loose strap with all his might, in danger of wrenching his right thumb from its socket, not caring if he did. But even if he could get one hand free, what good would it do him? He'd hoped the orderlies would have left by now, but they were standing around, on guard. Six of them plus the surgeon.

Fortunately, Jack wasn't alone either.

He knew, as soon as he heard the shriek of the alarm, that the Doctor or Rose, and maybe both, would be behind it. He was still getting used to that: to the fact that he didn't have to pull the rabbit out of his own hat every time now.

The orderlies checked their pagers and looked at each other, uncertain whether to answer the call if it meant leaving their infamous prisoner unguarded. The surgeon, his burning light no longer in Jack's eyes, made the choice for them, chivvying them out. 'If this patient ever was a danger to me,' he insisted, 'he won't be for much longer.'

With a squelching of bones, Jack finally pulled his hand free. He wrapped the empty strap around his fingers, trying to disguise what he'd done. Until the surgeon leaned over him again.

Then Jack tried to s.n.a.t.c.h his pen device but the surgeon reacted just too fast, pulling away, backing out of the range of Jack's next swipe, calling for help.

Jack just hoped the alarm was too loud for the surgeon's voice to be heard, hoped that he could free his other limbs before the orderlies came back.

He was still fumbling with the strap around his other wrist when the surgeon lunged at him, brandishing a liquidfilled hypodermic. Some sort of anaesthetic, no doubt. Jack caught his attacker's arm before the needle could puncture his skin, but he was struggling onehanded against two and the force of his efforts was so great that his trolley tipped onto its side, crashing to the floor with a jarring impact, so that Jack was splayed vertically like a mounted fish.

The surgeon had lost his grip on the hypo. It skittered to the floor beside Jack, who crushed it with his fist. While the surgeon was rushing to prepare another dose, Jack untied his left hand and made short work of his ankle straps.

The surgeon was coming at him again, and Jack grabbed the trolley and raised it above his head as a shield. Scrambling to his feet, he drove his attacker backwards into the clear door of a freezer cabinet, rattling the bottles within. While the surgeon was winded, Jack dropped the trolley and floored him with a punch to the jaw.

He whirled around to greet two returning orderlies.

The fight was short but sweet, and Jack won it by two knockouts. But the alarm siren had cut off and he knew his distraction was over.