CONSIDER YOURSELF MSTed

[J2rider]

ALL IN GOOD FUN

CROW: Oh look a title

<,Eighth Doctor Books>>

TOM: Are we going to be watching...uh reading ...oh look another title...

<History 101 - excerpt>>

MIKE: Thank goodness we're going back to high school.

CROW: Uh, Mike, since Mags is a girl shouldn't we say HerStory 101?

<<<A stone clattered, the sound sharp in the brittle night>>>>>>>>>

TOM: Mike, pass the peanut brittle.

MIKE: Wha?

TOM: It's brittle night.

<<< silence.>>>>

MIKE: Shh, silence.

<<<< Barcelona was, in this part at least, asleep.>>>>>>

CROW: Why'd Barcelona's mom would name him after a whole country...

MIKE: This is DOCTOR WHO so it's probably a whole planet named Barcelona that
was moved by the Time Lords.

>>>> Distant engines would occasionally roar,>>>>>>>>>

MIKE: So would my grandmother.

TOM: After eating some peanut brittle.

<<< the noise carrying miles,>>>>

CROW: Yeah and the smell too.

<< sounding so much closer in the stillness, reverberating around the blackened
bell towers. There was an echo as a wooden beam shifted, then muttered
cursing.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

CROW: Mike, can echoes curse?

MIKE: Shut up %$#%$%##%%#$ that #@@#$%#.

CROW: Thanks Mike. YOu always show me what works and what doesn't.

TOM: Alot like this prose.

<<<Doménec Sugrañes >>>>>

MIKE: Anyone pronounce this the same way twice.

TOM: Betcha can't just say it once.

CROW: Yeah and get it right.

<<<closed his eyes briefly>>>>>>>

TOM: Not if he is reading this. It will be a long time before he opens them
again.

<<<< and offered up a mumbled prayer to a God he had started to doubt.>>>>>

MIKE: Of course, this is DOCTOR WHO so there is no god.

<<<, Behind him, Juan cursed again,>>>
profaning the site.>>>>>>>>>.

CROW: Is that the set up that means Juan is really an echo come to life from
the dawn of time?

<<<< The stonemason had always been respectful before but the war had changed
him.
'This still reeks of ashes,' he said to the old architect, 'We will find
nothing more.'

Sugrañes opened his eyes and looked upwards. Above him, the bright moon made
silver clouds glow.>>>>>>>>>>

TOM: Respectfully isn't it the sun's light being reflected off the moon that
makes the clouds glow and indeed makes them silver at all.

<<< Even with his head tilted far back he could glimpse, right on the edge of
his perception,>>>>>>>>>>>.

CROW: Yeah and I'm on the edge of my seat.

TOM: Yeah, ready to nod...uh, fall off at any moment...

<<< the four fingers of the towers reaching upwards,>>>>>>>>>>>

TOM: I've got a couple...no scratch that...I've got one finger perfectly
balanced in the middle of my hand for this novel...

MIKE: Hey....

<<<< stretching up to touch the heavens. Changing the tilt of his head, the
structures rose higher until the moon was held within them. >>>>>>>>>.

CROW: Huh?!

MIKE: It's Doctor Who, structures can do that but only if it is in a Doctor Who
novel.

<<<Although, he realised, the analogy was all wrong:>>>>>>

TOM: Not for the first time in this book.

<<<< were the church really a giant hand, he would be standing in its palm,
gazing up at the night sky.>>>>>>>>

MIKE: Hey suddenly it's LAND OF THE GIANTS.

CROW: No, then that would mean it would be good.

<<< Not that standing about here was a good idea.>>>>>

CROW: Yeah, okay, I agree, let's go.
TOM: Outta here.
MIKE: yeah guys let's go...

<<<He turned back to his fellow looter. Looter!>>>>

MIKE:LOOTER!
CROW: LOOTER!
TOM: LOOTER!

<<< He who had worked on the structure for thirty years, who could still
remember the Master>>>>>>>>>>>>

CROW: The Master!
MIKE: THE MASTER!
TOM: the mas...snore.....

<<< sleeping in the workshop.>>>>>

CROW: Santa!!!!

<<<< Twenty years since the accident that had left them with sketches and
models>>>

TOM: Boy, if only remnants of accidents are that easy to deal with.

<<< the only clues to how the final building should look. Less than twenty
weeks since the site had been torched and vandalised, the workshop smashed.
Rubble and weeds were already encroaching on the crypt. Water must have poured
in at some point, wearing at the plaster models that had survived, smudging the
ink of the sketches.>>>>>>>

TOM: Sounds like a night in the offices of WARREN PUBLISHING.

<<< So each night, once the city had settled, Sugrañes would lead Juan here.
Creeping back to the church where once they had worked, >>>>>>>>>>>>>

MIKE: Does anyone really work in a church?

<<<their livelihood gone in the fervour of anti-Catholism. >>>>>>>.

CROW: Looters!
TOM: Oh here we go, anti Catholics.
MIKE: Even in space no one can hear you hate.

<<<<Sugrañes was thankful God had saved them from the mobs - you heard such
tales of the murders of priests>>>>>

TOM: Yeah especially nowadays.

<<< - but he wasn't sure he wanted to have survived, now he was reduced to
scavenging in the ruins of his old life, trying to recover the past.>>>>>>>>>.

CROW: Kinda like Doctor Who fans in general.

<<<He'd slip through the side-streets, mouthing revolutionary slogans if he was
stopped, calling the vandals>>>>>

CROW: Vandals! Oh, I mean LOOTERS!

<<<< that had done this 'comrade'. >>>>

MIKE: He god don done 'is comrade, man.

<<<Then clambering over the rubbish-strewn courtyard, >>>>>

TOM: We KNOW it has rubbish and it is strewn okay!!!!!?

<<<<moving aside a beam and down into the ruins of the workshop to cart back a
few fragments of sodden paper, or another piece of smashed modelwork.>>>>>

MIKE: The effects work of the TV show.

<<< Every moment he expected to hear a shout, running boots, guards arresting
them, finding his cache of reclaimed work and destroying it for a second time.
Juan disbelieving that they would find anything more. Tonight, they had paused
after the stone had fallen, waiting to be sure they were
safe.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

CROW: Mike is a pregnant pause?

MIKE: Yeah Rosemary's ....

<<<<Nothing.>>>>>

CROW: Aren't you not supposed to sum up your whole book this early on?

<<<Sugrañes>>>>>>

MIKE: Sugar Frees?

<<< crouched>>>>

CROW: I didn't think crotches could be in these new improved adult free BBC
novels.

MIKE: That's crouched. As in bent...

CROW: oh. Oh, so...

TOM: HE'S BENT....

CROW: Down!!!

<<<<< by the rough entrance, one thin hand gripping a stone edge. He was
surprised, even after weeks of this, to realise it was shaking. Raising his
head to make a final check that they were unobserved,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

TOM: This guy sure does a lot of things with his head, raising it, looking up
at the night sky...tilting it...he's like a ride at Adventureland...

<<<< he thought he caught a glimpse of movement up on the nativity
cloister,>>>>>

MIKE: Maybe it's the moon glowing on something or the building catching that
giant or something like that...

<<<< something flickering. A guard lighting a cigarette?>>>>>>>>>>>>

MIKE: Why does Barcelona seem like another planet?

CROW: Because every Doctor Who novel has to have the past or the future or the
present seem like something EVIVIVIVIL IS happening.

<<<< He froze, eyes straining towards the spot where he had thought he saw
something.>>>>>>>>>

TOM: what! What already! Tell us what it is! Enough!

MIKE: It's allright Tom.

<<< There was no telltale>>>>>>

CROW: NO tale told here.

<<<< flare of orange, no drag taken on a cigarette. The cloister was enclosed
on the far side so no moonlight illuminated it: instead the back light made the
area blacker than tar.>>>>>>>>>>>>

CROW: The cloister! The Cloister Bell!

MIKE: Answer it then go on.

<<<<There. Something pale flitted behind the pillars >>>>>

TOM: Winona Ryder?

<<<<and Sugrañes reached out to grab Juan's arm.>>>>>>>>>>

MIKE: Reachout and grab someone, especially if you're stuck on a satellite of
love.

TOM: Or reading this crap.

<<<< The younger stonemason stared upwards and nodded.>>>>>>>

TOM: Now someone's nodding again. Great, two pages of people moving their
heads.

<<< Yes, there was movement, too big to be a pigeon or seagull. >>>>>>

CROW: oPPS sorry about that.

MIKE: Awww, Crow, Gypsy's gotta clean that up.

GYPSY: Aw, oh Mike don't worry, I don't mind.

<<<Sugrañes stepped away from the entrance, turning his head to try to see what
it was.>>>>>

MIKE, CROW AND TOM turn their heads to see too.

<<< There was another flicker of movement, almost jagged. He thought, wildly
and briefly, that it was one of the smashed figures from the front of the
nativity come to life.>>>>>>>>>.

TOM: Good, I can use a Bible truth right about now to make my hate for this
writer go away.

<<<< Which was foolish, a product of his own trembling mind. He couldn't see it
at all now.>>>>>>>>>>

MIKE: See what?

<<<<It was right in front of them. Glowing, screaming. A devil of light.
Lacking proper form or definition. It moved unnaturally, like a flickbook
animation Sugrañes had once made.>>>>>>>>>>>.

MIKE: Yahoo Serious?

<<<< He backed away slowly, letting his feet fumble across the rubble, edging
towards the burnt-out school building. He glanced at Juan and was astonished to
see the reprobate crossing himself and muttering the catechism. The devil was
becoming more defined, angles protruding as elbows, shoulders. >>>>>>>>

TOM: DAMIAN, I AM FOR YOUUUUUU!

<<<Sugrañes felt the iron bars of the gate at his back.>>>>>>>>>>>>

CROW: I didn't see that coming.

<<<<'Juan?' he tried calling, but the mason was still staring at the devil,
Latin still falling from his lips.>>>>>>>>>>>>

TOM: dAMIANVOOO, ARK MED...DAMIANVOO AKRMEADDDD

<<<< Sugrañes turned and fled.>>>>>

MIKE: Finally someone in the prolog of a DOCTOR WHO book does something
sensible and runs! Guess he won't get killed like the other 280 ancillary
characters in the Doctor Who prologs do...

<<<<Maggs L. Halliday >>>>>>>

CROW: Who's that?

TOM: the guilty party?

MIKE: We have movie...uh, novel break.

<<<Doctor Who is © BBC. All rights reserved.>>>>>

TOM: Yeah and they're welcome to it.