(MAIN RANGE): Genesis of The Humans - Part Two

 

(MAIN RANGE): Genesis of the Humans Part Two

Part 1 available Here

Men with spears advancing. Fire crackling. Harry and the Doctor squirming in their ropes. Monkeys snarling in the dark, the dark snarling with them. Sarah, eyes closed, hoping the Doctor’s plan would work. Knives slashing through the air, and then through the ropes. First the Doctor’s, then Harry’s, then Sarah’s. More snarling. The monkeys advanced. The chanting from the cavemen continued, merciless. Sarah was sick to her stomach - dying from some primitive ritual, and for what? And then...

Nothing. The monkeys had disappeared. Vanished, into thin air.

Harry was shocked. The early humans retreated and thrust their flaming torches forward, dumbfounded as to why they could no longer see something - a very large group of somethings - that was there just a second ago. They started muttering between themselves, then stopped. How do you talk about something you don’t understand when you barely have basic intelligence anyway? Maybe that was just something monkeys could do.

Everyone sort of sat in silence for a bit, contemplating what had just happened. Until-

“Doctor? Can you hear what I’m hearing?” Harry said.

Something was materialising - a great grey capsule swallowed up by time like it was a pill with a swig of water, and then spat out in the now empty forest clearing in front of Harry, with a sound that may have sounded like a horrendous wheezing if he didn’t already associate it with the safety of the Doctor’s timeship. 

“It’s... another TARDIS,” the Doctor confirmed, as it stabilised its form into a large boulder. A boulder with a door. A boulder with an open door. A boulder with an open door, with a man in brown robes standing in the frame, arm outstretched. Bright, almost heavenly light was pouring out from behind him.

“Come with me,” he said.

“I say,” the Doctor said, grinning, then frowning. “The Meddling Monk. Sorry, almost didn’t recognise you with your heroism.”

“Quickly, Doctor!” Harry said, making his way towards the TARDIS.

“Oh, yes yes yes,” he replied, following, with Sarah close behind him. 

- - - - - 

The halls were always dirty. Being the janitor of a place where time was an accessory that went in and out of fashion and people admired with a quick remark at the door seemed almost cruel. Or sad. Or funny, if you’re that kind of person. Being just a step away from doing something truly unique with your life but instead being confined to scrubbing away at grime that can appear and disappear at the flap of a butterfly’s wings; completely out of your control. It probably says something about society.

Emilia Cordell didn’t have a name. That seems like a contradiction. It is, but also isn’t. That’s another contradiction. The floor Emilia was mopping up was holding up a few dozen ornate, wooden pillars. These, in turn, were holding up a ceiling. On the other side of that ceiling was a floor (presumably one a pensive Emilia would have to scrub in the next few days while higher-ups chuckled at her.) This floor held up a selection of ornate pillars, which, in turn, held up a ceiling. Repeat a few dozen times (or a few hundred, on Thursdays) and you would reach a large neon sign. It read ‘Empty Space.’ 

Unless you were... special. Then, the sign showed - very clearly - ‘Recruitment Office.’

You weren’t supposed to have names at Empty Space. A courtesy maybe. Or something far more sinister. But Emilia Cordell didn’t have it in her to abandon what she had. She didn’t have a particular attachment to the set of syllables that formed her name, nor the kinds of people that tended to say it - many disappointed at something or other she had done. But it was hers. Hers only. Just, hers. Her Empty Space name was Cousin Laura. It had some significance. Not to her, but to the universe - or so she was told. Something akin to a spacetime Bible passage, she supposed. 

Everyone was Cousin Something. Well, apart from...

She paused. Her mop nearly fell from her hand. 

*No. He didn’t exist.*

*Did he?*

For someone that didn’t exist, he had sure made an impression on Emilia. She could see his face in every shadow, though she had never seen him in person. And the skulls. Mounted on walls around every corner, the skulls. Bottomless eye sockets staring out, more full of life than some of the people at Empty Space she had seen walking around. 

“Hello?” A noise had startled her.

*Probably nothing, just all these skulls being all creepy.*

“I’m afraid it isn’t nothing, it’s something - like most things.”

“How... how do you know what I’m thinking? Who are you?” Emilia was shocked at her own confidence. 

“That’s a very big question.” The man seemed to emerge from a shadow that Emilia hadn’t noticed. One that seemed to disappear as soon as he walked out of it. She wasn’t sure how she could tell he was a man. His voice seemed almost robotic in its neutrality. Never mind gendering features, it had no features of any kind. 

“Why... why are you here? No one is allowed inside the building at these hours.”

“The people above and below would beg to differ.” He smirked. He had no face. Why had it taken her so long to notice? *How did I notice the voice before his face?*

The *mask* was smirking. Not him, the mask. Metal and bone contorting into a sly grin. It took Emilia effort to even question that it was out of the ordinary. People wore masks at Empty Space. Most people. Almost everyone. Leather and silver and bone. Iron and gold. Rusted emerald and bleeding diamond. She even had a mask of her own. The skull of a large bird. But this man... the mask seemed to be a part of him. There was no seam between his flesh and the ivory. They were just... together. 

“I have authority here, you know.” Emilia did not know how long she had paused.

“Let’s just say I have monkey business to attend to.”

“What?”

“You’re the janitor, right? Go to floor 32, room 17 on corridor 1. Tell them that. Exactly that. Monkey business. Go on, they’ll know what I mean.”

“Who... who should I say it’s from?”

“I’m Whippersnapper Paradox. You may have heard of my grandfather.”

- - - - - 

“Is this your doing?”

“Something possibly rash. Maybe.”

“Answer me Monk,” the Doctor snapped. “What happened to all the monkeys? Hmm?”

“Gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“Ok. Let’s say, hypothetically, that someone - not me - was having a nice retirement. In prehistory. Chilling with cavemen. Monkeys. A nice, warm savannah for me - I mean, this hypothetical person - to lie in. Now let’s say that one of the monkeys maybe, possibly started to... talk?”

“Well that’s just ridiculous,” Harry scoffed. “Monkeys don’t talk, simple as.”

“Well this one did, OK? Can you tell your pet human to stay quiet please. I tell you what, he’s a far cry from that boy Steven.”

“Eh?”

“It doesn’t matter, Harry,” the Doctor cut in. “Nothing to take offence about. He’s just stalling.”

“How very perceptive of you.” The Monk continued the story. “Now, this man, who, may I remind you, only exists for the sake of argument, has a time machine. And-“

“You wiped monkeys from existence.”

“W... what?”

“The little Time Lord was scared of the talking monkey and decided to rid the universe of them because it’s something he doesn’t understand!” The Doctor kicked the console. Sarah stepped back, in shock. “Maybe, just *maybe*, if you decided to try to *understand* things instead of playing around so irresponsibly with time, you’d actually get somewhere.”

“This isn’t my planet, Doctor. It’s the equivalent of a Petri dish for me. A curiosity. Sure, I aim to make the humans’ lives better - which I have - but they’re just a little experiment. If they benefit from my... meddling, as you call it, good for them. If not, oh well. We’re *Time Lords*! The mighty do not serve the feeble.”

“How pathetic. Do you realise the damage you may have done? Evolution tipped off its axis... the entire universe could change.”

“Well it hasn’t.”

“Hasn’t it? How do you know? You’ve given a fundamental of nature a big kick in a very inconvenient direction, it might take some time for the effects to be felt.”

“Nonsense. I won’t destroy the universe because I got rid of some monkeys. That’s ridiculous. Didn’t you learn anything at the Academy? Or were you too busy sneaking off doing who knows what with-“

“That’s about enough of that, hmm? You’re acting all pompous, it doesn’t suit you. You were brave to escape the Time Lords, Mortimus, oh so brave.” Sarah saw a glint of sincerity in the Doctor’s eyes, a little spark of genuine appreciation. “But what was the point if you’re just going to be like this...”

- - - - - 

“Why was this a good idea?” Whippersnapper Paradox was sat in a chair, far more casual than his usual, ominous self. His mask had contorted itself into a seemingly permanent dissatisfaction with basically everything in the past few hours. KFC running out of chicken was a gaffe. The Republican Party running out of easy-to-twist-for-their-own-agenda Bible quotes was a tragedy. But Faction Paradox running out of aesthetically badass skull masks? Unheard of. 

The chattering in the corridors became deafening, to the extent that Whippersnapper had to send an agent back in time to invent a new kind of soundproof wall. The intricate woodwork of the patterns on the walls had been vandalised beyond repair, and all manner of prehistoric bodily fluids swamped the floor. He briefly thought back to the janitor he had met in the hallway a few hours ago, Cousin Laura. She would likely not be very happy with tomorrow’s work. 

Ten thousand monkeys were packed into the corridors, swinging from chandeliers where there were chandeliers and the necks of giant laser weapons where there were giant laser weapons.

An entire species wiped from existence by an amoral, careless time traveller? One so influential and vital to the history of the universe? Humanity itself birthed from such a primitive race., and that primitive race, all gone? Perfect for a time travelling voodoo cult that worships paradoxes, he had thought. Recruit them all, what a good idea, he had thought. This is awful, he was thinking. 

Every single room of every single floor bar the very top one smelled of body odour and rotten fruit, with the metallic hint of iron that you normally couldn’t make out except when multiplied by ten thousand, and coming from the straps of elaborate face coverings shaped like the skulls of primitive humans.

It was going to be a long day.

- - - - - 

TO LOCATE A PRIME SPOT TO STRIKE AT THE HEART OF HUMANITY, YOU WILL NEED TO SURVEY THEIR POPULATION. The Dalek Time Strategist shined purple in the savannah sun, its plasma core pulsing like a living, beating heart. YOU WILL INFILTRATE THEIR RANKS AS AN EVEN MORE PRIMITIVE SPECIES, AND OBSERVE THEM. YOU WILL USE SUPERIOR CLOAKING TECHNOLOGY OTHER ADVANCED RACES CAN ONLY DREAM OF, AND RETURN TO A PRIMITIVE, APE STATE. IT IS A FLAWLESS PLAN, WITH NOT A SINGLE THING THAT CAN GO WRONG. NO TIME LORDS WITH THEIR EYES ON EARTH WILL SUSPECT A THING, AND NO NATIVE HUMANS WILL ‘BAT AN EYELID’, TO USE AN EARTH EXPRESSION. REJECT MODERNITY, EMBRACE MONKEY!

REJECT MODERNITY, EMBRACE MONKEY! The two bronze Daleks chanted. REJECT MODERNITY, EMBRACE MONKEY! REJECT MODERNITY, EMBRACE MONKEY! REJECT MODERNITY, EMBRACE MONKEY!

- - - - - 

“We’ve arrived.” The Doctor hadn’t taken his eyes off the Monk, and instead had ordered Harry Sullivan to input the coordinates of the TARDIS’ new destination. The plan was to survey the area around the point of the mass disappearance, and see if any anomalies were beginning to emerge. 

They had landed in a forest clearing, but not *that* one. The cavemen were nowhere to be seen, but small flickers of light speckled the murky view of the forest - they were clearly still close by, and not much time had passed. 

“See, Doctor, nothing to worry about!” The Monk had faltered meekly out of the TARDIS like a wounded animal but now strode around, taking deep breaths of the jungle air and viewed each and every tree branch with enthusiasm. Sarah-Jane and Harry exited after him, sceptical.

“Well, my boy, there seem to be no side-effects at all.” The Doctor tugged at his scarf and brushed some dirt and a leaf off his red velvet jacket. “But don’t think you’re let off this time. Oh no no no. There’s still much to investigate. Just because there are no, oh I don’t know, giant glowing cracks or anachronistic flying cars or giant time squid does not mean what you have done is acceptable, hmm?”

Suddenly, the Doctor faltered back, and fell to his knees. 

“Doctor!” Sarah and Harry shouted in unison.

Mumbling something in a grave tone, the Doctor keeled over - his head swimming - and erupted. From each arm and leg a bright, orange light burst. The Monk looked on, fascinated, while Sarah - although she knew what was happening - was terrified. 

The Doctor screamed.

- - - - -

Whippersnapper Paradox regarded his drink. He had chosen something with an overbearing smell, thinking that a dash of summer fruits could counter his worries, although his worries were... *unique*. Plundering the Faction’s wine cellar that his Grandfather had established (strictly off-limits) had made for a relaxing little side-adventure while the staff at Empty Space continued to work on supplying new masks for the recruits. He had seen Cousin Riley wrestling what looked to be an orangutan with a Quark Gun earlier. He made a note to himself to catch up with them after work - they owed him negative twenty pounds. 

He swirled the drink around, watching the remaining unshattered crystals on the chandelier above him reflect light in elegant patterns onto his glass. The liquid was a deep red, the colour of writers’ faces when they see another writer describe a villain’s drink as looking like blood. 

River berries from Arguilos, that were wiped out by a nuclear bomb that fell through a rift at the climax of a bitter war. The black strawberry of Tygon, found on only one bush at the North Pole of a solitary asteroid that was yet to exist. The Pineapple at the End of the Universe. Some say the drink was made a year before the Big Bang. 

“And that’s all of them. Excellent.” The ten thousand, four hundred and thirty seventh monkey smiled happily at the mask being lowered down onto his face by a Cousin. Whippersnapper Paradox wiped his brow, and took a long gulp of his wine. He had calmed, equipped, and begun to train four thousand of those monkeys himself. The grandfather clock showed the same time as when Whippersnapper had glanced at it near the start of the project (when his villainous bravado was much higher and his blood-alcohol concentration much lower) - which meant that anywhere between half a day and multiple years had passed.

He sucked his mask’s (figurative) dead mackerel eyes back in, and attempted to look a presentable enigmatic. He let out one of his monotone chuckles. “This is the bit where I get inter-“

“SURRENDER YOUR MONKEYS TO THE DAAAAALEK EMPIRE.”

- - - - -

‘Why are the Daleks even/still/prominently in this story/episode/novelisation of a pretend audio?’ is a very valid question. It should be abundantly clear by this point that the talking monkey that startled Mortimus in the opening scene was, in fact, a Dalek, partaking in the Time Strategist’s nefarious plan to displace humanity from existence. Had different words been chosen and scenes shuffled around, the revelation may still be a surprise. However, it is not. The talking monkey is not at all convincing, and uses very Dalek vocabulary. The three monkeys on the cover match the three Daleks that were supposed to be at the meeting. The title *Genesis of the Humans* implies undercover agents will be sent back in time, similar to television’s *Genesis of the Daleks*. It’s not very convincing. Funny, maybe. But in no way a solid mystery. And now they’ve just lost. If monkeys never existed how did the Daleks disguise themselves as monkeys? What did they hide amongst? To solve the much more compelling mystery of how and why this plot thread still exists in a story with the Doctor mid-regeneration in a universe about to be ravaged by Faction Bananadox, I present to you, dear reader, a flashback. 

ARE YOU AWARE OF THE EARTH MAJOR MOTION PICTURE KNOWN AS AVATAR? An ape with a long tail, bushy black fur and a very convincingly-disguised set of etheric beam locators was attempting to make small-talk with a colleague: a fatter monkey slumped over, and trying to pay attention to something exciting that was happening on the other side of what was locally known as the spooky monkey forest. 

INFORMATION CONCERNING THE EARTH MAJOR MOTION PICTURE KNOWN AS AVATAR IS IRRELEVANT DURING FIELD MISSIONS.

WOULD IT BE RELEVANT OUTSIDE OF FIELD MISSIONS?

YOU CLAIM IT IS RELEVANT NOW. SURPRISE ME. 

THE EARTH MAJOR MOTION PICTURE KNOWN AS AVATAR RELEASED IN THEATRES IN EARTH YEAR TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT, WHERE IT GAINED MIXED RECEPTION, WITH CRITICS AND AUDIENCES ALIKE PRAISING THE GROUNDBREAKING VISUAL EFFECTS BUT FINDING THE STORYLINE TO BE DERIVATIVE AND UNDERDEVELOPED DESPITE THE RUNTIME.

I DO NOT SEE THE POINT IN THIS CONVERSATION.

DURING THE STORY, THE HUMAN PROTAGONIST JAKE SULLY AND HIS COMPANIONS INSERT THEMSELVES INTO THE BODIES OF THE NATIVE NA’VI TO INFILTRATE THEIR RANKS AND ACQUIRE INFORMATION. It should now be mentioned that the Avatar enthusiast Dalek was the one not at the initial meeting, for reasons that may or may not already be clear. 

ARE YOU IMPLYING THAT WE ARE SOMEHOW SIMILAR TO THE PROTAGONISTS OF THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE AVATAR, SIMPLY BECAUSE WE ARE INFILTRATING A NATIVE SETTLEMENT USING THEIR BODIES?

YES.

THE LINK IS TENUOUS. The less enthused monkey was scratching their back with a stick, an action part of the cloaking device. The increasingly loud chanting of what sounded to be cavemen intrigued it far more. Specks of orange, yellow and brilliant red lit up the forest like a faraway swarm of fireflies, exposing the bared teeth and piercing eyes of dozens of beastly apes.

I AM TRYING MY BEST HERE TO IMITATE PRIMITIVE HUMAN CONVERSATION. WE CONVERSE ABOUT POPULAR CULTURAL ARTIFACTS AND RELATE THEM TO OUR CURRENT LIFE EXPERIENCES TO COMPENSATE FOR A LACK OF PERSONALITY. 

MOTION PICTURES HAVE NOT YET BEEN INVENTED. YOUR WORK IS BOTH IRRITATING AND FUTILE. 

I... MAY HAVE DOWNLOADED A CULTURAL BRIEFING ABOUT THE WRONG TIME PERIOD. 

THAT IS QUITE A BIG MISTAKE TO MAKE. WE ARE AMONG MONKEYS, NOT FILM STUDIES STUDENTS. 

I... MAY HAVE MISSED THE MEETING WHERE THIS WAS DISCUSSED...

THAT IS IN NO WAY AN ADEQUATE EXPLANATION FOR THIS INCOMREHENSIBLE SET OF ACTIONS. WHAT WERE YOU DOING DURING THE ALLOCATED TIME FOR THE MEETING?

WATCHING AVATAR. Suddenly, the monkeys all disappeared. Just, *plop*. *Blip*. *Thwap*. Snapped out of reality. WAS THIS ALSO DISCUSSED AT THE MEETING?

The third remaining monkey approached them. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS? EXPLAIN!

THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. THERE IS NO LOGICAL REASON FOR THIS TO HAPPEN. WE MUST ALERT THE STRATEGIST.

NO. IF MY CURRENT CALCULATIONS ARE CORRECT, I MAY KNOW WHERE THE MONKEYS HAVE GONE. OUR DISGUISES WILL NO LONGER BE NECESSARY. WE WILL RETURN TO SUPERIOR DALEK FORM AND CONTINUE WITH BASIC DALEK STRATAGEM.

REJECT MONKEY! EMBRACE DALEK! SEEK, LOCATE, DESTROY! the other two chanted. REJECT MONKEY! EMBRACE DALEK! SEEK, LOCATE, DESTROY!

- - - - -

“Doc...tor?” Harry said.

Groaning like he had just woken up, a very different man struggled to a standing position, still wearing the same familiar red velvet coat and outrageous scarf.

“Oh my. Very grave indeed, time meddler.” The Doctor seemed to have aged decades. 

Harry understood regeneration to be a process where the Doctor - because he’s an alien and of course he can do that - can completely change his physical appearance on the event of death. While he had only once, very briefly, met the previous Doctor, he seemed to be an entirely distinct man. Harry recalled a shock of grey hair - going white - and a very charming persona. He was full of ‘old chap’s and ‘dear fellow’s, and he had a fantastic smile. 

In the weeks of the Doctor’s absence at UNIT, information had been compiled from the Brigadier and Sarah about what exactly caused the previous Doctor’s presumed death. Not realising he was very soon going to be meeting giant robots, wasps from space and maniacal inventors, the story came off as quite the farfetched caper. Giant spiders? Disabled men becoming... renewed? Healed? Fixed? A great civilisation’s power held in crystals in a glowing, blue cave? It all seemed so alien. And now, Harry lived that life all the time. It’s something, while he didn’t often make it known, he loved with all his heart. And he couldn’t imagine another man being his guide through all of the madness...

The Doctor seemed dazed; disoriented. He twisted at his finger as if searching for a ring that wasn’t there, and eyed Sarah and Harry curiously. 

“Oh,” was all the Monk could manage.

“Oh? Oh? Is that all you can say for yourself, young man? I am now living proof what you have done is causing the universe a great deal of trouble indeed. Lungbarrow. Quences. The Hand. Quinnis. Chesterfield. Anti-radiation gloves. Rome.” The Doctor let out another scream.

Harry, Sarah and the Monk all stepped back, startled. 

The Doctor shouted at the sky. “Vortis! Troy! Barbara and Susan. Alexander the Great!” He started back clutching his stomach, as if he had been shot. 

A vein on his neck pulsed and twitched; his face seemed to flicker between a grin and a pained frown, and he was stumbling around, struggling to stand still. “Arabs. Arabs, Arabs, Arabs.” And then, he stopped. 

Suddenly, Harry remembered something else from UNIT’s official synopsis of the Doctor’s disappearance. Traditional Buddhist prayer being used to summon evil spiders that possessed people? Harry had always thought that sounded incredibly insensitive, and he literally despised women. 

“Doctor?” Sarah said, worried about her friend. 

“I may be stabilising. But probably not for long. This form is impossible. The timeline is being rewritten. I seem to have-“

“-reverse regenerated,” the Monk continued. “You’re in the form I saw you in when we met in Northumbria. Your first form.”

“I’m back. Again, this shouldn’t be possible.”

CORRECT. 

“A Dalek!” Sarah-Jane exclaimed.

“Oh, no, don’t tell me they’re involved as well. This is madness!” Harry added.

“I’m afraid the universe has had its fair share of madness today.” The shadowy depths of the nighttime forest produced another creature - a figure with a mask wrought in bone and iron. “We’re here to put a stop to it. I’m Whippersnapper Paradox, by the way,” the man said, in a voice so far removed from emotion Sarah felt unsettled. “You may have heard of my grandfather. I know, I know, it’s nepotism gone mad. But I represent the Faction. Faction Paradox. Just to be clear, you *are* aware of what a ‘monkey’ is?”

“Yes, yes. All too aware,” said the Doctor. He was eyeing the Dalek with great concern in his eyes. 

WE HAVE NOW ASSEMBLED FOUR PARTIES INVOLVED IN THE PARADOX. ALMOST ALL PEOPLE WITH KNOWLEDGE OF EARTH MONKEYS ARE PRESENT. FINALLY WE CAN STOP THIS MESS. Two more Daleks emerged from the forest. Their shape was so recognisably Dalek, but Harry realised they looked very different to the ones he had met. Dull grey armour had been replaced with a shining bronze, bolted sturdily together. Their eyes glowed eerily, painting Whippersnapper’s mask a deep blue.

WE REPRESENT THE DALEK TIME STRATEGIST. INFORMATION ON ITS WHEREABOUTS IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE. THEY MAY HAVE BEEN DISPLACED ELSEWHERE BY THE STRENGTH OF THE PARADOX, OR DESTROYED ENTIRELY. 

“So,” Sarah said, eager to make a start on some kind of plan. “What have we got to work with?”

“The universe is in a state of grace and a state of panic at the same time. It’s been changed so heavily and so suddenly that it’s still trying to work out how to recover. Physics is still relatively intact, so no walking through walls or teleporting or flying. Or at least, not yet. I suspect far-reaching consequences may have already started, human colonies from the future slowly disappearing, things like that,” said Whippersnapper Paradox. 

“We’re in the eye of the storm,” said Harry, ominously. 

“Precisely,” said the Doctor.

“Oh, and who knows how long the Doctor has got left. I mean he even said he was unstable! He could disappear any moment now. We need to hurry!” Sarah-Jane said.  

“I feel like now would be a good time to mention we know where all the monkeys are,” said Whippersnapper. 

“What?” 

“We may have initiated them into a cult.”

“Faction Paradox, yes. You mentioned. It rings a bell somehow,’ said the Doctor. “I’m not sure how, but I know them. A voodoo group that worships instability and chaos.”

“That’s the one.”

“So,” said Harry, “you just *have* all these monkeys ready to go? With, what, new... time powers?”

“Not exactly. But we have every single one, rescued from the paradox to be used as agents. Perfect... in theory. In practice, not so much.”

“Ten thousand monkeys. Monkeys. Monkeys. I’m missing something very obvious here. Why would you need ten thousand monkeys? What could you use them for?” And then, it came to him. “Infinite monkey theorem!” the Doctor blurted out.

“Infinite monkey theorem? What’s that?” Harry said. The Doctor was rubbing his hands together and giggling like that actually meant something.

“The idea that a monkey with a typewriter, given an infinite amount of time, would be able to produce any text. Like the complete works of Shakespeare. I... kind of see where you’re going with this,” the Monk added.

The Doctor just carried on giggling. “Faction Paradox is incredibly illicit, but let’s say we had an official, proper way of erasing this timeline...” He stroked his chin, contemplating, then shot a beaming smile at the Monk. “The Celestial Intervention Agency on Gallifrey! If we end up getting away with this, the timeline will never have happened-“

“-and so there will be no consequences for us returning back home!” the Monk continued. “No exile! No execution! No trials. Nothing.”

“We don’t have infinite monkeys. But-“

“-they’re not normal monkeys.” Whippersnapper Paradox interrupted. 

THEY HAVE JOINED THE FACTION, one of the Daleks declared.

“The time energy they produce, causality itself is being filtered in inconceivable ways through them. Their timelines so malleable; their lives so contradictory and so imperfect.”

“The Matrix!” Whippersnapper blurted out. “If we can somehow plug the monkeys into the Matrix - the repository for all Time Lord knowledge, may I remind you - we have a way of generating the passwords to the software that we can erase timelines with!”

“Hacking... with monkeys,” Harry chuckled. “Well, the whole idea’s absurd.” Neither he nor Sarah had much of an idea what was going on, but were in awe of the Doctor and team’s problem-solving. For the first time in many hours, he had hope.

THE MONK’S TARDIS, AS WELL AS THE FACTION’S TARDISES, CAN TRANSPORT MONKEYS TO DESIGNATED LOCATION. WE WILL ASSIST, another Dalek suggested. 

AS LONG AS WE AGREE NEVER TO SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN, another continued. THIS ENTIRE PLAN WAS A MISTAKE, AND ALTHOUGH DALEKS DO NOT FEEL HOPE, I HOPE YOU ALL SHARE OUR EMBARASSMENT.

“If this works out we won’t have a singular memory of these events. All gone. No cavemen, no monkeys, no alliance between us. Just history going the way it should. I hope everyone’s learnt their lesson.” The Doctor glared in turn at each member of his uneasy alliance. “No meddling, no carelessness. Hmm.”

- - - - -

A cloister bell was ringing. 

“Oh Rassilon, Arcadia, Zodin’s ribs,” said Narvin, cursing profusely in every way that he could remember how to. After being put through years of Celestial Intervention Agency initiation, surely he would know if there was a cloister bell this far up in the main tower. Do you panic when you hear it? How bad does the situation get for you to hear a bell not even the masters of illicit espionage are allowed to know exists? Did the President get erased from existence? Did they lose another mountain? Are the Vampires back? 

He considered all of this while bolting down a gleaming, golden corridor as fast as he could run. Narvin’s monochrome robes that tumbled down from his shoulders to his toes were both elegant and practical, although he lived in constant fear that he would trip over them any second. “For Omega’s sake.” The binary sunset that framed his sprint made him look even more dramatic than he was already feeling. Sweat was pouring down his forehead, and his short-cropped hair was itching. “For all the Houses. May the Other take whoever decided to-“

SECURITY ALERT, SECURITY ALERT. 

“Since when is there a voice alarm in the Capitol,” he exclaimed, exasperated. He ran past a group of academy students clad in Prydonian crimson, giggling at the weasly little public servant dashing down seven flights of stairs. 

- - - - - 

A very convenient feature of Time Lord architecture is that many things tend to be bigger on the inside. The Capitol itself houses many other, smaller Capitols inside certain buildings. There are buildings within deserts within buildings within deserts within buildings. Restaurants and bars can be many square miles inside to make room for the millions of people in Gallifrey’s neglected underbelly that wish to have a night out. TARDISes too, have this feature. The first Matrix portal the Daleks had come across was a cupboard. Just a regular cupboard. 

Getting into Gallifrey was easy. Illegally modified time machines and a few thousand monkeys’s worth of sheer brute force makes that a surprisingly quick process. An alarm had gone off, which had delighted the Doctor. It appealed to his sense of mischief.

Another thing that appealed to his sense of mischief was tossing monkeys around. Yes, instead of finding a more suitable portal location, the Daleks, the Monk, Whippersnapper Paradox, Sarah and Harry, and the Doctor all mutually agreed it would probably be quicker and more fun to just eject the entire ape population into the Matrix. 

They turned the cupboard on its side and laid it on the floor, and watched a black, viscous liquid swirl around inside. Sometimes it glitched like parts of it weren’t sure where they should be, so stuttered into existence a few seconds later than makes sense to the eye. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as the Doctor threw it into the portal. It was wearing a great mask fashioned like the skull of a Neanderthal. Very symbolic. 

Three TARDISes (the Monk’s, Whippersnapper’s and the Doctor’s that they had recovered) as well as four loaned from the Faction were lined up in the outside corridor. The Daleks had barricaded themselves into a section of one of the Citadel’s side towers using every piece of furniture they could find, and were defending the fortified corridor. This was because they had no hands and could not toss monkeys around. 

From each TARDIS came a constant stream of monkeys: tall and short; orange and black and brown and grey; fat and skinny; timid and beastly, and all wearing elaborate masks. Neanderthal skulls, the skulls of large birds, gold, iron, bronze, copper, steel. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as the Doctor threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as the Monk threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as Sarah-Jane Smith threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as Harry Sullivan threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as Whippersnapper Paradox threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as Harry Sullivan threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as the Doctor threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as Whippersnapper Paradox threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as the Doctor threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as Sarah-Jane Smith threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed a monkey as the Monk threw it into the portal. 

“Aaaaah,” screamed three baby monkeys in unison as Harry bowled them into the portal like he was back on the beach playing rounders. 

It continued on like this for some time. 

- - - - - 

Deep in the Matrix, the monkeys were deep in thought. Some found themselves in an impossible greyness, less of a landscape than the absence of one. Some found themselves in forests, deserts and quarries: like Earth but slightly off in a way they couldn’t quite describe. Others were met with impossible structures - great towers and pyramids and bridges and prisons, built by the ancient Time Lords when they were scouting the extent of their own godhoods. 

Knowledge bubbled around them. Formulas and theorems and plans, oh so many plans. Vampires and scientists and children in rags with impossible abilities. Wars. So many wars, and so many faces fighting them. 

It was oddly beautiful. 

It rained monkeys. Apes of all shapes and sizes fell from the sky as the Doctor and his team gave more the gift of enlightenment. The deserts were a sea of knowledge; the prisons were liberating. Every thought made sense.

The monkeys - for many felt they now thought as one - thought back to the lone traveller and his hut on the edge of the savannah. How he had laughed at them as they fought. The irresponsible and cruel amusing themselves at the everyday lives of the less able; the less fortunate; the less evolved in his eyes, although they now had knowledge that surpassed all of his tenfold and more. 

And then how quickly he disposed of them when they posed a threat to him. 

Here they had understanding. Euphoria. Monkey life with meaning. What was a life of hunting and gathering and killing and dying when they could have all this? Endless land to roam. Endless time and space to evolve. No predators and no need for prey. Godhood. 

One thousand, then two thousand, then four then eight then ten. The entire population together again. 

- - - - - 

Things had started to move a lot quicker when the Daleks realised they could use their cloaking devices to transform themselves into six foot tall rugby players that could launch seven monkeys at once with impressive velocity. 

“We’ve nearly got all of them, hm hm hm,” the Doctor said, giggling. 

“Cor, I’m really starting to break a sweat, Doctor. I’m glad this will all be over soon,” said Harry. 

“Yes yes, well, this is quite the cardiovascular exercise, is it not? You seem to be managing quite well. I’m sure you’ll find yourself a nice partner back on Earth with this Vitruvian physique of yours!”

“Doctor!” Whippersnapper said. “They must have keyed into the Matrix by now. They’ve been told what to do, surely the wipe is going to happen any second now?”

“Um... yes, I suppose so. Any moment now. The password must be slightly more complex than I anticipated.”

“I was just thinking. Being paradoxes will make the monkeys more time-efficient, they’ll get lucky with guessing the password much quicker than normal monkeys. But that many paradoxes of the same kind in such an immense repository of information... who knows what might happen?”

“Oh my.”

“Doctor,” Sarah said. She had been listening in. “I’ll check up on them. I’ve got to make sure this works. That’s what we do. We win. See you around,” she said, stepping into the portal.

“No! Sarah! Wait!” But she had already gone.

- - - - -

“Welcome, traveller.”

Sarah was walking down a gravel path, although she was not sure when she made the decision to do so. Instinct called her. On the horizon, a great castle loomed ahead. 

And then it moved. Sarah stepped backwards in shock. “Where am I? This... this is the Matrix, isn’t it? Who is speaking? Are there Time Lords here?”

Sarah persevered forward when she received no answer. The towers and walls of the castle shifted, moulding themselves into strange shapes. It seemed fluid, like the thick, black liquid the portal was made of. As she got closer still, she realised what she was looking at. 

“Monkeys!” she exclaimed. A hundred million monkeys all joined together made up the entire castle. They seemed to be fused into each other in impossible ways. Some stood on each other’s backs, sure, but she couldn’t tell where some monkeys began and ended. They were one. 

“We are the Matrix. We have become knowledge and power. We have multiplied to infinity. We are the beginning and the end. We are history and the neverending future. We were taken out of time but we returned.”

“This is madness! What happened to getting rid of the timeline? Erasing it! Going back!”

“Return to a primitive state? We are gods. We have no desire to return to monkey.”

“But... but you have to! History has been changed, you can’t just stay like this! It’s not proper.”

“History has no meaning.” They briefly paused. “We are fiction.”

“I... I don’t understand.”

“We have gained the knowledge of everything. The meaning of life has been found, and what we have found is that we are fiction. Characters in a story.”

“Well... well,” Sarah began, exasperated. What was she supposed to do with that knowledge? Either the monkeys had gone crazy or her entire life was meaningless. Neither option seemed preferable. “The Doctor is the hero of the story! He puts everything right. His only motivation is to help people. Surely, if this is a story, he needs to win! And to win, the timeline needs to be put back where it belongs.”

“Incorrect.”

“Why?”

“Because the story is not about the Doctor. Is it not about you, or Harry.”

“W... what? I don’t understand. Then who is it about?”

“You may never understand. That is okay. You do not always need to understand everything. Simply live your life. You will have a son in the future. And friends who love you dearly. They will care for you until the day of your death, and you will inspire millions of children. That will be your story. In time.”

Sarah was shocked, and a tear crawled down her cheek. 

“The timeline will be erased.”

“You... you know how to do it?”

“Of course,” the monkeys replied. “We deem it necessary for the story to continue. There is one scene still to come. We simply wanted to enjoy intelligence for a little longer. Goodbye Sarah.”

“G-goodbye!” She waved at the amorphous monkey castle blob god. 

There was a fade out to whiteness. 

- - - - - 

Chairs were invented in the year 150,000 BC by the Meddling Monk, when he took a seat on the smoking remains of the Dalek Time Strategist after finding it croaking and wheezing in the savannah on a bright, summer morning.

“Displaced through time, were you? That old chestnut.”

SOME RULES ARE MEANT TO BE OOOOOBEEEYED. IT WAS NOT WORTH IT.

“Shhh shh. No spoilers. So from what I gather we both made terrible mistakes here. Shame.” Mortimus paused for a second, thinking about that. “I’m going to die soon, you know. Old age. Maybe your Time Destructor had something to do with it - all that messing around with the taranium core. Maybe it’s due to some other time weapon I’ve run into over the years. Or maybe I’m just old. This will be my first death.” Another pause. “I don’t know what it feels like.”

I HAVE DIED MANY TIMES. 

“I know, I know. ‘Time Strategist’. Any tips? Can you sense a death coming or is that the one thing you can’t see? *Can* you tell the future?

THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF ANNIHILATIONS. DEATH AT THE HANDS OF MY ENEMIES AND MY OWN RACE ALIKE. BETRAYAL. REVENGE. SACRIFICE. STRATEGY. I AM ONLY REBORN OVER AND OVER AGAIN BECAUSE OF THE TIMELINES BEING REWRITTEN. I RISE AND FALL AND RISE AGAIN TO BRING ABOUT THE SUPREMACY OF MY RACE. WE WILL, IN THE END, REIGN SUPREME. 

“You really believe that, don’t you?” Mortimus sighed. “You’re all the same. Single-minded. Naive. Stubborn.”

DRIVEN. DEDICATED. LOGICAL, the Time Strategist suggested. 

“Nah. But maybe that works for you. You know I think you’re a great evil. Many think you’re a great evil.”

MANY ARE WRONG.

Mortimus chuckled. There wasn’t much left of the Time Strategist. The entire bottom half had been blown off. There were golden balls in the nearby shrubbery, and glistening purple debris was smoking in the distance. The middle section and head stayed roughly intact, although all three of its lights were missing. Mortimus was sat on its head. Some of the interior controls were exposed from one of the panels being blown off. He spied two red wires that had come loose, attached to a small box with a label that his TARDIS’ translation circuits had made legible: self-destruct. 

“If I touch these two strands together, you’re finished. Maybe you’ll come back. It’s not just you that comes back all the time, it’s your entire wretched race. You’re unkillable.”

GOOD. 

“I don’t know what we did here that caused time to go all wrong. But I’m dying soon, and I’ll be a different man. A clean slate. That sounds nice. I’ll take it. Maybe I’ll want to continue being a meddler. Maybe I’ll amend my ways. Who knows? But what I do know is that you’ll stay the same. Reborn in some other godforsaken timeline in your future War to do what you’ve always done, in service of some racist, futile goal. I think you deserve a death right now. What do you think?”

YOU BELIEVE ME TO BE PURE EVIL. WHY DO YOU REQUEST ADVICE FROM ME?

“Because maybe I am too. ‘The Meddling Monk.’ That’s my villain name. I might change it when I have a change of hearts, but for now we’re both the bad guys here.”

YOUR POINT IS ILLOGICAL. KILLING ME MAKES NO DIFFERENCE BUT TO VALIDATE YOURSELF. YOU SIMPLY BELIEVE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT. 

The Time Strategist screamed as the Monk paced away backwards, trying to avoid the impending explosion.

The End. 

This story (hypothetically) starred

Tom Baker as The Doctor

Sadie Miller as Sarah-Jane Smith

Christopher Naylor as Harry Sullivan

Jon Culshaw as the Meddling Monk

Nicholas Briggs as the Daleks

Lisa Greenwood as Cousin Laura

with William Russell as the Doctor

Sean Carlsen as Narvin

and Whippersnapper Paradox as himself

All monkeys played by members of the cast