The Doctor's Son

11 - City of Death

On the steps of Westminster Abbey, Princess Elizabeth made her way to her Coronation with the eyes of the country upon her.

Almost 8 miles away, Dorian Smith groaned in the back of a van. His head hurt like he'd been kicked in the head by a horse, and he knew that feeling from experience. The interior of the van he was in was cream coloured, and there were electrical supplies pushed up against the sides. He was in Magpie's van, he realised.

Dorian kicked the back doors of the van hard. Someone shouted outside, but Dorian kicked again. After a third kick, the doors swung open and an outraged Police security guard, in white cap and gloves, stood before him.

'What do you think you're doing?' the man asked.

'Where am I?' Dorian asked as he flashed his ID card at him.

'Alexandra Palace, Captain,' the man said, backing off apologetically.

'Of course! A transmitter!'

'Are you here for His Majesty?' the Policeman asked.

'Who?'

'The King of Belgium! He's just gone climbing up the television tower! I told him he'd get himself killed, but you know these foreign royals,'

Dorian looked up and spotted, not one, but two people climbing the television tower. One, in his long brown coat, was easily recognisable as the Doctor. The other, Dorian assumed was Mr Magpie, but he was higher up and Dorian couldn't clearly make out his face. There were pink electrical arcs spreading from the tower across the horizon. Somehow, Magpie had been successful in transporting the Wire and connecting the portable television to the tower in order to transmit the Wire across the nation.

The Doctor almost lost his footing on the tower when a shock hit him, but he hung on. Dorian stared up with baited breath. Another shock hit Magpie and he began to fall from the tower. Dorian ran beneath as though to catch him when he hit the floor, but he hadn't even fallen a foot when he burst into ashes and was blown to the wind.

Dorian looked around for a way of helping. He spotted a coil of wire on the ground, running from the Doctor to the inside of the building. He followed the wire, hoping that he could do something that day other than be shot and knocked out.

The copper wire led him to a transmission room, where he found none other than Tommy Connolly.

'Tommy!'

'Dr Smith!'

'What are you doing here?' Dorian asked. There was a large amateur looking machine in front of Tommy.

'I'm helping the Doctor, I mean, that other doctor I was telling you about this morning,'

'Great stuff Tommy, do you need me to do anything?'

'I don't think so, the Doctor just told me to stay here and make sure this works. The only thing is, I don't know how it's meant to work,' the boy shrugged.

Dorian took a closer look at the device. 'Hmmm, by the looks of it, this is a receiver and a recording device.' The plan clicked in Dorian's mind. 'Yes! If the Doctor turns the transmitter back into a receiver then he can trap the Wire in this device and isolate it! Brilliant!'

'So do I need to do anything?' Tommy asked.

'No, just make sure you've got a couple of bulbs - that's the most likely thing to blow if there's too much power surging through it. I'll help you look,'

Together the two of them found all the bulbs in the room and next door and placed them on the bookcase in the corner.

'I'll be next door, getting the phone ready to make a call,' Dorian told Tommy, but he'd barely crossed the threshold of the next room to ring Detective Inspector Bishop back at the base when Tommy yelled for help.