Camera Obscura - A Doctor Who short story Read online

1853, but I always check.”

  “1853?” she looked down at the leaflet that she had been given with their tickets. “When the Camera Obscura was built?”

  “Ah! Now you’re getting there, Clara. The Camera Obscura was built so that the guardians of the well could see approaches from any angle; many beings would like to tap a powerful well.”

  “The guardians of the well? Shouldn’t they be inspecting it?”

  “Well technically they are since I am the last of them.”

  “You’re a guardian of the well?”

  “Amongst other things. Not the most impressive of my titles, I will admit.”

  “And now it’s just a tourist attraction?”

  “And a very leaky energy well.”

  “So seal it up then.”

  “I will do – as soon as I find the centre of it.”

  “I thought you were a guardian of the well? Shouldn’t a guardian of the well know where it is?”

  “It’s an energy well, Clara – it moves.”

  “So how do we find it? Dangle a crystal? Wave the sonic screwdriver around?”

  “It’s easier than that. We can do it old school. Here – I’ll show you. Put out your arms.” He took her arms and straightened them. “Feel the force, Clara. Okay – only joking about that part. Close your eyes and let your hands do the work. You should be able to find it on your own.”

  “I just want you to know I don’t feel at all stupid doing this.”

  “Oh good, I’ll let the tourists back in then?”

  “You dare…”

  Clara took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she opened one.

  “Concentrate, Clara!”

  She closed her eyes again and took another breath. Stretching out her fingers she waited to feel something. Nothing. She took a step to the left. Nothing.

  “Are you sure I can do this?”

  “No, but it’s very amusing watching.”

  She stared at him, narrowed her eyes and then closed them. “I can do it if you can. That is if it can really be felt.”

  “Oh, it can. Do hurry up Clara, I have to plug it up by midnight.”

  “Or else?”

  “Or else all the goblins and pixies come out. No, seriously. It just starts to play with time and reality.”

  “A bit like a TARDIS.”

  “Well, everything is energy. Energy has to be controlled and organised otherwise it all gets a bit crazy, like those plasma balls out there. Energy wants to burst free and given a chance will. Have you found it yet?”

  Clara stopped as her fingers tingled. It was as if they were being tickled by sparklers. She moved one arm back half a metre and the tingling stopped. “Got something.” She moved her hands slowly until she felt the energy increase.

  “Clara, stop there. Don’t move.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your hand has disappeared.”

  Clara’s eyes shot open. Her right hand had gone and around her wrist were ripples like circles on a pond.

  “Try moving back slowly.”

  She took a small step backwards and as she did so her hand began to reappear, wrist first. She didn’t breathe until her whole hand was visible. It felt numb and she shook it.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” the Doctor said, “we have got a little bit of a rip in time. Your hand probably just surprised someone in another time and place. Where and when, I don’t know.”

  He flicked out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the space Clara’s hand had just vacated. “Oh dear.” He shook the screwdriver. “This isn’t good. Not good at all. We’re too late. Someone has beaten us to it.” He raised the screwdriver to the roof. “We have to go up!”

  The Doctor took off with haste, Clara rolled her eyes and then took off after him.

  “An explanation would be nice!” she called out after him.

  “This rip in time is like water going down a plughole. What we have seen is the bottom of it, the small end. The leak is up on the roof and we have to get to it.”

  “I’m not going to like this am I?”

  The Doctor stopped and looked at her. “Probably not,” he said before tearing off to the stairs.

  As Clara stepped out onto the roof the Doctor was already at work, stood between two large telescopes, pointing his screwdriver at a fixed point towards the centre of the roof. Night was drawing in.

  She felt something brush past her right ear, a black shape out of the corner of her eye, and cringed. “Urgh! What was that? A bat?”

  The beam of the screwdriver followed the path the thing had taken. The Doctor looked at his screwdriver. “Worse. Much worse. A wee beastie.”

  “Come again?”

  “Something that feeds off energy, more specifically the energy gathered around people, places and times that give off the most energy.”

  “What does that mean?”

  The Doctor spoke rapidly: “Take Napoleon, for example. A man who influenced people and countries, who brought about changes for thousands of people through his actions. He sent all that energy out into the world – energy some creatures like to feed on. But, the man Napoleon has sent out that energy – these creatures look for the potential. Give them the choice and they’ll go for the young boy growing up in Corsica with all that potential energy to feast upon.”

  “Feast upon? That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Do you ever wake up feeling like you haven’t rested, you’ve slept but you feel just as tired if not worse?”

  She nodded.

  The Doctor nodded. “That’s them. Sapping at your potential; your get up and go.” He sighed. “All those people out there who could have done something really remarkable with their lives too tired to do anything else but sit with a take away in front of some appalling TV program. It’s criminal.”

  “You’ve just described half my class.”

  He looked right at her. “Oh, they like the young best of all. The younger the better. They hide in the shadows and peck away at all the potential in a human soul until only the very basics remain.”

  “As I said Doctor, not good.”

  “It isn’t and we need to find out where this creature has gone and if he is alone. If they feast on the energy they will take it from the person who was due to use it and change history. These creatures and an energy well are the worst possible combination. Who knows what damage they could do to someone really powerful and influential.”

  “Yum yum Corsican boy, no more Emperor Napoleon?”

  “That’s right. Goodbye ruler of a large chunk of Europe, hello second rate cobbler from Corsica – or similar if you get my drift. Although technically speaking he probably would have followed his father into law. A good lawyer was Carlo Bonaparte.”

  “So how do we find out where it’s gone?”

  “Oh that’s the easy bit, Clara. We follow it.”

  “I’m not going to like this, either – am I?”

  Before she could protest, the Doctor seized her hand and pulled her towards the centre of the roof. Her head went first, pulled by a strong but invisible force. Edinburgh and the night sky disappeared. Clara felt her body being squeezed and compressed one second and then loosened and expanded the next. It was like going down a waterslide that was constantly changing in size.

  The light when they landed was blinding and Clara hit the ground rapidly. She managed to put out her hands, breaking her fall. She crouched there for a moment, sick and blind. She scraped her fingers across the ground. Dusty. Dry. Small stones in the earth?

  She lifted her head and looked about. Gradually shapes began to appear in the bright sunlight as her eyes adjusted. Trees? A house? Sky, definitely sky.

  “Doctor?”

  “Daylight,” he said, “daylight is good. This buys us time. These things keep to the shadows and hate, hate, hate light. Night is the time they prey.”

  She blinked. The doctor was po
inting his screwdriver up.

  “Northern Hemisphere and by the air quality I would say post 1918 pre 1939. Bad news – there’s definitely an energy reading for more than one of them. Good news – we are here to save the day!”

  When it became clear no help would be forthcoming from the Doctor, Clara got herself up. The her clothes were covered with a fine, earthy dust. She tried to slap some of it off her top, but quickly gave up. She looked around. There was a metal box on a stand. She approached as the Doctor continued to fiddle with his screwdriver, walking around in a circle as he did so.

  “Northern hemisphere…” he muttered again, “I’ll narrow it down in a minute…”

  Clara looked at the metal box and then saw something lying beneath. She picked it up and opened it.

  “Somehwere near Atlanta, Georgia,” she said confidently.

  The Doctor took a closer look at his screwdriver. “Yes, you could be correct.”

  “Of course I am,” she said and smacked the newspaper into his chest. “Atlanta, Georgia third of July 1934 to be precise.”

  The Doctor took the paper and looked down at it. “I did say Northern Hemisphere.”

  “So where are these things, these wee beasties, then?”

  “Hiding. Hiding until dark. We have…” he pointed the screwdriver at the sun, “…we have until eight forty-five this evening, so two and a bit hours.”

  “Two and a bit?”

  “I like to be exact. Stay here, I’m going to trace their energy patterns and try to work out how many there are and how long they’ve been here.”

  “What do I do in the middle of Georgia?”

  The Doctor looked at her: “Don’t get lost?”

  As the Doctor wandered off, eyes fixed to his screwdriver, Clara looked about her. She was on a street, the houses wider than English