Doctor Who: The Domino Effect by David Bishop

Author:David Bishop
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction:Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563538691
Publisher: BBC Worldwide
Published: 2003-10-07T10:00:00+00:00

* * *

It was dark when the Doctor, Anji and Hannah climbed into the back of the lorry. Hannah’s friend Colin was transporting a crop of carrots to Manchester. From there the trio hoped to hitch another ride south to London. They rearranged the sacks of vegetables to create a hiding place for themselves among the produce, close to the driver’s cab.

‘Not the most elegant or comfortable way to travel,’ Anji said with a grimace as they went over a pothole in the road. ‘How long will it take us?’

‘We should be in Manchester by midnight,’ Hannah replied. ‘If we get lucky, we could be in London by dawn tomorrow.’

The Doctor had been working on enlarging a hole in one of the sacks. He pulled a carrot out and began munching on one end. ‘Hannah, during the meeting last night, one of your friends mentioned a suppressed document called the shroud. What do you know about it?’

‘Only what the professor told me.’ She paused, remembering her dead mentor. ‘It’s a legend among radical students and lecturers, those who think science should be used to improve everyone’s lives.’

‘First I’ve heard of it,’ Anji said. ‘Tell me more.’

‘If you believe the legend, decades ago there was a genius at one of the universities in England. He developed several theories about numbers and how conundrums involving numbers could be solved.’

‘Code breaking, cryptography, that sort of thing?’ the Doctor asked.

‘I think so, yes. Apparently some of the ideas he created were later very important during the war.’

‘Which war?’ Anji asked. Considering how different human history seemed to be in 2003, she was learning not to take for granted that her memories and knowledge of Earth’s past were all still valid.

‘The Second World War.’ Hannah gave Anji a puzzled look. ‘Apparently the Germans were big on using special codes for their messages.’

‘Interesting!’ the Doctor said. ‘So the war still happened – and some of the basic principals of machine-based code-breaking were used to help the Allies win. Most intriguing.’

‘After the war it was all hushed up and those involved were never allowed to speak about what they had done. Official secrets and all that.’

‘Hides a multitude of sins,’ Anji said. ‘But what about this shroud?’

‘Well, this genius, he thought machines could be use in other ways. He believed automatic machines, thinking machines, could revolutionise many parts of human life. He even had a name for them...’

‘Computers?’ Anji offered.

‘No,’ Hannah replied. ‘He called them –’

‘Universal machines!’ the Doctor exclaimed, his eyes wide open.

‘That’s it,’ Hannah said. ‘Universal machines. A special machine that –’

‘Could do the work of any other machine.’

‘Exactly. He drew a blueprint for what the machine could look like, even wrote a paper about it. After that the story gets a bit vague,’ Hannah admitted. ‘It’s been told and retold so many times, nobody knows the truth of it any more.’

‘Tell us what you know,’ the Doctor said.

‘This was before the war. There was a big fuss about his idea. News about it began to spread through the scientific community around the world, from university to university.

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