NEMESISSY
Parte the First
Katie wakes up in his Cambridge apartment with a thumping headache. On the bedside table are several empty glasses and wine bottles while Britney Spears is asleep in the bed beside her. Katie groans and smacks her forehead.
"Damn it!" she groans, and pulls out a calender covered in circles and crosses, then throws it into the bin. "I'll never get off the habit at this rate! I only lasted six hours this time," she whinges, getting a brand new calendar and circling the first three weeks of the month - the days she needs not to sleep with Ben Chatham which will allow her to move on with her life.
She looks at the peroxide blonde in the bed with her, and sighs again. "Total embarrasment. Why couldn't have been someone cooler - like Natalie Imbregulina?" Angrilly, she kicks her ex-lover out of bed, and she falls heavily onto the ground, peachy bubblebut going over smoothe tit.
Ben wakes up finding herself naked and in Katie's apartment again. "Oh no, what have I done again?" she wails unhappily. "Tell me, Katie - is my beauty undiminished? Are my dark, dreamy eyes clear and bright or slightly hazy."
"Get the fuck out of my apartment, Ben," Katie groans as she reaches into the bedside cabinet and takes out a glass and a free range egg. She then cracks the egg into the glass and drains it with a shudder.
Ben stares around her, vacantly. "I must stop doing this to myself. I need a proper relationship."
"Oh, charming," Katie says, and smashes the now empty glass over Ben's head. "What about me, huh? Hanging around a Britney Spears clone transsexual wanker who still hasn't grasped potty training... or the basics of romance. You think for once you could keep your eyes open and NOT whisper 'If only you were a history teacher from Colchester and I looked like Adam Rickitt'? It kills the mood!"
Ben struggles to stand up. "I really think you should just go, Katie."
"What?"
"Just GO!"
"This is my fucking apartment, Ben!"
"Is it? But it's so nice. Can I have it?"
"No."
"But it's so nice! There's even a bar in the main bedroom!"
There is the distinct sound of the door buzzer.
"Oh, it must be the postman with a parcel for me!" Ben enthuses.
"Who'd send YOU a parcel?" Katie demands. "And why would this hypothetical psycho send it to MY place?"
"Oh, force yourself into the lounge to answer the door!" Ben snaps.
"Why should I? Do it yourself!"
"No!"
"What? Are you too lazy to drag yourself to the front door?"
"It's not that!"
"Then what?"
"Well... it might be an axe murderer."
"And that is supposed to encourage me?"
"Just do it, you malignant whore!" Ben snaps, rubbing her head. "And do it elegantly. Don't bound around the place like some lower-class person, flounce like some sensible, rich demigod!"
Katie sighs and snatches up a dressing gown, grumbling to herself that an 18th century white supremacist would be a less cruel sterotyping jerk for a lover.
She answers the door to a well-built, intense looking man with stubble wearing a camoflague-patterned jacket. He grins ferally at Katie and offers his hand. "Mornin!" he says. "Katie Ryan, am I right? Good to meet you. My name's Tom, it's about Avebury?"
"Oh, right," Katie says, squirming slightly. "I had a bit of a rough night last night, I need to freshen up."
"Ah, it's OK, I'm a bit early anyway. Hangover, eh?"
"Bit worse," Katie admits.
Suddenly Ben skips out of the bedroom, crosses to the bar and pours herself an early morning pick-me-up: pernod. "Who's this?" she sneers. "You dazzling little paupers with capitalistic wonders they cannot comprehend?"
"No!" hisses Katie.
"Darn. That's fun to do!"
Tom blinks and stares. "Uh, Katie. Stop if you've heard this one before, but you've got Britney Spears wandering around your pad completely starkers."
"Yeah, sorry about this..."
"Sorry? I normally have to pay for this!"
Ben finishes her drink. "Judging by your lower class clothes, I assume you're the plumber. I think one of the washers has gone in the master bedroom."
Tom smiles. "Nah, luv. Not the plumber. I can see if I can fix it if you like, but..."
"You're NOT the plumber?!?" Ben screams, grabbing a plush toy Slitheen in a sudden and completely baffling attempt to cover her modesty... assuming 'modesty' means her navel, since she leaves everything else exposed. "THEN WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?"
"This is Tom Wallace," Katie explains angrilly. "You see Ben, unlike you, I work for a living. He's a good friend of Professor Dustin Hoffman, and he's come to help me with my research work over at Avebury university!"
"You mean to say that you know this person socially?"
Tom folds his arms. "You got a problem with that, Brits?"
"You seriously expect me to believe that this, this ONION can actually research books?!?"
"I can read. And carry them," Tom says, getting annoyed.
"DO YOU HAVE A DEGREE?!?"
"...No. I do not have a degree."
"GET OUT!!" Ben screams turning to Katie. "I know what's REALLY going on! You're seeing rent boys, aren't you? After you slept with me, you bitch of a son!" Weakly, she tries to throw the plush toy at Katie, but it falls harmlessly to the ground.
"So I'm a rent boy and a plumber now, am I?"
"You probably need the cash for glue to sniff and plastic bags to defecate in!"
"You stuck up cow!"
"If I want intellectual conversation, I'll find some EDUCATED Oxford history graduate, chav face!" Ben screams. "I don't want a cultural wasteland like you in my apartment any more!"
"It's MY apartment you insane bitch!" Katie protests, but is ignored.
"Don't you understand the social mores and manners needed to bask in the greatness of ones such as us?!" Ben demands. "Find a reasonable time to drop round! I need a poached egg. And a shower. And some Egyptian-style pornography!"
"What the fuck is wrong with you, woman?!" Tom demands.
"You need to sort your head out, Katie, and realize you need a good smoothe-chested archaeologist to fawn over and no one else and you know it!"
Katie starts screaming and looks for something to stab Ben to death with. Finding nothing, she loses momentum, but then Tom provides a screwdriver from his left sock and skewers Ben through one silicon-enhanced mammary.
"My life is so complicated," Ben sobs as she falls over, bleeding heavily.
Katie goes to get some nice clothes on as Tom shakes his head and pours himself a glass of milk from the fridge. "My mother told me there'd be days like this," he admits. "She was so smart. I mean, I always thought when she said, 'One day, Tommy, you'll walk into a Cambridge apartment and see two lesbians fighting to the death over snobby bitchiness until you resolve it with your screwdriver?' she was taking the piss."
Ben gurgles in pain.
Ignoring her, Tom toasts the air. "To you, mum."
Tom and Katie leave after Tom reclaims his screwdriver and wipes it clean using Ben's hair.
Ben finally gets to her feet and, coughing up blood, tries to ring the Samaritans. Instead she gets Sarf London Protection Rackets, and is put through to Managing Director Des Hutcheson, taking a year-long vacation in his Flash Motor Delorean XV.
"You've got to help me," Ben weeps. "Some lowbrow, so-called chav has just mugged me. You're London's top gangster, I want you to hunt him down and kill him. Free of charge. Why? Because it's me! BEN FUCKING CHATHAM! Jeez, I think he punctured my lung... You've got to do it! I'm bleeding to death! Are you... Are you GIGGLING? God, this is a dying man's statement... Yes, I AM a man, thank you very much! Call an ambulance? I suppose that's an idea. What's the number? Hello? Hello? BASTARDS! Oh, God, what would David Billborough do in a situation like this?"
Ben drops the phone and crawls to the front door to call for help. Unfortunately, she gets lost twice, and instead falls out the toilet window in the canal outside.
Later that morning, Abby and Chiana are punting down the Cam. "Students get to do this all the time," Abby explains. "It'd be cool to go to Cambridge, but you have to actually study and stuff."
Chiana shakes her head. "Can't we just put a motor on the boat? Make it go faster?"
"That's not the point!"
"Oh, it's another 'human thing', is it?" Chiana sighs, and looks around at all the buildings and the students sitting by the river. "Done him, done him, done him, done her, done him, who hasn't done her? Done him, done her, and... oh! He's new!"
"That's the Dean!"
"Dean, huh? Nice name."
"He's eighty, if he's a day!"
"So? I'll make sure he goes out smiling!"
As they pass under a bridge, the punt hits something hard. Abby looks down and is shocked to see a body in the water. "Oh my god! Oh my god, oh my god!"
"What is it?" asks Chiana. "Oh. Is that another human thing?"
"Someone's been murdered!"
Chiana reaches forward and nudges the body to reveal the shiny moistness of Ben Chatham.
"Not her again!" Abby groans then, checking no one is looking, starts to whack Ben's body with the punt until it sinks to the depths of the river.
Chiana laughs. "Ah, NOW I get why we have that pole! Do we get extra points for knowing the victim?
Parte the SecondAs Abby and Chiana punt away, another boat heads down the river Cam, containing a curly haired man in a vest and hat, and a blonde woman in a girly white frock reading a copy of
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and a grammophone playing
All Along The Watchtower.
"Doctor," the woman asks the man as he punts with skill. Well, if not skill, then with great elan. "Are you sure it's the right time of year for this sort of thing?"
"Well, the river might be more crowded in the spring," he concedes, "but at least there're people to talk to."
"Oh, don't make excuses," she tuts. "You misprogrammed the TARDIS, didn't you? You forgot to take axial tilt, diurnal rotation and the orbital parabola into account. One day, you're going to materialize in the middle of the ocean."
"Probably -
if I feel like a swim. You know what you need?"
"A cool drink?"
"Moral fibre."
"I thought this was meant to be fun!"
"It is fan.
If you've got moral fibre."
Further down the river, Ben bursts from the surface of the water, coughing and gasping. "Oh my God!" she wheezes. "I'm alive! Sweet merciful Bowie, I'm alive! I'm--"
At that moment, the punt smashes into Ben, knocking her unconscious and letting her fall back to the bottom of the river, her choked-off screams lost as the Doctor whistles
Jolly Boating Weather.
"Can't you make this thing go more quickly?" asks Romana idly.
"Of course I can," the Doctor replies as they approach another bridge. "I could put a dimensional stabiliser on the punt and dematerialize but that isn't the point, is it?"
"Then what
is the point?"
"Moral fibre."
As the punt passes under the bridge, Ben surfaces once more, spitting out water. "I survived! I can't believe it! I managed to survive certain death three times! That's a new record! Hah, you wouldn't see any of your stupid chav lowlife scum defeating the reaper like that, would you?"
Then, a mysterious figure in a balaclava dives atop Ben, stabs her in the back and then carves a swastika into her forehead before letting her corpse sink into the water.
Cambridge, luckily, is famous for the mysterious murderers going on and regular sweeps are made of the Cam. In less than fifteen minutes, the police drag Ben's body from the water and, after ogling her tits for a moment, put her death done to suicidal grief over being responsible for
Toxic. Foul play - or even forehead-swastika-carving play - is not suspected, and the irony of Ben being mistaken for a brutally slaughtered teenage girl is sadly not commented upon.
Ben's body is dumped on the lawn as a piece of modern art and, bar a few unfashionable students posing with her for wacky photos and unfunny youtube clips, nothing more is done.
Then, inexplicably, Ben returns to life and is incredibly concerned when she sees Katie and Tom Wallis heading into the university. "I'm sure I recognise that guy from somewhere, but I just can't recall where," she broods, realizing she cannot even call for help as she doesn't even have her mobile.
Noticing the rapidly-healing swastika carved into her forehead, Ben puts it down as a kind of compliment - someone has clearly recognized her Aryan poster child looks, and thinks nostalgically to the time she dreamed about meeting Hitler as a baby.
Then, bored, she gets up and heads for the Cafe Shalto to try and scrounge some booze, pausing only to give brief statements to a performance artist dressed as a policeman.
"Hey, are you Britney Spears?"
"No, scum, I am Ben Chatham. Have any mysterious men in black arrived and acted suspiciously?"
"No."
"Touchwood?"
"Touch what?"
"Odd. Normally ridiculously attention-grabbing men in black arrive, bundle people into vans and drive off very conspiciously. Guess this really is some season finale of chaos and destruction."
"Season finale? What the fuck are you on about?"
"You uncouth little man," Ben sneers and prances off.
At the Cafe Shalto, the still-stark-naked-and-dripping-with-pond-life Ben demands to see the manager. The manager turns out to be the Rose Tyler clone, who tells Ben to fuck off or she'll ring up Captain Jack and get him to turn up bust Ben's ass. Literally.
Rose phones Touchwood on the reception phone, but tragically the team have all retconned themselves and have no idea who Ben Chatham is. Deflated, she decides to call the police.
"Forget the police! I want two absinthes and hummus with Greek salad!"
"What? This is a burger bar! We don't carry foul muck like absinthe!"
"Well, then, what DO you carry?" Ben snaps, folding her arms.
"Well... burgers, beer and chips mainly."
"The benefits of absinthe and hummus are more lasting."
"You want more lasting liver damage?"
"Yes, you foul common slut! Your rank stench sickens my stomach even as your obsene gruntings that you think count as speech offend my ears! You're also a lard-arsed prostitute crackhead slut, and your teeth look like you are the product of a union betwixt woman and race horse! This low-paid unskilled retail work is even more offensive than the petty crime you dare call your occupation! You ill-educated, illegitimate, underage, drug-addled, sexually soiled little tart! Why, I ought to...
ARRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
During that rant, the rest of the patrons at Cafe Shalto picked Ben up and dumped her face-first into the deep fat fryer, then hurled the remains of Ben into a garbage compactor which spat out the leftovers into a biodegradable styrofoam packet, which Rose then flushed down the cafe toilet.
By chance, the remains end up in the Cam once more. And, once more, it magically heals itself into Ben Chatham once more, who bursts out of the water, amazed at her return to life... just as she is torn apart by the blades of a mini steam boat piloted by an albino in a long scarf and a sullen teenager in a track suit.
"Did you feel something, Chamber?" asks the albino.
"Only soul-crushing boredom, Rupert. Cambridge sucks!"
"Well," the albino replies as the steamer heads down the river. "Least we're not in Canberra."
"That's true," Chamber concedes.
Meanwhile, the bloody remains of Ben recombine. Groggily, she decides it will be much safer to stay on land. Hopping out of the water, she squelches across the lawn towards the university... whereupon she is run over by a Morris Minor, driven by Tara, who, upon realizing what she's done... reverses over Ben.
Tom Wallis and Katie Ryan arrive and greet Tara, who's given them a lift. "Hey, you two," Tara says as she drives forward over Ben once more, grinding her into the gravel. "How was Hoffman?"
"Interested in Kennet Avenue," Katie admits.
"He's a bloody holocaust denier!" Tom exclaims, shaking his head. "I've seen less Nazi memorabillia in the Haltemprice Bunker!"
"Whatever happened to forgive and forget?" Katie points out.
"There's forgive and forget and total bloody amnesia," Tom points out. "And what kind of Professor gives out cyanide tablets with Schnapps?"
"They're collectors items," Katie shrugs, as they get inside.
"Stay as smart as you are, Katie," Tom sighs, rolling his eyes.
As they drive off, Ben magically heals herself with the incredible powers of a Looney Tunes character, and prances off into the dorms to find the rooms of Professor Dustin Hoffman... but as the door opens, to reveal a study stuffed full with the finest Nazi trophies eBay can find.
"Why, my dear Miss Chatham," says the elderly figure in the wheelchair across the room.
Ben gasps.
"What an unexpected pleasure," Alistair Miles grins...
Parte the Third
Thinking quickly, Ben gets dizzy and falls over. As she lies on the floor staring up at the ceiling, Ben announces "I've come to borrow a book entitled
The Worshipful And Ancient Avebury Builders of Gallifrey by Audrey Hepburn! And I warn you now, I've been sent forth by god on this holy task. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an important meeting with the Geo-Phys people as they admire my smoothe pectorals."
"It seems you have forgotten me, Miss Chatham," Alistair broods as he runs over her head. "I am a most fastidious man, and I can't abide in the habit of leaving doors ajar."
"Is that why you ran over my head? Twice?"
"No, just coincidence, really. You may not remember the occasion when you ran over my spine, grinding it to power a few years ago, Miss Chatham, but believe me, it stuck in my memory. Since then, under the cunning psuedonym of Professor Paralysis, I have become Master of this college!"
"Are you?"
"Yes!"
"They're not using your photo."
"They aren't?!"
"No."
"Well, that is as maybe. I AM the Master. Of this college."
"...yet you haven't put in wheelchair access."
"Ah. Well, I won't compromise my principals just because I have lost the use of two thirds of my body!"
"So how do you actually get around?"
"I don't, actually," Alistair sighs. "I've been stuck in these rooms for the last sixteen months. My hired goons were snapped up to work for Damian Satan and last seen being eaten by giant woodvoles. Unfortunately, because of all the paramount secrecy, no one actually knows I'm here and thus no one has come to rescue me."
"That explains why they appointed Professor Lythgo, Master of this college last year."
"They what?!? That Euro-skeptic left-footing visitor to vegemite valley?!? Professor Lythgo has been buttering his toast on three times since before the poll tax was introduced!"
"Shameful, isn't it?" Ben agrees, the two academics putting aside their enmities to share a moment of denial-based homophobic abuse.
"I better be off anyway," Ben says smoothely, getting to her feet.
"Miss Chatham, aren't you the least bit concerned that today you have been stabbed, drowned, and incinerated by those that know you?"
"Not really. Happens a lot, oddly enough."
"But this time, they succeeded! You DIED!"
"No, I think you'll find I genuinely am alive here and now."
"Precisely. And how you explain such a paradox?"
"All would be sorted out in the finished program," Ben shrugs, and promptly picks up Miles' laptop and strides out.
"Hey! Come back," Alistair shouts. "I'll call the police! You can't just steal a man's computer like that!"
"I didn't steal this," Ben calls back. "I just borrowed it. Theft is a reflex action for chavs, and I, sir, am no chav!"
Alistair struggles and fails to leave the room. "Why do you even WANT a laptop, anyway? Hello? Hello!"
Alistair is left alone in the room.
"Bugger," he mutters to himself.
Outside, Ben skips along the lush college greens, avoiding the roving patrols of police who wander around the university waiting for murders to spot and explain. Ben is moving under a willow tree when a mysterious figure in a balaclava dives atop Ben, stabs her in the back and then carves a swastika into her forehead before letting her corpse fall the ground.
The figure then opens the laptop and taps on the keys for a moment, then gets bored and throws it into a bin.
As the figure walks off, Ben miraculously returns to life, injuries healing in a moment. Putting this down to withdrawal symptoms from her complete lack of Fox's Glacier Mints, Ben finds her way back to Katie Ryan's apartment, where she throws all Katie's photos and CD collection out the window, and then drinks every last drop of rioja until she feels very, very uneasy.
There is a loud banging on the apartment door, and Ben knocks back the final glass and stumbles to the front door. There, he is startled to encounter the familiar figure...
The Sparthabot!
Parte The FourthBen stares at the mechanical head based on Martha Jones, sitting askew on a huge trenchoat totally hiding the figure within.
"Hello, miss," Sparthabot booms in the voice of Nicholas Briggs since Freema Agyeman is busy this week. "
I represent the Cambridge Society Android Replacement Programme. As you may or may not be aware, this project has been underway for several years when founded by the research centre in Cornwall. But now the dawn of the Fourth Reich is near, we're looking for charitable donations. Any cheques must be made payable to Professor Dustin Hoffman. Heil Hitler."
"My god?!" exclaims the increasingly confused Ben. "Professor Hoffman is a Neo-Nazi?!"
The Sparthabot is confused. "
Yes. That is why his office is in the Nazi Collaborator House, isn't it?"
"Oh yeah," Ben agrees. "That makes total sense."
At this point, a flustered Katie Ryan arrives. "Oi! Chavvam! What are you still doing here? Didn't I leave you for dead this morning?"
Ben is decisive: "Oh, so it's a crime to use my superhuman smootheness to survive a hormonal knife attack now, is it? Now, the Sparthabot has told me about a fascinating Anti-Chav rally in Cornwall, and you shall drive me there. I have partaken in a few dozen civilized drinks."
"Civilised drinks, Ben? But that term's meaningless! It could refer to any drink partaken of in a civilised society - I mean, I could call a Vodka Cruiser a 'civilised drink' and you couldn't say that I was mistaken. In fact, due to the fact that it's been developed after adbsinthe and civilisation has advanced I could argue it's the far more 'civilised' drink. You know what, Ben? I don't seem to have noticed it before but you're showing all the classic signs of being an ultra-pretentious wanker!"
Katie then notices all the empty bottles.
"...you've drunk my house dry!"
"There is no time to lose!"
"You're gonna pay for this, Britney!"
"No doubt the police know I'm onto them! Ben, you must do something! I know, Ben, but what?"
"You are completely fucking insane!"
"
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!"
Tom Wallace arrives and stares at this display in confusion.
"This is turning out to be a very strange day."
"Ah, pikey-boy, well, hoodie boy, well some sort" Ben jeers. "YOU aren't invited. You can stay here and be killed when four sinister men in black coats arrive to remove all evidence."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Jesus wept," Katie muses and uses her vintage samurai sword to skewer Ben, who falls over dead.
"You want to go to Cornwall?" she shouts at the corpse. "FINE! You can be buried there!"
"I can see who wears the pants in your relationship," Tom tells Katie.
Together they dump Ben in the boot of Katie's car and drive off into the countryside at top speed. Tom winds down the windows to let the wind blow in and drown out the noise from the boot - Ben has returned to life and is now murdering Tori Amos'
Blood Roses.
In order to take their minds off Ben, the Sparthabot has been allowed to tag along. "
I am not actually sure what the society stands for. I only work for them because they gave me a new body, and reprogrammed my android brain," the Sparthabot explains for anyone interested. "
But if I was in charge of an android replacement program, well, I know for sure I'd replace people with androids. Preferably those in high ranking positions in society and gradually take over the country, another country and then the world."
Tom muses that a Nazi-lead Android Invasion is the kind of thing he should but a stop to, and easily tricks the Sparthabot into revealing the secret Nazi bunker the operation is working from. "
Oh, it's in the Cranmoor Feild Centre. Just north of St Isaac's Cove. The one with the huge neon swastika. You can't miss it."
As the car heads through some woods, IT STARTS TO GET DARK! The eerie trees seem to close in around them, strange shadows seem to form and some owls... HOOT! And then, the true horror begins - the car breaks down, and Ben's muffled voice can be heard sneering, "Oh for pity's sake. Katie you could have said something about your car not being up to scratch! I am unhappy!"
Katie loses it, jumps out of the car, opens the boot, and picks up a petrol can which she then empties over Ben and the car itself. All the while Katie screams, "DON'T FUCKING SHOUT AT ME, YOU DRUNKEN SEXIST VIOLENT LOONEY! THERE'S BEEN NOTHING WRONG WITH IT TILL NOW! FUCK OFF, BENJI! JUST FUCK OFF AND DIE, YOU FECAL-STAINED MENTAL DEFECTIVE!!!"
Katie lights a match and Tom and the Sparthabot narrowly escape before the car explodes into a fireball.
At the flames die down to reveal burning ruins, Tom suggests they head for that pub they passed a few miles back and play a few games of pool. As they head off, a charred skeletal figure hauls itself from the wreckage and easily regrows flesh and bone to become Ben Chatham again.
Ben ponders on her miraculous regeneration, and the fact she is marooned in a mud track in the middle of the Cornish woods, with no way of getting home, no help, no friends, no mobiles, no secret government agencies to save her. It is then she spots a packet of singed Fox's Glacier Mint in the ruins and immediately has one.
Ben calms, her mind floating on a haze of blissfull mellowness, her bowels emptying onto the ground. In a daze, she prances through the fallen leaves into the cold darkness. But Ben thinks the eerie whispering sounds are those of Oxford graduates marvelling at her beauty and brilliance, the scrunching beneath her feet the applause of humanity at her defeating the Chav Hordes...
Further in the woods, the Doctor, Abby and Donna are gathered round a small campfire. Donna and Abby are glaring at the Time Lord as they huddle for warmth. "I don't know what you're on about," the Doctor protests, roasting a marshmallow on a stick. "Just the orbital drift compensators playing up. I mean, the Earth is constantly revolving - skip an hour in time, not space, you end up miles away."
"You have dumped us in the middle of nowhere!"
"NOT the middle of nowhere, Donna," he corrects her. "Cornwall, 2011."
"Same thing," Abby grumbles.
"You two wanted a camping holiday, remember?" the Doctor points out, munching on the marshmallow.
"I wanted a camping holiday - not a remake of
The Blair Witch Project!" Abby protests.
"Oh, I hated that flick," Donna mumbles unhappily.
"The remake isn't so bad," the Doctor muses. "It was a new low for Paris Hilton, though. Outacted by her own chiuaua. Nasty. Still, she had her video career to fall back on. I was the clapper boy, you know."
Abby stares at him. "YOU were involved in her sex tape?"
"It was Jack's idea. Never seen him more disappointed," the Doctor sighs. He frowns. "What was that?"
"What?" asks Abby, scared.
"Oh, very funny, Doctor," Donna snaps. "You're scaring her... Oh eck, I heard that too."
Something begins to shuffle through the undergrowth towards them.
"The Blair Witch is just made up, right?" asks Abby as she hides behind the Doctor.
"Course it is. The real one was a malfunctioning Cyberman, everyone knows that."
"So what exactly is that strange, dark and sinister thing watching us from the shadows?"
"Probably, just another malfunctioning Cyberman with the same MO. Nothing to worry about."
Just then, Ben bursts into the clearing. The TARDIS crew scream and run off in different directions, as Ben trips and ends up head first into the campire, causing her head to explode in flames. She staggers off into the woods, head ablaze, before tripping and falling down a sharp rocky slope that reduces Ben to pile of blood-soaked intestines...
Parte the FifthTragically, the squelching human entrails simply recombine through the dense brambles, and with a dull moaning sound, the semi-conscious Ben is soon lying in the foliage. Just then, Ben is attacked by flocks of bats attracted the some rotten, putrifying, smell of Ben's asbinthe-neat blood.
Finally, all the bats are dead from alcohol poisoning and Ben heals once more, getting to her feet to find herself in a clearing near an old, ruined wooden hut. Since Ben never bothered to expand her education by watching any horror movies of any sort, not even Cabin Fever, Ben decides to check out the dank, damp, musty house and decide whether or not to spend some time there.
"If only I have a bit of rough, some kind of rent boy to tend to me," Ben wails unhappily. "Just some good-looking chap who wouldn't do it for money, even if offered, because... er... must be some reason not be a prostitute. Oh yeah, they need to feel close to me. A romantic chav, even! After all, all prostitutes are working class. And all working class are prostitutes. NO EXCEPTIONS! Not even
Guardian readers! Pah, they aren't discerning about their clothes either, those baggy jeans and the vulgar generic bling... yuk."
Finally armed men burst from the undergrowth aiming spot lights at Ben.
"Achtung! You vill shut up! You vill remain absolutely silent!
Immediately it becomes obvious that this small shack dwelling is surrounded by barbed wire fences and alsation-weilding guards and Ben has been caught in the middle of a massive Neo-Nazi complex staffed entirely by stereotypical Germans - since anyone else being in the movement would just get confusing.
With her usual intellectual prowess, Ben still doesn't realise that she is in the midst of Fascistland, even after she is escorted into the cabin filled with portraits of Hitler and Himmler and Hanson, swastikas on every single wooden surface, Wagner blasting out of hidden stereo speakers.
There, Ben is stunned to see a wheelchair bound man absolutely identical in every respect to Alistair Miles, who is roasting a large dog on a spit. "Wilkommen Ben," he says in an outrageous accent. "I vould hoffer you zie sauerkraut, beef, und bratwurst supper, but I never eat vizout mien lucky liederhosen, jawhol gutentaag!"
"Alistair Miles!!"
"Nein. I am not he, I am Professor Dustin Hoffman, Alistair's identical tvin brother - hithertoo unmentioned! Please sit, have some vein."
"Vein? I already have a vein. I have plenty," says Ben haughtily, as she sits down on a leather chair.
"AHAHAHA! You crazy Einglunders und your zense of humour!" Hoffman's humor changes like a traffic light. "It is vot I shall most DESTROY ABAUT YOU!!!" he screams, slapping Ben in the face. "Do you like zer vein, Ben?" he asks, suddenly happy again.
"It tastes like cheap supermarket fare!" Ben says angrilly.
"Zat is because it IS cheap zupermarkit fair! You zeem to think I vould waste ze good stuff en you?"
"Well, what are you drinking?"
"Zie finest of German veins from the southern Rhineland vineyard of Spretzen."
"I want to drink that!"
"Well, vuk you, Einglunder Schweinhund! I'm the vukking Nazi Boss, zo vat I say, goes!"
"OH... MY... GOD!"
"Aha, at last you beging to realize the zeriousness of ze zituation, bitte?"
"YOU'RE A
NAZI?!?!?""Mein Gott, yes I am a vukking Nazi."
"So, you want me to lead you to victory?"
"...vat?"
"Of course! With my blonde hair, and blue eyes and smooth physique, I am true Aryan Supremacy."
"...er no..."
"First Manchester, then Berlin! ALL CHAVS MUST DIE!"
"SHUT ZE VUK UP!"
"Do you mind?"
"AHAHAHAHA - Gott en Himmel, Meine dichte Lederunterwäsche hat gespalten! Ve do not vant you to lead us, Benji."
"Well, why am I here then?"
"Vell I could hardly leave you in those woods talking to yourself like zum mad bitch, could I?"
"I see. And this android invasion scheme I have heard mentioned in passing?"'
"Ah zie jugend of today. So eager, yet so undisciplined. You vill NOT be undisciplined if you are to stop over das nacth in MIEN chateau! Ah, der einzige wahre Gott von dieser Welt ist S&M Fetisch Stellen!"
Ben pouts. "But I'm such a good-looking Aryan! Surely you can put aside prejudice and allow me to lead the National Socialist Movement to purify the whole of Europe."
"How can ze movement be 'National' if it covers Europe?!"
"Details, details. Imagine a new beginning with clean efficient cities and autobahns which flow quickly and efficiently? No more chavs, and then Europe, renamed Chathamania, will eclipse the mongrelized USA."
"What eccentricitispiel? Englisch spioniert, vermute ich. Meine Elsässer sollen Hunger heute Abend nicht..."
"I WANT TO RULE THE FOURTH REICH!"
"Er, Benji, you might have missed ziss, but ze war ended over sixty years ago and Germany is democratic now."
"There must be some kind of secret government organization useing alien technology to achieve ultimate power! Some kind of German Touchwood?"
"Oh ja. Organization Valkyrie. Ze trouble vas zat zey all kept how you say 'knobbing each uzzer' and never did any real vork at all. In fact, zeir monumental incompetance destroyed zer Third Reich entirely by chance. Nichts in der Welt kann mich jetzt aufhalten!"
"Well, how did you get androids then?
"Oh, vie just had zat lyink around in zie back of zie shed, gazzering dust until I zought it vould be useful..."
"Look you need a ruler for when your androids take over the world!"
"OH JA! ICH-HADDEN-ZOUGHT-O-ZARRRT!"
"This is lame!" Ben shouts. "You're prejudiced because I am better Nazi than you!"
"Prechudice is a terrible, terrible thing, Benji. You know who vas ruined by eine prejudicknispiel? Zie jews! Ach habe, ich Ein - Zwei Chelmites ist gegangen spazieren erhalten. Das erste hat gesagt, Schaut An! Bär verfolgt! Die Sekunde hat Ein nicht übereingestimmt, Nein sind die Hirschespuren! Sie stritten sich noch darum, als sie durch einen Zug geschlagen wurden. HAHAHAHA!"
"Who is this leader then?"
"Vell, the Fourth Reich Marketing Division has done zeveral telephone marketing calls and ve have decided to grow a clone of Adolf Hitler. Of couse, ze mind vill be completely blank as empty as... vell, as your brain, Ben. But luckily, Adolf Hitler vas able to survive ze fall of Berlin by killing all ze vitnesses and placing his brain in ZIS pickle jar!" he crows, raising a glass jair with a brain floating in it. "The rest of ze vorld never suspected a thing, bar the writers of
Ze Tommorrow People, who vorryingly vere close to ze mark!"
Ben boggles. "Hitler... removed his
own brain... and put in a jar... all by himself."
"JA! Zey didn't call hem a Zuperman fer nuzzink!"
"Oh... can I marry Hitler then?"
Hoffman is at a loss for words.
Parte the SixthBen demands to be taken to the cryogenic chamber as Hoffman struggles to work out something to put the blonde off trying to marry the Fuhrer. "You vould hate it unzer Hitler," he wails as Ben runs into the dark chamber, lit only by an eerie green light.
"Eva Braun had no complaints," Ben retorts as she struggles to open a clear-lidded sarcophagus containing a man who curiously resembles a mixture John Cleese, Robert Carlyle and Mel Brooks, all wearing pencil thin moustaches and with a voice like Eric Cartmann.
"I thought you said his brain was in a pickle jar!"
"Vell, it VAS! It's just ve put it back again aftervards. Ve didn't vant nutters like you trying to kill ze TRUE Fuhrer, so ve have been using zie pickle jars as decoys for zie assassin's bullets. Until today, it had been a complate zuccezz! Oh, vat tangled vebs ve veave..."
"Wake up, Adolf!" shouts Ben, trying to rip the lid free. "Time to meet your mistress!"
"You are inzane!" shouts Hoffman as he hits the alarm. "And vie in the Fourth Reich, ve know insanity ven vie see it!"
The guards arrive and, because they are so sodding one-dimensional, take time to tear their gaze off the glorious and frozen Hitler. Finally, they lunge at Ben and easily wrestle her weak and puny body to the ground, her screams of "I'm more Aryan than you bitches!" ignored until she smashes into the cryogenic chamber.
"Mein gott!" Hoffman wails. "She haz inadvertantly elbowed a zet of zvitches on the zide! It vill begin to hum and a ztrange glow vill be emitted! Vat have you done. Zie Fuhrer! Gotten damn it, zie police officers in ze academy movies are more effizient zan you dolts!"
The glass top slides away like a convertible roof top and all the Nazis gasp because they are the only people in the world who could expect this and thus it's really ironic.
"Yes, that's right," Ben cheers. "WORSHIP HIM! WORSHIP HIM!"
"Vat is her problem?" mutters one of the SS to another, who shrugs.
Inside the capsule, the figure awakes. "I feel like crap," Hitler groans unhappily. "Can zumone help me out of zis thing?"
As the Nazis help the dazed Hitler free. "Mein gott, what year is it?"
Hoffman grins a rictus grin. "Ah, vell, actually, it's 2007."
"Gott in Himel!" says Hitler, "It took you ZAT long to establish the Fourth Reich?"
"Vell, not quite, you see..."
"Are you saying zat the 21st century does NOT belong to Deutchesland?"
"In a vay..."
"Vat?!"
"It vill, shortly, mein Fuhrer..."
"Shortly?"
"Vell, if you remember, mein Fuhrer, ven you ver frozen, Germany
vas in zomething of a tatical disadvantage..."
"You are referring to zie Russians and zie Americans racing each uzzer to carve up the Duetchesland which comprised mostly of blood-drenched piles of rubble? Ja, I remember. I also remember YOU, Herr Hoffman, insisting that it vould only take three years to turn around completely. And in SIXTY-SIX years, you STILL haven't managed it!" Hitler leans closer. "Vun of us vas clearly deluded zat day. And it vasn't me."
"Ah, ja. Ja, you noticed zat, have you?"
"Excuse me just vun moment," Hitler says. "I vas cryogenically frozen vith strict instructions zat I NOT be revived until such time as YOU had vun ze var!! Am I mistaken?"
"Nein, mein Fuhrer. Vat vith you being perfect and all..."
"So vy zie vukking hell am I now awake? Hmm?! AND VHY ZIE VUKKING HELL AM I SPEAKING VUKKING ENGLISH?!?"
"Narratorial convenience, mein Fuhrer."
"...vell. I guess zat makes sense. So, vat has happened since I have slept?"
Ben bounces forward. "Well, Adolf-baby, Germany is just a pornography-producing part of the pathetic European Union because your Nazi plans achieved nothing and you're now remembered as an insane dog-rapid mass murderer."
"VAT?!?"
"It's true. The Americans and the Chinese are the most powerful countries nowadays, but Israel has a bit of clout in the middle east thanks to America's immoral backing..."
"DID YOU JUST CALL ME... "ADOLF-BABY"??!?"
"Why, yes. Schnookums. You are to be my husband?"
Hitler rounds on Hoffman. "You have avoken me to marry zis bimbo?!"
"Surely I remind you of your fine, blond SS bodyguards?"
"Not really, no," Hitler sneers. "I like bodyguards to actually vear clothes, you degenerate! And your hair is clearly dyed, zy zilly bint!"
Ben huffs and puts her hands on her hips. "How DARE you say that about my hair!"
"I'll do vat I dem vell please, bimbo, I'm the vuking Fuhrer and don't you forget it! I DARED to try and conquer zie entire vorld, I DAREDd to commit genocide on an unprecented scale, i DARED to attempt a militarized coup in the 1920s during the height of the depression. I'M NOT A SUPERMAN FOR NUZZINK!"
"You still should mock my hair! I could have a breakdown from a judgmental attitude like that!"
"Vat sort of emotional cripple are you?"
"An emotional cripple who LOVES you and wants to MARRY you!"
"Vell, you're going to be disappointed, Bimbo..."
"At least I don't look like Charlie Chaplin and shout every sentence in a loud and vulgar manner!"
"Are all zese future women like zis?" Hitler demands of Hoffman.
"Gott in Himmell, no. In fact, zere is only zis vun, demented hag. She vants to marry you."
"I thought I vas regarded as an insane mass murderer."
"Vell, you knew your popularity vould go down after zie var. Zie opinion polls..."
"I REMEMBER ZIE VUKKING OPINION POLLS, HERR HOFFMAN, I'M NOT STUPID!"
"You diss my blonde locks, you beast!" Ben sobs. "I've got half a mind to leave right now before your revival forces the Nazis into some kind of drastic action of some kind! In fact, I think I'll do this!"
She provocatively plays with the controls of the stasis booth.
"Yeah? How do you like that? Now this has sent a signal to a planet in deep space, and the alien beings ther will lock onto Earth's coordinates and preparing to beam down a search party."
"Yeah, right," Hitler laughs. "After near zeventy years, zome generic aliens vill decide to come all zie vay here to investigate a few flashing lightbulbs. Suuuuuuuuure. Herr Hoffman?"
"Ja, mein Furher?"
"Take her outzide and shoot her to death."
"Jawol! Thank you so much!"
Hitler waves away Hoffman's gratitude. "I'm really razzer nice ven you get to know me."
Ben squeals, "But Adolfy, we could be HAPPY together!" as she is dragged outside...
Parte the SeventhBen is thrown into the stattionary cupboard to await execution, where she calmly and logically head butts the door and screams obscenities at the "fucking Fritz!" and "crazed Krouts!" and other such racist slurs until one of the junior SS officers lets her out in return for lessons in Effortless Bigotry - he thought he knew it all until he heard Ben losing it over Hitler's brass testicles...
However, Ben cheats the Nazi youth out of his oral tuition (lucky escape there, boy) and she runs down a long and winding corridor from an Oasis song, which leads to store room which leads to a door which leads to a yard which leads to windswept moorland which leads to a road.
Ben tries to wave down a car...
...and is promptly run over by a six-wheel lorry juggernaught!
But, a quick check at previous episodes reveals Ben is immortal thanks to some ill-defined jiggery-pokery by Alistair Miles and soon she is miraculously healed. Like the hot cheerleader in
Heroes. Except not so hot. Or young. Or talented. Or endearing. I could be watching
Heroes right now. Why the fuck am I wasting my time with this? Oh yeah, I'm an obsessive compulsive with dyspraxia. I remember.
Quickly rearranging her spine, Ben waves down another driver. "You... drive up... to Cardiff.. boyo?" she asks the driver, using her brilliant grasp of the Welsh language.
The driver stares at her, remembering that film
The Hitcher. "Yeah..." she offers, ignoring the fact they are in Cornwall as established in previous episodes.
"Perfect" Ben replies cheerfully. "Take me to see Captain Jack Harkness and his Touchwood team."
"Wha... who? Why?"
"Hitler is alive!" Ben booms, and she's not blinking as much as she should as she says it. "He survived the war using an alien cryogenic storage unit!"
"Sounds like that
Tomorrow People episode..."
"You may not believe me, but this is no wind up! This... is SERIOUS! Now, take me to a wine bar!"
"I thought you had to meet people," the driver protests.
"Ah, that is a big secret and I have my reasons. You should happy to obey me," says Ben getting into the car. "You're not my type at all, but you are amusing. You look like you eat Big Macs, you fat slag."
"Piss off."
"I have just escaped from Nazis!"
"Piss off!"
" I am entitled to make snobby digs at you, chav girl!"
"I mean it, out of the car! NOW!"
"Cheer up, wierdo! I'll let you buy me what you no doubt believe is a lovely cheap red wine!"
Moments later, the car drives off, leaving Ben on the ground, weeping as her eyes stream from pepper mace.
"Bitch!" she howls. "You just wait! Any minute, an alien Isar scout ship will land here, and they'll try to colonize the Earth! And it'll all be your fault!"
The car suddenly reverses back, running over Ben and crushing her skull.
"And STOP ripping off
The Tomorrow People!"
Parte The EighthAt Cambridge, Alistair Miles sits miserably under an increasing layer of dust.
"Last time I help resurrect the Fuhrer," he grumbles.
A thought strikes him and he rapidly rings up Hoffman.
"Ah, Aliztair, how are you, bitte?"
"Don't bitte me, you bastard! I'm still stuck up here!"
"Vell, you promized to make zie Fuhrer invincible to all harm and vat do you do? Create an android replacement scheme that involves people being stabbed to death wiz swastikas carved in zeir foreheads! We're tyink to keep a LOW profile, you zad loony!"
"Can't a guy have a hobby?"
"Of course, bitte. And a guy can be left to rot in zeir Cambridge rooms."
"Bastard. Is he awake yet?"
"Ja, he is. Very relaxed too."
"I want to talk with him."
A moment.
"Yes, zis is Adolf speaking?"
"Ah, Mister Hitler. Just thought you ought to know about my father, who ran than august organization known as Operation: Valkerie..."
"ZOSE VUNKERS?! Ven zey vere not playing 'hide zie sourkraut' zey vere shooting each ozzer! They are zie most useless of cretins outzide of England!"
"Yes, well, that's as maybe. Anyway, that cryogenic capsule you were placed in? It was occupied first - a sort of reptile man in a translucent uniform."
"Iz zeir a point to zis?"
"Indeed, sir. It is my belief - married passionately to wild spurious speculation - that it was some kind of colonization force. When you were revived, the capsule would have sent out a signal to its brethren, for them to return here for their new world. In short, mein fuhrer, you are stuffed."
"Vat? Vy didn't zis signal go off when you first opened zie cabinet?"
"Oh, all that will be explained in a fuller draft."
Hoffman grabs the phone: "Mein Gott! Vie must crush the invaders like the filth they are. Lower than zie Russian schwein!"
"Yeah, good luck with that, they just have neutron blasters and you have sticks that fire bits of metal at them. I mean, the SS elite troops will SURELY have the advantage against the reptillian scum after they slaughter all the regular Nazis..."
"Vait a jihad-declaring minute... zis sounds very much like that
Tomorrow People story!"
"It's funny because it's true..."
"Vat must we do, Aliztair?!" Hoffman begs desperately.
"Simple - get all your men to encircle the base and open fire on it with massive bazookas and grenades until the base explodes and the aliens will leave, their commanders deciding that earth is not a safe place to land."
"You sure about zis Alistair?"
"Would I lie to
you?!"
At that moment, in the base, Ben Chatham bursts in, covered in cordite and bullet holes - despite all the Nazi gunfire, she is still alive and unharmed! She strides in, screaming, "Iiiiiiiiiiiiiit's ME! Yes, Adolf baby, me! The strident blonde youth! Let's get ratted on expensive brandy, listen to Wagner's 'Prelude to Lohengrun', and have some brain-blowing, hot dry sex!"
Hitler looks at her disdainfully. "No thank you. Vy is this madschen schvein still alive?"
"Oh, that'll be me," Miles answers from the phone. "I created an indestructible immortality virus that lasts for a week. You're stuck with him."
"Don't you mean 'her'?" asks Hitler, frowning.
"Fraid not, old bean. He's had surgery."
"Ewwwwwww," Hitler shudders.
"Come on, Adolf," says Ben lustfully, "let's get intoxicated on vodka and orange and entwined in each other's limbs! We can flower arrange stuff as we conquer the world!"
"Get OFF ME you knickerless slapper!"
"I'm warning you, Hitler - you may be history's greatest villain but I am BEN FUCKING CHATHAM! One word from me and UNIT and regular British troops will be surrounding this place! Waking or sleeping, you'll never escape me! Why not give up?"
Hitler will have none of it: "I will have none of it! Where are these troops of yours?!"
"Ah..."
"And if they WERE here, I would just take you as hostage until I am given an aircraft to fly me out of this country."
Ben is having none of it: "I will have none of it! A) I am now immortal, so you can't kill me. B) There is nowhere for you to go. Most Germans of today hate you and I think just about any country you tried to go to would arrest you instantly. You are despised as a mass racist murderer. And C) well, there IS no C) because A) and B) were so great! Just give up and TAKE ME ROUGHLY FROM BEHIND!"
Hitler is angered: "I am angered! I have looked up myself on the wikibox! Some of the German volk continue to honour my memory!
Ben retorts, "Only a few skinheads in the Eastern part. Not many others. But one you have ME on your side, we can raise an army of cultured sophisticated against the chavvish Jewish hoardes and conquer this suburban nightmare of a planet!"
Hitler stares at Ben's half naked body.
"I'll take my own chances, bitte."
"Look Hitler, why not have a brandy, chill out a bit and then surrender to your craving? In that order?"
"How about instead we knife you in the neck?" Hitler growls, and does just that.
Unfortunately, several pints of blood later, Ben is completely fixed.
"Mein Gott," she complains. "What's wrong with you?! You're supposed to the be the Fuhrer, not from a council estate!" She pulls the knife out of her head and advances on Hitler. "Now, send out a message of surrender to the army, by ordering your men to drop their weapons and leave the house with their hands raised!"
"WHAT army!" Hoffman protests.
"And I want a priest!"
"Ah, you think you mongrelised British can marry me! That chamber was not the only alien technology we have. Aufidersehn.... forever."
Hitler reveals he had a teleport bracelet on his ankle the whole time, and teleports himself away to the proposed Nazi space platform.
Unfortunately, it was never built. Hitler appears in deep space and explodes.
On the Earth, Ben rips off the rest of her bra in a Marlon Brando Streetcar Named Desire moment and falls over sobbing.
"We need to get lives," Hoffman says and walks away...
Later, back in the Mermaid Wine Bar in Cambridge, Ben is demanding free booze from the clone of Rose in return for details of her most recent adventure... but all Rose does is smash bottles over Ben's head and stab her in the face. All to no avaial.
Ben sips an absinthe: "I shall never love again," she sobs. "Let's just hope Hitler went somewhere peaceful where he can live out the rest of his life with no hassle."
"For fuck's sake, it's Hitler!" Rose complains, trying to garotte Ben.
Suddenly a guy brushes past Ben carrying a cauldren of boiling water, and pours it onto Ben who is irritated: "I am irritated! Hey watch it, idiot!"
The man scowls: "Sorry, but that was an accident. It was supposed to kill you."
So saying, he sprays Ben with an aerosol and lights her on fire.
"And my name isn't idiot, its Leonard. Leonard Hatred to you!"
"Mmmm nice rear," Ben observes as he walks away and she burns. "Look Rose, if you're uncomfortable with gay people, just go."
At this non sequiter, Rose throws her drink at Ben, causing another spirit explosion as she stomps off to call the police. Ben frowns, troubled. "Actually, this is starting to hurt... oh no... my indestructibility's wearing off! ARGH!"
"So, hi Leonard," Rose says.
"I'M BURNING! I AM ON FIRE! ARGH! GOD! HELP!"
Rose placing her hand on his leg.
"So what brings you to Cambridge?"
"THE PAIN! THE SALTY PAIN! MAKE IT STOP! MAAAAAAAAKEEE ITTTTT STOOOOOOOOP!"
THE END
