Preparing For The Future (Book Twelve of The Bad Wolf Chronicles)

The Magician's Apprentice

The Doctor and Jessie find themselves on the wrong planet with the wrong person at the wrong time, Clara and the Maximoffs are joined by two people for a Kasterbel hunt, and they find themselves in the one place no one wants to be. Also, the Twelfth Doctor wins the award for best entrance in Doctor Who ever.

Enjoy "The Magician's Apprentice!"

***

Then

"Child in trouble!"

Jessie's head poked up over the bowl of chocolate-covered strawberries she was eating, and she hastily swallowed her bite, putting her bowl down. "What?" she raced to the console.

"Child in trouble!" the Doctor repeated, messing with the levers. "I was trying to find that bookshop you mentioned and somehow landed us in the middle of a warzone on a planet. I was going to head off, but this boy is calling for help."

Jessie peered at the image on the scanner, and she shook her head. "We're not leaving him."

"'Course we're not," the Doctor snorted. "Come on."

Jessie followed him out the door, and she could hear the child's cries through the smoke. The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and turned the diode on, then tossed it through the air. He heard it clatter on the ground, then shouted, "Your chances of survival are about one in a thousand! So here's what you do. You forget the thousand, and you concentrate on the one. Pick it up!" Jessie squinted, able to see the boy through the smoke, looking at the sonic on the ground dubiously. "I said, pick it up!" The boy finally did, and Jessie could finally see what was sticking up out of the ground: hands. "We're straight ahead of you, about fifty feet. Can you see us?" Jessie made a sweeping motion with her hand, and the smoke billowed out of the way, giving them a much clearer path. The boy nodded in agreement as the Doctor crouched down. "The device in your hand is creating an acoustic corridor so that we can talk," the Doctor explained. "Do you understand?"

"Who are you?" the boy rasped.

"Just passer-bys," Jessie smiled. "We were looking for a bookshop, actually."

"I don't think we're doing very well," the Doctor quipped. "How do you think?"

"This isn't a bookshop," the boy said.

"No, this is a war," the Doctor wrinkled his nose. "A very old one, going by the mix of technology. Which war is this? I get them all muddled up."

The boy gulped. "It's just the war."

"Where are we?" Jessie looked around. "I don't recognize this planet. What is it?"

The boy frowned. "I don't understand."

"Well, neither do I," the Doctor shrugged. "I try never to understand. It's called an open mind. Now, you have got to make a choice."

"A choice?" he parroted.

"Yes," the Doctor nodded. "You have got to decide that you're going to live. Survival is just a choice. Choose it now."

The boy looked down at the hands fearfully. "If I move, they'll get me!"

"I told you," the Doctor leaned forward. "You have one chance in a thousand, but one is all you ever need."

"Trust us, we've had that one," Jessie smiled encouragingly. "Why don't you tell us your name? Who's the boy who isn't going to die today?"

The boy swallowed. "Davros," he answered. "My name is Davros." The Doctor balked, and Jessie could only stare in shock and horror at the boy who would one day become the creator of one of the most deadly, dangerous, and destructive races in the galaxy. "Hello?" the boy called as the Doctor turned to her when she started to sway unsteadily. "Are you still there? Please, you've got to help me! You said I could survive! You said you'd help me! Help me!"