Reckless Engineering

Nick Walters

2003

There's trouble on the Timeways and the history of Earth has been shattered with each splinter vying to be the real history and it's up to the Doctor, Fitz and Anji to make sure that their history is the one that prevails (but can they be sure they remember the correct history?).

When the TARDIS materialises in the Bristol of 2003, the little party does not find itself amongst the glories of the twenty first century, but weed-infested ruins that would have done the twenty-second century proud.

When they rescue a young woman (or she rescued them; appearances are so important!) from the hordes of cannibals she tells of the Cleansing, but refuses to tell them what it was all about.

After escorting her back to her settlement, the Doctor and his companions are interrogated by the leaders of the settlement, Fitz attracting attention for his leather jacket and Anji for her colour. It's Aboetta, though, that gets the first inklings of what's going on, though she can't see why she thinks she's been up at Mr Malahyde's for only four months and her friends and associates think she's been gone ten years.

Of course, the Doctor is drawn to this anomaly and a raid is planned on Mr Malahyde's estate with Father Gottlieb along for the ride.

When a group of wildren ambushes the party, it is scattered with Gottlieb and Anji going one way and the Doctor and Fitz going the other.

After the Doctor finally breaches Malahyde's defences, he finds an alien device in the eccentric's cellar that appeared to be responsible for the time pulse that had caused the Cleansing way back in the early nineteenth century. But who, or what had been responsible for the device?

Hunting backwards and forwards in time, the Doctor has to find the answer before the Cleansed reality becomes Prime. Along the way, Isambard Kingdom Brunel aids him.

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