Iterations of I (audio story)

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Iterations of I was the second and final story in the audio anthology The Fifth Doctor Box Set, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by John Dorney and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Matthew Waterhouse as Adric, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa and Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka.

Publisher's summary

The house on Fleming's Island had been left to rot. Ever since a strange and unexplained death soon after it was built, and plagued with troubling rumours about what lurked there, it remained empty and ignored for decades until the Cult moved in. As twenty people filled its many rooms, the eerie building seemed to be getting a new lease of life.

But now it is empty again. The cult found something in its corridors... and then vanished.

Trapped on the island one dark night, the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric look into the building's mysteries, its stories of madness and death. Their only chance is to understand what terrible thing has been disturbed here... before it consumes them utterly.

Plot

Part one

In August 1981, students Imogen Frazer and Martin Tuck take part in research on Fleming's Island off the coast of Ireland and Martin starts repeatedly saying i. Imogen fails to return to England so, in December, her boyfriend Jerome Khan travels to Ireland and reports her disappearance Constable Robert DeValley, who knows the island as a place of evil and decides to take a boat there.

Although Tegan is now happy to travel in the TARDIS, Adric and Nyssa attempt to program the ship to take them to Heathrow Airport in 1981 as a test whilst the Doctor is reading Black Orchid in the library. They land on top of a cliff on Fleming's Island and, after the four travellers exit, the ship falls to the ground below and a storm hits. Looking for shelter, they go to a nearby mansion outside of which is a smashed boat. They enter and Nyssa suffers from a psychic shock as her mind is momentarily flooded with numbers and voices.

Tegan stays with Nyssa, who repeatedly says i for a time, and finds a scrapbook which includes a newspaper article on the unexplained death of Sinead Fleming in the library. The Doctor and Adric find a smashed radio and go to repair the generator, passing a series of gravestones including Martin's, and are held at gunpoint after finding the body of a gunshot victim. One of several computers boots up in the house and shows the letter i; despite Nyssa's protests, Tegan presses the return key.

Part two

Robert makes Aoife lower her gun. Jerome informs them that he and Donal have found two women and the three of them take the Doctor and Adric back to the mansion, on the way to which the Doctor has a psychic shock and sees images of people screaming and being torn apart by the air. The two groups exchange information, with the four travellers learning that a cult based on the island has disappeared; the cultists believe that God is an impossibly long number and hired Imogen to try to calculate it so they could change the world.

Aoife screams when she sees a face in the window which Adric and Tegan have also seen and most of the group go to investigate whilst Adric and Nyssa attempt to repair the radio. Adric notices that the computer that Tegan used is generating numbers and repeating i and interpolates it with equations of his own, which gives the impression that something is moving through the numbers. He and Nyssa both start saying i.

From Imogen's tapes, the Doctor learns that there is something alive in the numbers, that Martin died after pressing the enter key on a computer flashing the letter i and that another man shot himself after attempting to interact with it. The computers are impossible to destroy or switch off. After Tegan tells the Doctor that she interacted with the computer, they hurry downstairs and manage to stop Adric, but Nyssa and Aoife continue to repeat the letter. Donal shoots the computer and they pass out, but all of the computers flash the letter and Donal is torn apart by the air.

Part three

The Doctor wakes Nyssa and Aoife with smelling salts and tasks them with checking the mast so that the repaired radio can be used to get help. He realises that the threat is a sentient number which has been locked into the imaginary number i and believes that it is killing people in different ways as it attempts to find a way to communicate. The visions have simply been ripples on the surface of the world. Adric manages to trap the i and find a way to speak with it; it says Jerome's name and the name of the pub where he met Imogen.

The Doctor deduces that Imogen has become a sentient number, but the group are kept from doing anything more when Robert holds them at gunpoint and demands that Adric hands him the number to be used to manipulate the stock market. After Adric gives him a floppy disk, he shoots Adric in the leg to ensure that the group allow him to leave and take him to a hospital on the mainland. Robert barricades the door as he leaves with Adric to contact the outside world and the Doctor realises that the i wants to be set free before it is caught by a predator; he releases the i, but the predator kills Aoife.

Part four

to be added

Cast

References

Notes

Continuity

External links

v • e
The Fifth Doctor Adventures
Single releases
The Fifth Doctor Box Set
Wicked Sisters
The Lost Resort
and Other Stories
Forty: Volume 1
Forty: Volume 2
Conflicts of Interest
In the Night
The Dream Team
The Great Beyond
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