Ground Zero (comic story)
Summary
When the Doctor and Ace visit the carnival at Notting Hill in 2082, Ace is kidnapped by an agent of the business known as the Threshold. The Doctor, alone on the streets, catches a glimpse of his grand-daughter Susan, and follows her to Isaac, another Threshold agent. Isaac frees Susan from his mind control and finally reveals to the Doctor that the Threshold have been working under his nose for the past 150 years, setting their own plans in motion. The human race is empathically united through their collective unconscious, which exists on another plane of reality -- but creatures born of hatred and fear have bred there and developed sentience. These creatures, the Lobri, hired the Threshold to find an escape route, and the Threshold decided to send humans directly into the Lobri's realm, for them to feed on until they had enough strength to break free by themselves. However, only time-travellers could survive the stress of the journey through dimensions, and the Threshold have thus kidnapped Sarah, Peri, and now Ace (they kidnapped Susan as well before realising that she wasn't human). When the Lobri escape from the collective unconscious, it will be destroyed, and the human race will descend into a riot of blind xenophobia as every human being becomes alienated from every other.
The Doctor steals Isaac's Threshold ring and pilots the TARDIS into the collective unconscious; Isaac had claimed that only humans could survive, but the Doctor and Susan arrive intact, although the TARDIS console room is shattered by the journey. The Lobri are feeding on Peri's terror, but Ace escapes from her bonds and uses nitro-9 to drive them off -- and then the Doctor arrives and uses Isaac's ring to open a gateway into the heart of a sun, destroying one of the Lobri. Isaac then takes back his ring, and as the two surviving Lobri attack, Ace tries to defend the Doctor. One of the Lobri pins her down, but as it prepares to feed on her she pulls the tab of her last nitro-9 canister, killing both it and herself. The last remaining Lobri has enough strength to flee to Notting Hill, but not enough to destroy the collective unconscious behind it. The Doctor carries Ace's body into the TARDIS and returns to Notting Hill, where, due to the damage it has suffered, the TARDIS materialises in the same space as the Lobri, splattering its remains across the street. The Doctor confronts Isaac, realising that the Threshold deliberately used him to dispose of the Lobri while fulfilling their contract to the letter, and vows to avenge Ace's death. He then removes Susan and Peri's memories of events, takes them and Susan back to the timelines from which they were kidnapped, and departs, alone.
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