Secret Origins (audio story)
Secret Origins was the forty-eighth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the fourth and final story of the tenth season.
Publisher's summary
Bernice Summerfield wakes up in hospital on Earth, in the ruined city of Buenos Aires. She is relieved to find her son Peter by her side. Frost, the man who kidnapped Peter and has terrorised this city for centuries, has long been thought immortal: but now he's dead. Everything is fine.
Or is it? As Bernice tells Peter how she rescued him, she questions why Frost went to such lengths to kidnap Peter in the first place. Frost is one of two people she's met here who claim to have known her for a long time: he seemed to have a grudge against her, whilst the other, a young woman named Robyn, claims to have worked with her for many years.
As Bernice recuperates, the memories of this time start to come back to her. She remembers new adventures stretching back many, many years. She and Robyn have defeated Frost countless times before. How can this be right? Are these memories real? The answers lie in the origins of the feud between Bernice and Frost — but is Bernice paying too heavy a price for remembering?
Plot
Benny wakes up in a hospital bed in the ruins of Buenos Aires and is told by Peter that she was brought there by Robyn after she rescued him. Although Benny does not immediately recognise the name, she remembers arriving in the city after receiving a message from her and how Robyn claimed to have known her for years.
Benny accepts Robyn's help in rescuing Peter from Samuel Frost and learns that they apparently worked together in Buenos Aires until Frost, using a serum to make himself indestructible, took over and sealed the city off with an impenetrable barrier. In addition to kidnapping Peter, he also killed President Summerfield purely to send a message. Accessing a temple a millisecond in the future using her Time Ring, Benny acquires the Amulet of Irony to use against Frost at Robyn's suggestion and the pair are then admitted through the barrier. She enters Frost's chamber alone, learns that he considers himself to be her arch enemy and then hits herself repeatedly, the amulet's power causing Frost to do the same. His super strength leads to his death and Benny collapses as she is reunited with Peter.
In the hospital, Benny wonders if being knocked out had jogged her memory because she is starting to feel as though she did know Frost. When Robyn visits her, she remembers an expedition that the two went on to the planet Quaresma and what happened on their return journey through space.
Lambton places a label on a sample of gel so that it is not opened until the expedition return to Earth, but the palaeontologists start analysing it regardless. Robyn alerts Benny when Lewis starts behaving aggressively and has to be locked inside a testing room, where he removes one of his hands with an electric saw without reacting and places it in the internal mail. It arrives in the mess hall where it moves independently and attacks Santos, after which it stops moving, Lewis is left braindead and Santos acts oddly. Frost is found trying to steal an escape pod and reveals that he has been hiding on board, having secretly funded the expedition to gain the thought-eating gel that has now left Santos to feed on Austin.
Benny recounts a conversation between Robyn and Lambton about a secret that Robyn was keeping from the Company and from Frost. Robyn remarks that she should not know about this conversation as she was not there and chalks it up to memory leakage. She then orders Benny to forget that part.
Lambton agrees to act as bait to lure the entity, which Frost describes as a ghost, into an escape pod. As Lambton is an android with a part-organic brain, he is able to generate reams of random data when the ghost enters him, preventing it from devouring his mind and keeping it trapped so that Benny can release the escape pod into the orbit of a forbidden planet. Benny had not previously known that Lambton was an android and Robyn explains when asked that she worked it out because her father makes androids for a living.
Peter is confused when Benny says that this adventure happened in 2212 but not whilst she was time travelling and by how Benny has never mentioned Robyn to him before. He speaks with Robyn about it whilst Benny rests and points out that she has been living with him rather than in Buenos Aires. Robyn claims that something important is going on and asks for his trust, which he gives despite not knowing why. He returns to Benny with a parcel containing the Right Hand of God, which is useless without the Left Hand of God which she has in her possession.
to be completed
Cast
- Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
- Peter Summerfield - Thomas Grant
- Robyn - Donna Berlin
- Agent Green / Lambton / Sebastian / Captain Strasser - Duncan Wisbey
- Samuel Frost - Doug Bradley
- Ghost / Soldier - Alex Mallinson
Uncredited cast
Worldbuilding
- Benny knows a handful of Welsh words.
- Owen Parry went on an expedition to Buenos Aires in 1884.
- Dr Matthews works at the hospital.
- Robyn buys Peter a muffin.
Cover Gallery
Cover
Textless Cover
First Concept sketch
Final sketch
Thumbnails
Notes
- This story was recorded on 10 January 2009 at The Moat Studios.
- A download version of this story was released on 23 May 2022.[1]
Continuity
- Robyn mentions that she got reports on Buenos Aires from Panthea Vyne on the Depository. (AUDIO: The Diet of Worms)
Footnotes
External links
- Official Secret Origins page at bigfinish.com
- Secret Origins at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
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