The Empire State (audio story)

 was the thirty-fourth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the sixth and final story of the seventh season.

Publisher's summary
A remarkable city once stood on a desert moon between six colony worlds: an entire city contained within a single vast tower. In honour of another great feat of architecture from an earlier age, the human pioneers who built the city christened it the EmpireState.

The phrase "once stood" would seem to imply that the city isn't there any more, and until yesterday it wasn't, having been destroyed almost a century ago. Indeed, Bernice Summerfield has reluctantly left behind a Braxiatel Collection in turmoil and launched an expedition to excavate the site of the EmpireState, and noted archaeologists like her rarely concern themselves with things that haven't been broken, ruined or lost.

Yet now the EmpireState has reappeared as if the last century never happened, and the members of Bernice's expedition have been scattered throughout the city. One member in particular proves difficult to track down, which is awkward as Bernice believes that she may hold the key to what's happening at the EmpireState — and the means to save the Braxiatel Collection.

Plot
After Benny unearths and catalogues the Stone of Barter on a desert moon, the ruins of the EmpireState rise from the sand and she passes out. When she comes around, she finds herself in a lift with Rand Goodwin, who expresses his dissatisfaction with life in the tower and repairs the lift when it breaks. She manages to find almost all of the members of her team and sends them to the shuttle whilst she looks for Maggie Matsumoto, whom she asks about at Saf's bar, the Spirit World. When she magically repairs a glass that she smashes, she explains to Saf that she must have absorbed powers from the stone, which has disappeared.

Benny finds Maggie and learns that she has been keeping the misanthropic Rand from destroying the EmpireState. Rand does so by overloading the generators, but Benny restores it with the powers which Maggie reveals are hers; her powers, which use the energy of a stabilised black hole, were absorbed by the stone when she touched it. In truth, she is not an archaeologist but a homemade temporal physics experiment made by her "father" from a kit bought in Tokyo and came to acquire the stone for her own ends, wanting revenge on her "father" for making her clean up his messes. Benny agrees to return her powers if Maggie lets her keep the stone afterwards, but she refuses to hand it over and leaves Rand in Benny's care.

Benny explains to Rand that she is looking for the stone because it is said to contain information on the whereabouts of somebody that she is looking for and tells him about her powers. When Rand mentions that he sold the Spirit World to Saf only eight days ago, Benny realises that Saf is the custodian of the stone, guarding it and following instructions given to him by his predecessor to help Maggie in return for receiving stock tips and lottery numbers. The glasses are smaller versions of the stone and have been absorbing the "good vibes" of the patrons for Maggie to transmit at the planets that the moon orbits. However, the "good vibes" are unstable as Benny has not properly restored the EmpireState but her own utopian vision of it, resulting in conflict on Mordita.

As the EmpireState becomes unstable, Benny convinces Maggie to give her the stone in exchange for her powers and tells Rand to destroy the tower. Saf then tells Benny that the stone was once a person who must hold the information that Benny is after and restores him. The stone is Braxiatel, Maggie's designer, who says that he needed some "me-time" without being disturbed and that he is done with the Braxiatel Collection, but Benny says that she needs his help. The EmpireState is destroyed.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Jason Kane - Stephen Fewell
 * Maggie- Sophie-Louise Dann
 * Rand - Simon Watts
 * Saf - Philip Edgerley

Continuity

 * Benny mentions that she recently almost became a god. (AUDIO: The Tartarus Gate)
 * Braxiatel left the Collection in The Crystal of Cantus.