E is for... (audio story)

 was the first story in The First Doctor: Volume Three and featured Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman.

Publisher's summary
All is not right on the planet Malkus. Every day more and more monstrosities are born; people with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal men and women. They call these people "the Gifted". And Susan has become one of them. Separated from her friends in a Police State dedicated to hunting people like her, Susan finds herself in a prison which has destroyed countless lives. And at its centre, at its heart, waiting, is the most dangerous monster of all...

The Gifted (1)
A prisoner sits in a cell, wondering why they are late with his food, when Susan Foreman bursts into his room. He tells him she's loooking for her grandfather, or Ian and Barbara. Since they landed on Malkus, her telepathic powers have been boosted: she can hear, or at least perceive, the thoughts of almost everyone around her. In the main square of the city, she and her companions saw a man suddenly emitting lightnings from his fingertips and a squad of soldiers apprehend him; the Doctor and Ian tried to intervene, and in the following chaos Susan lost them.

Thinking they have been caught, Susan read the minds of some guards and heard talk about something called "Project SPEAR" and a secret prison for special inmates. She tracked down its location with her powers, entered the station unnoticed and, failing to find a map or a program, just started opening every cell in the compound, finally arriving to that of the man. He insists she should leave him there: he's "Weapon E", and has been confined so he doesn't harm others. For the same reason, he also wears a black suit covering it from tip to toe, which also protects him from Susan's powers. Susan lets him out nonetheless, just as a woman is arriving: Rage.

She is the leader of the project, explains E as they try to escape, and detects Susan's presence in her mind. The two are finally cornered by Rage and her men, and in order to save them Weapon E takes off his gloves, releasing a charge of energy with which he stuns Rage and his men. This briefly allows Susan to read into his mind, and to hear the name of someone called "Faith", whose memory helps E to restrain himself. Susan and E escape in the cold, and E (whose real name is Virgil Winters) agrees to help Susan find his friends: there should be a secret base in the mountain, abandoned from some time. As the two walk in the snow, Virgil tells Susan that from some time people on Malkus suddenly acquire powers they don't know how to control; in his case, he emits and releases energy, but has trouble controlling it. He also tells her Rage will never stop chasing them, and that she is seemingly indestructible, nearly impossible to kill.

The two are pursued by an helicopter, and Virgil hesitates to strike it out of fear of hurting the pilot. Susan, however, reassures him: she can't feel anyone thinking, therefore the helicopter is operated by a drone. Virgil then strikes the machine down. They reach the base, but find out it is not abandoned, it is only empty: when they turn on the power once again, they are greeted by a message from Rage, welcoming Virgil / "Weapon E" home.

Children of the Autumn (2)
Actually, explains Virgil, that is only "Weapon A", a sophisticated artificial intelligence who was the first creation of SPEAR. Virgil starts telling Susan that that was the place he was brought in after he began developing his powers at thirteen years, where he still lived in an orphanage, but their exchange is interrupted by Weapon A ordering Virgil to go to his room. Upon his refusal, the AI unleashes on them "Weapon B", "Weapon C" and "Weapon D", the other experiments in the facility. Susan and Virgil are first attacked by Weapon C, a cyborg, but Susan renders him unconscious and they run to Virgil's room. From his tale, Susan realises Virgil is just seventeen, and that Rage convinced him to carry on missions for them because he was told he was helping people.

Weapon B (a genetic mixture of different races and beasts) attacks them as they are still in his room, but once again Virgil and Susan, working together, manage to overpower him. They then decide to go to the main control room and reboot Weapon A, thus deactivating all the security systems. In order to trick Weapon A, they first go to the armory, where Virgil can retrieve his combat suit and they can deactivate Weapon A. There they are attacked by Weapon D, a seemingly decased soldier turned into a zombie soldier, but Susan manages to enter his mind and giving him back his memory, so that Weapon D attacks Weapon A, helping Susan and Virgil to deactivate it. Rage arrives at that moment, and threatens both Susan and Virgil, revealing that she and her superiors used Virgil to perform acts of genocide in actions of war. Virgil enters his combat suit and attacks Rage, deactivating her neural implant, and Susan exploits this breach to have Rage experience the pain and the regret in Virgil's head.

Leaving Rage in a state of shock, the two come back to the control room, where they reactivate Weapon A. In the meantime, Virgil tells Susan about Faith, a telepath he was sent to capture, but ended up revealing him the truth about what he was doing. Together, they went around helping people for six months, before Rage caught him again and locked him in the prison Susan found him in when she realized he wasn't going to obey her anymore. As for the Doctor, Ian and Barbara, when Susan asks about them, Weapon A tells her that they were released before there was no evidence against them; in fact, they have been searching for her all this time. Weapon A contacts them and tells them about Susan's whereabouts; it even relates Susan a message from the Doctor to "not do anything foolish".

Then, Weapon A opens a panel, behind which Susan and Virgil see the remains of a crashed spaceship, the Autumn. It was a scientific expedition from another civilization, and was shut down by Rage and Project SPEAR thirty years ago; the genetic material in it spread into the atmosphere and gave birth to the "gifted". Rage reaches them again, intending to kill Virgil, and the two of them battle in the ruined ship, eventually causing an explosion where Rage is killed. As Susan remains there to wait for their grandfather, Virgil says goodbye to her, but not before Susan briefly enters his mind so he can see the colour of the sky - as well as she taking from him a memory, that of the last time he looked himself in the mirror.

Cast

 * Susan - Carole Ann Ford
 * Virgil Winters - Mark Edel-Hunt
 * Colonel Maria Rage / Weapon A - Lisa Bowerman

Characters

 * Susan
 * Virgil Winters
 * Colonel Maria Rage
 * Weapon A
 * Weapon B
 * Weapon C
 * Weapon D

Susan's flashback

 * First Doctor
 * Barbara Wright
 * Ian Chesterton
 * Screaming man

Continuity

 * When the TARDIS lands on Malkus, Susan remembers her Grandfather insisting they explore the city, ironic considering what happened last time. (TV: The Daleks)
 * Susan regains her telepathic powers. (TV: The Sensorites)
 * Susan recalls having looked into the Time Vortex, something all Time Lords are made to do at a young age. (TV: The Sound of Drums)