Furies from the Deep
by Richard Dinnick

‘I do not recognise your authority either to bring me here or to “punish” me.’ The Doctor stood up. ‘I am leaving.’

‘You are not!’ screeched Alex rising from the lawn.

For a moment, the Doctor found himself rooted to the spot, but then, with the force of a wrecking ball, he was thrown across the orchard. He collided with a tree and cried out in pain as he felt several ribs break. He crumpled to the ground.

‘You are powerless, Time Lord,’ roared Alex as a mighty wind buffeted the trees around her. ‘And you will answer for your crimes.’

The Doctor pulled himself up and winced as his broken bones grated against each other. ‘Very well,’ he breathed. ‘I will play your game.’

Meg, a broad smile on her face, rushed forward and took the Doctor’s left hand, leading him gently back to the Wendy house and the game of snakes and ladders. The Doctor did not resist. He now knew that these beings were indeed powerful – too much so for him just to walk away. What he had to establish next was whether their strength was matched by their intelligence.

He ignored the wicker chair and sat, cross-legged, on the grass beside the game board. He regarded the two counters that sat on the square marked “start”.

‘Should I be blue?’ he asked.

Episode Two:

Ruby was staring at the little redhead girl, her mouth wide open, matching her watery blue eyes. The former cook realised that she must look like a Guppy fish at feeding time and brought her lips together in a fair stab at a smile.

‘Well,’ she said to her young companion. ‘I’ve heard some whoppers in my time – some of them from the Doctor himself – but you take the biscuit, the packet and the tin!’

‘We do not lie,’ replied Tisi, staring at the horizon as if the conversation was beginning to bore her. ‘We don’t need to. The truth is our preferred weapon in these matters.’

‘Really?’ Ruby said with a little too much irony.

‘As I have told you, Ruby Mundy, we have no disagreement with you. You are free to go. We can transport you back to earth or indeed anywhere else you may wish to go.’

‘Anywhere?’ asked Ruby, her eyebrows coming in low over her narrowing eyes.

‘Yes.’

‘Then take me to the Doctor.’

‘I cannot do that,’ replied Tisi, turning to stare at the woman.

‘Then I’ll just have to find him myself, won’t I?’

Tisi did not reply. Instead she hopped off the fallen pillar on which she had been sitting and started to walk away from the temple, back towards the cave mouth hewn in the rock face behind it.

‘Hey! Wait!’ shouted Ruby, standing up as well.

Tisi turned. ‘You have changed your mind?’

‘No! But you can’t just leave me here. If you claim to care about what happens to me, you have to help me! My hand is burnt and may need medical attention. This place is so hot I might melt, for heaven’s sake!’ Ruby stopped to take a breath.

Tisi just looked at her.

‘Well?’ Ruby demanded.

‘I will treat your wound,’ said Tisi quietly and returned to stand before Ruby. Gently, the girl took the woman’s hand in her own and Ruby felt a tingling sensation akin to pins and needles. When Tisi removed her hands, Ruby looked at her bandaged palm. Nothing seemed to have changed, but she could feel no pain. Intrigued, Ruby unwrapped her belt-bandage and sure enough, the burn was completely gone.

‘How did you do that?’

‘This is our realm,’ replied Tisi. ‘We are the mistresses of it and can bend it to our wills.’

‘Handy,’ said Ruby and then realised the pun. ‘Handy!’ she repeated, but the little girl just turned away once more.

‘If you stay in the temple, the temperature and noxious air will not affect you, I promise,’ Tisi said over her shoulder.

‘So I’m a prisoner, is that it? Stay here or get hurt?’

‘Or leave our realm completely.’

‘I won’t be doing that just yet, pet,’ cooed Ruby. ‘You see the Doctor’s my friend and us Mundys don’t give up on our friends.’

Tisi continued to make her way back to the cave, ignoring Ruby completely, before finally disappearing inside.

‘Bugger,’ said Ruby.

‘If I may be so bold,’ said the Doctor shaking a dice in his right hand ‘May I ask exactly what crimes I am accused of and - as you already think I am guilty of those crimes - how I am to be punished?’

‘You are arrogant,’ replied Alex. ‘Even for a Time Lord.’

‘Much more than that other one,’ agreed Meg.

‘That is as maybe,’ said the Doctor. ‘But it does not answer my questions, does it?’

‘You are guilty of many crimes, Doctor,’ announced Alex.

‘Many crimes,’ echoed Meg, staring intently at the Doctor, as if he were a rabbit and she a hawk.

‘That is a bit vague, is it not?’ The Doctor finally released the dice and let it roll across the game board. The black cube came to rest showing five golden dots. The move placed his counter between two ladders.

‘You should not exist in this universe,’ explained Alex. ‘But as you have existed, you are guilty of many heinous crimes that otherwise would have not been committed.’

‘Must be a quandary for you,’ replied the Doctor picking up the dice and holding it out for Alex. ‘Your go.’ The dark skinned girl gently removed the dice from the Doctor’s palm and with little ceremony rolled it across the board. Another five. ‘Glad to see you are keeping up with me,’ smiled the Doctor.

‘We have been keeping up with you since the events on earth in 1973,’ replied Alex as Meg moved the yellow counter to join the Doctor’s blue one. ‘And we have witnessed many since. However, recent proceedings have caused us to act.’

‘Really? And what “recent proceedings” would those be?’

‘You joined battle with a god,’ said Meg as if this explained everything. ‘And you imprisoned him.’

‘Ashgotoroth?’ asked the Doctor incredulously. ‘This is about Ashgotoroth?’

‘Not just about that,’ Alex said. ‘You have killed and maimed, imprisoned and impaired ever since you arrived in Portland in 2001.’

‘I have not!’ But there was a lining of doubt to the Doctor’s retort.

The conversation came to a halt as Tisi emerged from the gap in the privet hedge and came to sit with her sisters. As soon as she had taken her place, she picked up the dice and offered it to the Doctor. ‘You are lying, Doctor,’ she said.

‘Liar, liar! Pants on fire!’ chanted Meg, rocking back and forth.

‘I never lie. Well, not never, but… hardly ever. Look, this is irrelevant! Whatever you may think, I always try to do what is right!’ To emphasise his point, the Doctor rolled the dice and it displayed a single dot. ‘Ah!’ said the Doctor. ‘A ladder at last!’ He moved the blue counter up the rungs, missing out several rows.

Alex leant forward. ‘Right for you, that is.’ The ladder became a snake and the little girl moved the piece back down. ‘Your go again!’ she said brightly.

‘Not just me,’ said the Doctor darkly. ‘Right is something one feels. Is it right to help people in dire situations? Of course it is, if you are able.’ He plucked the dice once more from the board and rolled a three. He was still on the bottom row and now four spaces away from the next ladder, but only two away from the first snake.

‘”If you are able”?’ repeated Meg.

‘Yes.’

‘In our experience, there are few beings in the universe more able than you, Doctor,’ Meg said with a smile.

‘Very kind of you to say, but I doubt it is true.’

‘As I told your friend, we have no use of lies,’ said Tisi. Alex shot her a look of daggers.

‘My friend?’ The Doctor asked, a worried tone entering his voice for the first time. ‘You mean Ruby? What have you done to her?’

‘Once more, you only consider your companion when it is too late,’ said Alex gleefully.

‘What?’ The Doctor began to rise to his feet, clutching at his side.

‘Remain seated, Time Lord,’ spat Tisi. ‘She is unharmed. We have no truck with her.’

‘Good,’ said the Doctor sitting down again. ‘That is good.’ He sighed. ‘I did tell her to stay in the TARDIS…’

‘Ah yes, your beloved ship,’ teased Meg.

The Doctor’s eyes turned to slits. ‘What of her?’

‘I fear she is defunct. As you are an anomaly, so she is too,’ Alex told him.

‘Defunct? There are millennia in the old girl yet. If I were you, I would not let her hear you talk about her in that way. She can get very touchy, you know. Your turn, by the way.’

Alex threw the dice and moved the yellow counter onto the same square as the Doctor’s once more.

‘I am beginning to think your dice might be loaded,’ smiled the Doctor taking the wooden cube in his hand. He shook it close to his ear as if listening for something. ‘No. Perhaps I was wrong.’

‘You often are,’ said Tisi.

‘So your friends keep telling me, but I have yet to hear a shred of proof.’

‘You do not think you were wrong to leave the earth soldiers to fend off an alien invasion as insidious as the Nestene?’ asked Alex.

‘They fended it off very well, as far as I know,’ replied the Doctor evenly. ‘I had other things to do. I cannot be on earth every time an alien pops up, can I? Next you will be telling me that I should defend every planet against every aggressor.’

‘Many UNIT soldiers died,’ said Tisi.

‘Naughty Doctor,’ laughed Meg.

‘Had you been there, they would yet live,’ explained Alex.

‘Dear oh dear,’ the Doctor sighed. ‘What if? Is that the game? What if those soldiers had become butchers? Or bakers?’

‘Or candlestick makers?’ laughed Meg.

‘He is so flippant about the lives of others.’ Tisi turned away in disgust.

‘I am not. I am merely one person. I cannot be held responsible for everything that happens in the universe. I think Pope expressed it best when he said, “All nature is but art, unknown to thee; all chance direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony, not understood; all partial evil, universal good: and, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, one truth is clear, whatever IS, is RIGHT.” Basically, I am not God.’

‘Yet you continue to play God,’ Alex said.

‘Really? I thought I was playing snakes and ladders.’

Ruby examined the contents of her raincoat pockets. It was not very helpful. She had a button, a slip from a drycleaner, some loose change and old leather bookmark. She let out a long sigh. She had to get into the cave. That must be where they were holding the Doctor, but the sulphurous air would mean she might pass out before she reached it. And then what? Death? She did not fancy that option, but staying in the temple was not her preferred choice, either.

As she weighed up the options open to her, a familiar wheezing, groaning sound filled the air and the TARDIS began to take shape beside the defunct fountain. As it solidified, Ruby could see that the paint was no longer peeling. Perhaps she could get back in? She tried the door, which was now cool to the touch, but it did not open.

Ruby.

Ruby spun round, looking for the owner of the voice. No one there.

Ruby. Listen.

‘What?’ said Ruby. ‘Who’s there? And where is there?’

You must go to the cave.

‘Easy for you to say!’

You must. The Doctor will need you.

Ruby contemplated this for a moment. If he were on trial for being a mass murderer, as Tisi had said he was, the poor thing would need a defence or at least character witness. She nodded slowly.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘But how do I get there? The air’s as foul as a canteen after the boys have been playing rugby! And don’t tell me to use the force, neither!’ Ruby managed a half-hearted smile.

Then use your raincoat.

‘Use me Mac?’ she asked. ‘It’s not raining, pet. I can hardly breath out there.’ Then, with the slow creeping of a repentant dog, realisation seeped into her mind. ‘Ah.’ Ruby said. ‘I see what you mean. Yes. Right-ho!’

Ruby started tearing the Macintosh into strips about half a metre wide. She managed to get three of these from the coat, before bundling the contents of her pocket, the belt and one sleeve into the other arm; tying it at both ends so it resembled a bizarre looking kit bag.

When she had done this, she started wrapping the swathes of cloth around her face, covering her mouth and nose several time. At last, her head looking like a cross between a Mummy’s and a tortoise’s, she set off for the cave. It was difficult to breath under the layers of material, but far better than breathing in poisonous gases. The only thing that bothered her was whose voice it had been in her head…

The Doctor slid his blue counter along the board three spaces to where another ladder took it up several rows.

Meg held up a hand. ‘Hold on, Time Lord,’ she said.

The Doctor frowned ‘Another rebuttal?’ he asked.

‘If you claim that you cannot be everywhere and help everyone,’ smiled the oriental girl. ‘Shall we discuss those places you have visited and the people you claim to have helped?’

‘Is that a rhetorical question?’

‘Is yours?’ replied Alex archly.

‘Touché,’ smiled the Doctor. ‘Very well. Where to begin?’

‘At the beginning,’ replied Tisi. ‘When you plucked Bradley from certain death.’

‘Well, I was just in the right place at…’

‘Wrong!’ shouted Alex. ‘He should not have been saved. He should have died, too. You were both anomalies.’

‘The thing is, at that stage this universe was a bit uncertain as to what should and shouldn’t exist,’ the Doctor explained smoothly. ‘Your hindsight is excellent, but I was there. I know. You do not.’

‘He had to become a Dommervoy,’ whispered Tisi.

The Doctor thought back to Brad’s tombstone. The real one.

‘I’m sorry, Brad...’ he mumbled.

Untouched by the storm, Brad walked up to the tombstone. ‘Yeah, know you are, Doc. Odd feeling looking at your own tombstone.’ He knelt on the wet grass. ‘But, you know, the body underneath the ground is just that. A body.’

Brad waved his hand over the tombstone and the date changed. ‘What about this, then, Doc? Is this better for you?’

The Doctor read the inscription. “December 23rd 2101.” His eyes glazed over. ‘Stop this, Bradley. You cannot make me feel any guiltier than I make myself feel. Katarina, Sara. You.’ He dropped to his knees. ‘My fault. Always my fault.’

As he remembered, an image appeared in mid air, as if he was watching the events on some form of ethereal screen. The three Furies were all watching the events unfold. Although it was the Doctor who had called this scenario to mind, it was now they who controlled what he saw.

‘All your fault,’ said Alex triumphantly. ‘By your own admission!’

The scene blurred and was replaced by another, later one.

‘No, Brad,’ the Doctor said in a softer tone. ‘ “It was meant to be” is no excuse. I paid no attention to you beyond my own showing off. I was so caught up in my own problems that I did not see yours. If I had, I could have prevented them. I could have prevented your death.’

‘How?’

One word, and it contained all the questions one life could ever ask. The Doctor’s answer was equally as simple and as complex.

‘Because I am the Doctor.’

‘Because you are the Doctor!’ laughed Meg.

‘You see?’ said Alex. ‘You do see yourself as God!’

‘I may have been a bit conceited in those days,’ replied the Doctor, casting his gaze to the lush grass at his feet.

‘ “In those days”? You have always been conceited – and considerably more than a bit,’ Alex continued. ‘Your confidence in your own abilities has given you a superiority complex!’

‘And as a result you have come to believe that the ends justify the means,’ added Tisi.

‘You said yourself, you should have saved Brad, but instead you decided to have a cup of tea with Nick…’

‘No wonder you’re sorry,’ said Meg indignantly. ‘I’d be sorry, too, if I let a friend of mine die because I was having a cup of tea!’ She shook her head in disbelief.

‘It was not because I was having a cup of tea!’ growled the Doctor, angrier now than he could remember being for a long time. ‘How dare you say that!’

‘We dare because – no matter whether you pretend to us – that is the truth,’ spat Tisi.

‘Of course, he was not “Nick” then, he was “the Bloke”,’ added Alex.

‘But the fact remains that Bradley died all because the marvellous Doctor wanted a cuppa!’ shrieked Meg, rolling back on the grass, laughing.

The Doctor regarded each of the little girls in turn.

‘It is very easy for those who have never actually participated in the real universe to judge those who have,’ he said slowly.

‘What?’ Alex whispered. ‘Those who can, become the Doctor; those who can’t, are Furies? Is that what you are saying?’

‘If that is how you wish to interpret it,’ the Doctor smiled. To use a golfing metaphor, he thought he might just have taken the lead by a stroke…

‘So, things are more complex than we three can comprehend?’

‘It is possible. Sometimes.’ The Doctor shrugged and then pulled a face as the pain in his ribs returned.

‘You reckon you save lives, don’t you?’ asked Meg.

‘In general I would say I did more good than harm,’ the Doctor smiled.

‘Shall we look at another example?’ Alex asked. The other two nodded eagerly.

‘By the way, are we still arguing the point for that ladder I climbed?’

Ruby reached the cave mouth and peered into its murky interior. Why is it you never have a torch handy when you need one, she wondered. Although she could see nothing inside, Ruby took a few tentative steps into the cavern and stopped. Slowly, her eyes became accustomed to the dark and she thought she could make out the walls and ahead – yes! - a door.

Ruby moved forward and somehow lost her footing on the stony surface of the floor. She stumbled forward and collided with the door quite hard. It swung open with the barest of creaks and Ruby landed in an ample pile.

The first thing she was aware of was that this side of the door was well lit, so she sat up to take in her surroundings. Amazingly, she was no longer in a cave, but a corridor of some sort. It had a wooden floor, walls the colour of teal and strip lights overhead. This was not what she had been expecting!

Cautiously, she made her way down the corridor to the nearest window and looked out as she removed the swathes of raincoat from around her neck. Neatly gravelled paths ran around trimmed lawns and fluffy clouds drifted lazily in the pale blue sky above.

This is not real.

‘You again?’ asked Ruby, not bothering to look around for the speaker. However, as she continued to gaze through the glass, she noticed that there was a reflection that should not be there – and almost was not there. It was like seeing the image of a ghost, but despite its otherworldly nature, the figure was unmistakably female and more than that – she was smiling.

This must be a defence mechanism of sorts to repel or detain unwanted visitors.

‘Really? And how do you know that?’ Ruby asked the reflection. No answer came. So she turned round, but as she guessed, she could not see the figure. Her mouth formed a lop-sided frown. ‘So how do we get out of here?’

You must play out whatever scenario this is.

‘I see,’ said Ruby. She looked down the long corridor and spied a door about ten metres away. With a huff, the former cook ambled down the hallway to face the door. It was grey and featureless, except for a chrome door handle. Ruby reached out a hand and turned the knob. With a slight click the door opened to reveal a small room beyond. With a quick check to see that the corridor was till empty, Ruby went in.

On one side of the antechamber was a modern desk with a PC and clipboard on its surface. Behind the desk were various wall charts denoting shifts and some sort of electronic device with a large red button on its facia. In the middle of the far wall was a very heavy and solid looking metal door.

Ruby leant over the desk and pushed the red button. It seemed obvious that this was the opening mechanism, and so it was proved. With a hydraulic hiss, Ruby could hear security bolts being drawn back and then the door slowly withdrew into the wall, allowing her access to the chamber beyond.

She could see what the room was as soon as the door had opened. An armoury. Rows of assault rifles lined the lower part of the walls and above them were even scarier looking armaments – grenade launchers, anti-tank weapons and even a flamethrower. At the far end of the narrow chamber was a shelf unit, with boxes of ammunition neatly arranged and labelled. Other shelves bore several Browning automatic pistols, a whole pile of bayonets and – the largest – was home to over a hundred rifle magazines.

Ruby knew all this thanks to the basic military training she had to undergo when she joined UNIT. She may have been a civilian, but as her weapons instructor had told her – ‘you never know when an Auton or a Cyberman will come into your kitchen looking for something other than sarnies’.

A little wary of what she was doing, Ruby selected a handful of the magazines and began to clip an array of rounds into them from the ammunition boxes; regular, soft-nosed, silver and gold bullets all found their way into her cocktail of munitions.

Guns were not really her thing, but however this scenario played out, she intended to win it as quickly as possible and find the Doctor.

The Doctor looked up at the gloriously blue sky overhead and wondered if the Furies ever bothered to let the sun go down in their realm. After the Bradley incident, the Furies had moved on to another incident in his former life.

‘Do you remember Oryan?’ asked Alex.

‘Of course.’

‘He was the last human on a planet of vampires and you simply abandoned him.’

‘He wanted to stay. It was his home and he wanted to fight for it.’

‘Yet you knew that such a course would lead to his death,’ Tisi complained.

‘I knew he did not have much of a chance, I will admit that,’ replied the Doctor. ‘But who am I to kidnap someone against their will, even if it means they survive for a few more years?’

‘You didn’t try to persuade him very hard, did you?’ asked Meg.

‘As it turned out he was already a vampire – working for Orlock.’

‘But you didn’t know that at the time!’

‘Well, I seem to recall he may already have been infected with the vampire virus and he said he wanted to stay! If I remember correctly, his exact words were: “This is my problem. The longer you and Brad stay the more likely you are to become infected”. If he had not been an emissary of Count Orlock, the sacrifice would have been very noble of him.’

‘But not of you.’ Alex sneered.

‘There was very little I could do against the vampires at that juncture. I may have lost the battle, but I eventually won the war.’

‘How strange to put it in military terms,’ observed Tisi, toying with a loose lock of red hair. She tucked it back under the Alice band and asked: ‘Do you see yourself as a soldier, then?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘That was a course taken by one of your alternative selves,’ added Alex.

‘Oh yes!’ squealed Meg. ‘I remember him – number Five!’

Another image appeared in the blossom-scented air. It showed the blond man the Doctor had met a long time ago – the one whose sarcophagus he had discovered in the tomb. Before him was the rotund figure of his previous self.

‘There’s always another way,’ said the big man quietly. He turned to the still unconscious Brad and hefted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

‘You see, you said it yourself,’ said Alex quietly. ‘”There’s always another way”.’

The Doctor remained silent this time, thinking about his violent alternative self. Were the Furies right after all? Was he really so different? He regarded the snakes and ladders board.

‘I suppose that ladder will become a snake then?’ he asked.

Meg smiled. ‘I think you’re getting the hang of this!’ she said. Sure enough, the ladder shimmered, becoming a serpent, and the Asian child slid the Doctor’s blue counter back to its starting place.

‘There are many things you could have changed, Doctor,’ said Tisi. ‘Do you recall the events aboard the Mono-Cruiser?’

The Doctor sighed. ‘These are not my greatest hits…’

He watched as the scene blurred away from the image of him lifting Brad onto this shoulder. The Doctor felt a stab of pain as a face came into focus on the virtual screen, but it was not his ribs causing him discomfort; it was remorse.

The Bloke turned to the Doctor. ‘We can get them out of here! Take them in the TARDIS!’

‘Nick,’ the Doctor bowed his head.

‘Watch, Time Lord!’ hissed Alex. The Doctor went to open his mouth, but his other self was already speaking…

‘I can't!’ The Doctor shook his head. He pointed to the still open TARDIS door. ‘I could never make the disconnections in time, besides which I'll most likely blow us all to perdition!’

Rhalena leant towards him, placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘You can do it. You are a good man.’

‘Am I?’ The Doctor stared at, through and beyond her. ‘Am I a good man?’ He shook his head despairingly. ‘People have died here today. All because of my stupidity… I tried to fight back, to find a way back… Walked straight into their trap. There is no way back.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know if there’s a place for me in this universe!’

‘Even then, you began to realise that you shouldn’t even be alive in this universe,’ said Alex.

The Doctor rubbed his eyes. They were hot with tears.

‘No one else should have to die,’ he repeated.

‘Indeed,’ said Tisi.

‘Yet so many more have died, haven’t they, Doctor?’ said Alex.

‘Yes,’ the Doctor said quietly.

‘Yes.’ Chanted the three Furies in unison.

‘And not random deaths, either,’ said Tisi.

‘No,’ said Meg.

‘Deaths that you have caused,’ Alex completed. ‘You should be ashamed.’

The Doctor looked at the little black girl imploringly. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I try to do what is right! In the battle between good and evil, there are bound to be casualties. Do you not think that I would put a stop to it if I could? That I would not have done so already?’

‘ “I try to do what is right”!’ mimicked Meg.

‘Is that your only defence?’ asked Alex.

‘Is there any other?’ asked the Doctor.

‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Doctor,’ Tisi chided. ‘As you have found out to your cost.’ She stood up and walked away to the hedge. Even in his gloom, the Doctor wondered where she could be going.

Ruby stalked through the building, her rifle clutched firmly in her hands. She had neither seen nor heard anyone since she had fallen through the door in the cave, but she knew this was a puzzle to be solved. She just needed a little clue; a helping hand.

We must shatter this illusion and break through to reality.

‘Easier said than done, pet,’ Ruby said, as she opened another door and found herself in a large entrance hall. To her left, stairs ran up to the first floor and to the right was what appeared to be a reception desk, compete with telephone and security monitors. Directly ahead was a pair of wooden doors, flanked by tall windows, complete with bombproof curtains.

‘Perhaps this is the way out?’

She stopped dead in her tracks as one of the double doors began to swing open. Ruby brought the rifle smartly to her shoulder.

‘Freeze!’ she shouted at the door. Freeze? She grimaced. All this stupid soldiery! It was making her sound ridiculous! The door continued to open.

That is not an illusion! That is one of them!

Ruby found that she was the one frozen to the spot.

Standing in the doorway was a huge figure, dark and gnarled, with large, leathery wings worn like a cloak of the blackest black. The creature looked at Ruby with crimson eyes boring into her soul. It let out a piercing cry akin to an buzzard and started to move towards her.

With an equally loud scream of fear and anger, Ruby squeezed the trigger and spat death at the creature. Whether soft-nosed or gold, Teflon-coated or silver, the bullets had no affect.