literature

Doctor Who Redux 0 Pilot 12

Deviation Actions

DoctorRy's avatar
By
Published:
267 Views

Literature Text

12.

Felicia was a little surprised when, on exiting the TARDIS, she and the Doctor were confronted by Julianna.

"What the hell you doing in there?" Rufus demanded, glowering.

"What the hell business is it of yours?" Felicia snapped back, immediately annoyed by his attitude. Where he had suddenly got this desire to be protective of her she had no idea, but she was getting pretty sick of it, all things told. The Doctor came out of the newsstand after her, pulling the newsstand door closed. For the first time it made a satisfying click, and the Doctor shook it to make sure it was locked. He turned around to see the new arrivals.

"Julianna. Rufus. Interesting time of morning to be out," he said conversationally. And, he was right, Felicia realised. It must have been still before five in the morning, and yet here were her friends. For Rufus to be out of bed before ten seemed strangely out of character. Though the fact the Doctor was greeting Rufus with some sort of gang handshake seemed even more out of character.

"Well, we wanted to make sure Leesh was OK," Rufus said, nodding at him.

"Sure you did," the Doctor nodded affably. "Well, here she is. Check her out. Make sure everything's fine." He addressed the last comments towards Julianna. Felicia narrowed her eyes slightly at her new friend, trying to work out exactly what he was trying to get across.

"We know everything's fine," Jules said, dismissively. "It's just that after everything today, we thought..."

"That the first thing Leesh would do at three o'clock in the morning would be to come and visit me," the Doctor finished for her, smiling - though the smile wasn't reaching his eyes.

"No, that's..." Julianna shook her head.

"Hey," Rufus suddenly said. "I texted her and she didn't reply, so I texted Jules and she told me that Lees would probably come here."

"At three in the morning?"

"I text at weird times," Rufus said defensively.

"He does," Leesh confirmed. "Though he doesn't usually come looking if I don't respond."

"Can I see your phone?" the Doctor asked, holding his hand out.

"Hell no you can't," growled Rufus.

"Not yours. You didn't send anything. I want hers," he pointed at Julianna, and the girl took a step back.

"I sent messages," Rufus was saying, but the Doctor cut him off.

"Nah, you didn't. UNIT blacked out the phone system around one o'clock this morning, I assume in order to hack into networks and get rid of any data files that they might not like people having, such as pictures of Zygons."

"No one has a picture of a Zygon," Julianna protested.

"What's a Zygon?" Rufus demanded.

"You have a picture of a Zygon, ya noob," Felicia said to Julianna with a smile, but she suddenly realised she was the only person who seemed to be smiling.

"That," the Doctor said, pointing to Julianna, "is a Zygon."

"What are you..." Julianna began, but the Doctor cut her off.

"Oh, come on. You guys are pathetic when it comes to impersonating. I can see the white arm band," he said, suddenly striking forward and grabbing Julianna's arm, rolling the sleeve back. Sure enough, on her arm was the white arm band. Rufus leapt forward to defend Julianna, but Felicia pushed him back, her trust in the Doctor suddenly overriding all else. "OK, so here's the interesting thing," the Doctor said. "You seem to have the strength of Julianna, which means you aren't going to force me off anytime soon. And I have this!" He brandished his sonic screwdriver. "So...er...what's your name?"

"Greborn!" spat 'Julianna'.

"So, Greborn, you're going to answer a few questions, or I'm going to remove your armband, and judging by the last time I removed an arm band it won't be very pleasant for you."

"Nor for the girl. You removed your own armband last time, Doctor, and that shock killed Zondal. Remove mine, and the shock will kill both me and the girl!"

"Why do I care?" the Doctor asked. "I only met her yesterday morning." Greborn stared into the Doctor's eyes, as Felicia and Rufus looked shocked.

"Doctor," Felicia said, unable to voice what she wanted to say.

"I told you," Rufus snarled. Greborn held the Doctor's gaze for a few moments.

"Alright," she said. The Doctor smiled. "Do it," she continued. The Doctor stared at her for a moment, then bit his bottom lip. Finally he let the girl go.

"OK," he said with a slight smile. "So I do care."

"Thank god," Felicia breathed happily.

"Have some faith," the Doctor muttered to her. "Rufus could you grab Miss Greborn please?" Rufus paused, but Felicia glared at him and he went behind Julianna and grabbed her arms. "So, I won't kill you, but we outnumber you and I could just contact UNIT to come and take care of you as an alien invader," the Doctor said. "And even though I only met them yesterday, I'm fairly certain I know what type of people they are. So, I guess we come down to this: are you going to tell me what I want to know, or are you just going to wait until the authorities arrive?"

Greborn glowered at the Doctor who suddenly spun on his heels and looked at Felicia.

"I want coffee and muffins, and I don't want to go to McDonald's again."

*???*

There was a devious side to Rufus, and so he chose a cafe that white people generally referred to as "ethnic" to avoid looking like out and out racists. Rufus was kind of happy about that, because he liked to know that there was a place he and the others could hang out where it was more comfortable. Felicia knew she fit in fine, but they never went there because Julianna would be made to feel uncomfortable. In this particular instance, if someone screamed alien, they'd be closer to the money than they believed.

The Doctor, however, seemed to have a complete disinterest, or just failed to notice, that he was the only white person that walked into the cafe. A group of blacks sat at the back laughing, while an elderly African-American couple were closer to the front sipping an early morning coffee. The other two groups of people were all Hispanic, and as such everyone looked up when the Doctor followed Rufus into the cafe. Felicia was a little impressed at how well he handled Rufus' challenge, and how poorly Rufus was dealing with the response, but she couldn't help but feel a little concerned when they had walked in. She didn't particularly like gangs of any kind, and the fact that there seemed to be at least one black gang and one Hispanic gang in the club scared her a little.

The Doctor nodded politely at everyone who was staring at him, but only the elderly couple turned back to their tea. The Doctor's smile became a little rictus, and he turned to the cafe owner - a short Mexican.

"Can I get a coffee and maybe a muffin?" he asked politely, and behind him, the gangs all burst out laughing.

"Coffee and muffins for my man," one of the black kids called.

"For all of us," Felicia quickly said, and grabbed 'Julianna' and took a seat. A few wolf whistles came across the room, along with some compliments about Felicia's physical assets, and she blushed as she sat down.

"If you want, I could lower the chameleon field and use my sting to teach them some manners," Greborn said. Tempted as she was, Felicia just glared at the Zygon, who shrugged.

The Doctor and Rufus sat down, the Doctor idly looking at Rufus. "This is a nice place," he said casually.

"Oh you think?" Rufus replied.

"I do," the Doctor said.

"I thought you might have a problem with the locals," Rufus said, smirking.

"Why? Did my doppelganger upset them?"

"I don't even know what that word means, but I meant because they are all coloured," Rufus enunciated. The Doctor looked at him blankly. "This isn't a white man's haunt," he said. The Doctor frowned slightly.

"Ignore him," Felicia said, though she was puzzled at why the Doctor seemed so confused by what Rufus was driving at. The Doctor stared around the room for a moment, taking everyone in.

"Oh!" The Doctor suddenly said, and smacked his forehead. "Of course, of course. I forgot. You guys have the whole skin colour hierarchy, don't you? Wow," he sat back in his chair with a smile. "I completely forgot. Actually, I'm surprised because I thought that was a twentieth century thing. Haven't you guys got a black president?"

"Yeah, what of it?" Rufus demanded.

"Enough!" Felicia snapped. "You tried to humiliate him, it didn't work. Well done, thanks for being a child."

"What are you smiling at?" Rufus growled at Greborn.

"I find your human discrimination based on appearance to be amusing," the Zygon confessed.

"It's weird," the Doctor shrugged.

"When you come from a race where appearance is so easily changeable, these sorts of things - colour, gender - they are meaningless."

"Hah, very true," the Doctor chuckled.

"Your race is chameleonic, Doctor?" Greborn asked curiously.

"No," the Doctor said. "At least I don't think so. But..." He frowned. Strangely, after the dream, Felicia found she had a lot more sympathy for the Doctor's memory loss. Even more if she had a memory that he didn't have. Oh, god, she thought. She could vividly remember the Doctor's father. What if he couldn't?

She reached out and touched his arm, and he smiled at her.

"Let's just interrogate this thing and hand it over to the government," Rufus sulked.

"We're not handing anyone over to the government," the Doctor said, his voice laced with conviction.

"Nice to know," Greborn smiled.

"Hey," Felicia poked the Zygon with a fork. "He may not, but I will. Especially if it means I get my friend back."

"I'd take that seriously if I were you," the Doctor said. The cafe owner placed the mugs of coffee on the table, along with a plate of muffins that were buttered. The Doctor reached forward and grabbed one of the honey satchels, and then a muffin. He enthusiastically poured the honey on the muffin and began chewing.

"Tell me why the Zygons want Hudson University," the Doctor said, his mouth full. Felicia rolled her eyes as he inadvertently spat something at her. "Sorry," he mouthed. She glared at him.

"To power our ship, of course," Greborn said. She pulled a mug of coffee towards her. "I actually quite like this beverage," she said casually. "Certainly we don't have anything like...er...what's it made of?"

"Beans," the Doctor mumbled.

"Oh yes, coffee beans. We don't have them on Zygor. They are amazing. I've got some to take back, but I'm not sure I'll be able to grow them."

"Focus," the Doctor said, clicking his fingers, and flicking crumbs in the process.

"Jeez," Rufus said, "don't they teach you how to eat in outer space?"

"What?" the Doctor turned to him, but Felicia clicked her fingers in his face.

"Focus!" she said.

"Right," the Doctor agreed. "Well?" he turned to Greborn.

"Oh, the new physics project. It's an energy project, and our ship crashed here about twenty years ago. We've been waiting to find the right sort of thing that was near to our crash that would provide us with the power we needed. I can tell you, after examining the Earth's various scientific projects, we really wished we'd landed nearer to Sweden. That Hadron Collidor could have been adapted perfectly for our needs."

"It's not a problem for you to just walk in and take another culture's work?" the Doctor asked indignantly.

"We considered integrating," Greborn admitted, "but Toborn wasn't particularly keen on it. In fact he wanted to claim your world for our might Empire, but we persuaded him not to do that. This place is well and truly out of the way, and if we hadn't been on the run from another warship we'd never have ended up here."

"You're in a war?" Rufus asked, surprised.

"No," the Zygon shook her head. "Not at all. But there's a war going on up there," she pointed up to the sky. "Two mighty armies poised for battle. Well, I say, poised, but I mean, actively engaged," the Zygon rolled her eyes. "We were doing a quick scout to make sure it didn't come near out borders and a ship engaged us, so we fled. And crashed. On this planet."

"And then decided to steal alien technology," the Doctor said.

"Oh, like they wouldn't steal ours if they got the chance," Greborn said. "Oh, we know all about UNIT, and their Torchwood division. Don't make out like they're the innocent victims in all of this."

"You have a dinosaur in the Hudson River," the Doctor said drily.

"It's not a dinosaur," Greborn argued. "That's our Skarasen."

"A Saracen?" Felicia puzzled.

"Skarasen," the Zygon corrected. "We need her to survive." The other three at the table looked at her blankly. "We drink her milk."

"Oh, that's just disgusting," Felicia said.

"You drink dinosaur milk?" Rufus said incredulously.

"You drink milk from bovines that eat grass they excrete on," Greborn said. "I hardly think you're in a position to tell me what constitutes as 'disgusting'."

"What did she say?" Rufus asked.

"Probably best you don't think about it," the Doctor said. "Right, so, to break it down, we have the Hudson University experimenting on a new power source that you think is successful. You want to steal it to get your craft away, along with your Skarasen, and return home. Am I with you so far?"

"Yes," Greborn said. "That about sums it up."

"Well..." The Doctor sat back in his chair. "That sounds quite reasonable. How can we help?"
The story continues...


Pilot1 [link]
Pilot 2 [link]
Pilot 3 [link]
Pilot 4 [link]
Pilot 5 [link]
Pilot 6 [link]
Pilot 7 [link]
Pilot 8 [link]
Pilot 9 [link]
Pilot 10 [link]
Pilot 11 [link]
© 2013 - 2024 DoctorRy
Comments4
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Langue-Skulptur's avatar
Lovinggggg it~

I like to see where this goes. Plus interesting view of race. And are the Zygons really from Zygor? Like, why aren't humans from Humania?