Doctor Who Redux 0 Pilot 9

9.

"That's unusual," the Doctor was murmuring.

"RUN!" Felicia screamed at him, as she bent down to grab Julianna and help her friend. The pair stumbled as fast as they could, Julianna tripping over the white robes that Felicia had given her to cover her modesty. As they ran, they could hear the roar getting weaker and weaker, and when they had made the cover of the nearest building on campus, Felicia risked turning around and was surprised to see that there was no sign whatsoever of the enormous monster that had threatened them. She was not so surprised when she saw the Doctor running towards her, though this changed when he kept on running into the main campus area. She watched as he got some distance and looked from side to side, then slowed and stopped. He turned around and looked at her with shock.

"Why  have you stopped running?" he bellowed back at them, getting the attention of some of the students who were in the area.

"There's nothing to run from!" Felicia screamed back, and realised how stupid she must have looked when a nearby group of students looked around at her. She smiled weakly, and shrugged at them, but when she looked back at the Doctor he was pointing behind her. She turned around, and saw Doctor Zimmerman storming towards her, accompanied by three other faculty members she vaguely recognised.

"Oh my god," Julianna breathed, and Felicia thought the same thing when she got a glimpse of the fifth figure. It was Julianna. For the first time, Felicia realised that her friend had a black armband on her left arm, similar to the Doctor's. Zimmerman was carrying some sort of weapon, and when he raised it at her, Felicia grabbed her friend and ran towards the Doctor.

"Come on," the Doctor said, and the three ran further into the campus. "I'm hoping," the Doctor puffed to them as he ran, "that they might be less inclined to shoot us when there are a lot of people around."

Felicia risked a glimpse back, and saw that their five pursuers had increased their speed. Given that they were hampered by Julianna's relatively slow progress, and given that Zimmerman seemed to be shouting something about "Security", Felicia guessed that their capture might be more an inevitability than a probability.

"We're screwed," she hissed to the Doctor, and she could see in his eyes that he agreed with her.

They had managed to make their way to the main open area of Hudson University, and Security seemed to be suddenly getting an interest in what was going on. Suddenly the Doctor stopped, and spun around.

Zimmerman grinned an evil grin - which looked more disturbing on the Doctor's face given Felicia now understood the real man's personality - but his face almost immediately changed. It contorted and Zimmerman spasmed. He grabbed at his face as his entire body flared a vicious red, and then he collapsed to the ground. Except that he was no longer Zimmerman.

Instead, the real Zygon creature - squeezed awkwardly into a suit - could be seen, smoke seemingly wafting from the collars and cuffs. Felicia turned to the Doctor who had his sonic screwdriver in his hand, and saw the black armband he had been wearing was now on the ground.

The Doctor was looking almost as stunned as the other Zygons, but he seemed to quickly recover.

"Sorry about that," he said, and he did sound genuinely upset. "I didn't know what would happen, but I figured it wouldn't be pleasant. That said," he added, a certain level of steel in his voice, "we have one more armband." He reached a hand to one side, and Julianna - understanding - placed her left hand in his. The Doctor brought the crystal wand up to the black shelled band. "You need to back off, or I'll do it again."

The Julianna-Zygon looked absolutely petrified, while the three other Zygons seemed mostly impassive. However, none of them made a move.

The Doctor spoke softly without turning his head. "Make your way to my newsstand," he said. The three of them started backing away carefully, and none of the Zygons made a move to stop them. Felicia noticed that a few people had gathered around, and mobile phones were snapping pictures and taking video. She wondered how people would react when this went up on YouTube.

In fact, the Doctor's newsstand wasn't too far away, and the trio were in front of it with the Zygons still in view. The Doctor pulled the door open and went in to the far side, where he took out the crystal key and slid it into a slot which opened the door on that side.

"Come on," he said, and went through the door. Felicia couldn't quite understand exactly why he wanted to go through the other door - after all, they could have gone around the newsstand, rather than through it - and so she started to do just that. The Doctor stuck his head around the door and through the opening of the stand as Felicia and Julianna passed by.

"What are  you doing?" he asked. "I said 'come on!" Through this door," he added, as though it needed explanation. Felicia turned, but was at a point where she could now see both the interior and exterior of the newsstand. And while the Doctor appeared to be stepping through the outer door and coming inside, on the outside there was no sign of him.

"How are you doing that?" she asked in astonishment. Julianna stood beside her, equally amazed. She grabbed hold of the stand and leaned around before muttering "There's no door on this side."

Suddenly the Doctor lent forward and grabbed at Julianna, almost hauling her over the magazines and into the newsstand.

"Zygons!" he shouted by way of explanation, and with that he pulled Julianna into the stand and through the door. Felicia, with no real good reason, scrabbled over the magazines and followed.

Into a room that couldn't possibly have existed.

"No way," she heard Julianna saying. And it was true. Rather than being on the opposite side of the newsstand as would make sense (well, not entirely given there was no door on the other side of the stand), they were standing in an enormous room. It was a gleaming white, with pulsing blue circles lining the walls; of which, Felicia noted, there were six. Each wall was met by a crystal pillar, inside of which were the same sort of silvery filaments that were in the key and screwdriver the Doctor had collected.

They had apparently come through a set of double doors (Felicia's mind could not even begin to understand how that had happened), and they were now resolutely closed to the outside world. One wall had a stairwell that led to what looked like an lower gallery, with various doors and what looked like touch screen computers lining the walls on that level.

At the center of the room, a six sided table hung from the ceiling, thanks to yet another crystal tube, though in this one, even more crystals seemed to hang, shining different colours. Each side of the table had various black panels on it, all of which again seeemed like they were touch screen computers. The Doctor was wandering around the six sided table, his hands running over the panels, which lit up and responded to his touch.

"Where are we?" Felicia heard herself ask.

"This is the bridge of my time and relative dimension in space machine," the Doctor said, looking across at her with a smile.

"Your what?" Felicia asked.

"Time machine?" Julianna said at the same time.

"Time and relative dimension in space machine," the Doctor corrected.

"It moves in time and...relative dimension in space?" Julianna wondered.

"Yes," the Doctor agreed. "Time and the relative dimension in space associated with it. So it can go anywhere and anywhen in this universe."

"It's incredible," Felicia breathed. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"This invisible room...how did you do it?"

"Oh, it's not an invisible room," the Doctor chuckled. "You just passed through the equivalent of a magic door. This is a different dimension altogether to the one you were in. Not the relative dimension we would travel through," he added.

"This is a parallel dimension?" Julianna asked incredulously.

"No, not at all. More like, a next-door dimension," the Doctor replied.

"What about the Zygons?" Felicia suddenly remembered.

"Good question," the Doctor agreed, and he lent forward and tapped on one of the panels. Suddenly the entire room faded away, and they were standing in the open square they had been in before. The Zygons were standing around them.

"What did you do?" Felicia asked, panicked.

"Just activated the scanner," the Doctor said, pointing at the six-sided console, and Felicia realised it seemed to be just hanging down in the middle of nowhere. "It's a sort of hologram of what's happening outside the ship. Don't worry, they can't get it. The dimensional seal is impossible to get through. Those guys don't have any chance."

They watched as the Zygons seemed to walk all around them, talking amongst themselves.

"Wait, you said ship," Julianna said. "Ship and time machine. You said bridge."

"I said all those things, yeah," the Doctor agreed.

"You're not human," she added.

"I did say that," the Doctor reminded her.

"Actually, you said it to me," Felicia corrected him. She had walked up to the Julianna Zygon and was studying her.

"Don't go too far," the Doctor said. "Just because you can't see the wall doesn't mean it's not there. It's painful to walk into." Felicia reached out and was surprised when her hand came into contact with the flat wall, the Julianna Zygon rippling slightly when she did so.

"So you can go anywhere in time and space," Julianna was saying, almost to herself.

"You don't believe me?" the Doctor asked.

"It's a little hard to," Julianna replied.

"Except this...this is pretty incredible," Felicia admitted, spreading her arms around.

"My people are pretty amazing when it comes to this sort of thing," the Doctor said, and Felicia smiled at the slight smugness in his voice.

"But not coming up with names," she said. "Ship. Time and relative dimension in space machine. Couldn't you come up with something catchier?"

"Oh, I suppose you can," the Doctor said, narrowing his eyes.

"Uhm," Felicia mused. "What about...TARDIS?"

"TARDIS?" the Doctor said, almost in disbelief.

"Time And Relative Dimension In Space," Felicia said. "It's an acronym."

"Actually that's pretty good," the Doctor admitted. His frown was broken by his smile. "OK, TARDIS it is."

"Hey," Julianna interrupted them. "Who are those guys?" She pointed to the nearby cul-de-sac where cars could drop off students, and there were five non descript cars, all black. People were getting out of them, some dressed in "nothing to see here" suits, while some were dressed in Army uniforms. They made a beeline for the former Doctor Zimmerman.

"The Zygons have gone," Felicia noticed.

"They probably realised that the MIBs have arrived," Julianna said. "I wonder if they have those memory flash things," she added.

"You really think there like the guys from the movies?" Felicia asked her friend.

"Well, not entirely. But, sort of." One of the soldiers had stopped moving, and a glowing box had appeared around him. The women noticed the Doctor was tapping away on the console, and the soldier rotated around and zoomed in so he was now at the same size as they were, free from perspective which had made him smaller. The Doctor walked up to the soldier and studied him.

"Interesting," he said aloud. "Look," he added and pointed to the flash above the soldier's ran ensignia on his arm. "UNIT. I wonder what that stands for." Julianna had her phone out and was tapping away on it.

"I can't find it on the 'net," she said, with a shrug.

"You can get service in a different dimension?" Felicia said incredulously.

"The ship...the TARDIS," the Doctor corrected himself, "picks up the various signals that are going on outside in the real..."

He suddenly stopped talking, distracted by something. The women turned to see what he was looking at. It appeared to be a tall, middle-aged Asian woman in a suit having a conversation with a shorter, good looking middle aged white man, also in a suit, but with a long overcoat. The pair were having a heated discussion, the woman pointing at them (well, presumably the newsstand), and the man shaking his head, waving it off. The woman crossed her arms, apparently saying something that seemed to have no effect on the man, though the woman seemed to think it should. She then turned and stormed over to where the remains of Zimmerman were being attended to by a group of suits and soldiers. The shorter man turned to look at the newsstand, and strangely enough he seemed to smile directly at the occupants. Then he turned and went back to one of the cars and got in.

"Do you know them?" Felicia turned to the Doctor.

"I don't think so," he said, though he looked strangely uncomfortable. He tapped at the console and the real world faded away, leaving the gleaming white walls and blue roundels of the TARDIS.

Felicia took another look around the room, still blown away by it. The Zygons bridge had been red, fleshy and completely alien, but this...this just felt like a technology that was so far beyond her comprehension it might as well be magic.

"You said your people were good at this sort of thing," Julianna suddenly said. "Do you remember who you are?"

"No," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "The Zygon ship shook some things up in my mind, and I started to remember bits and pieces. I got...I got a feeling about the ship and I knew where it was. And I know that my people build these things...built these things," he paused as if he wasn't sure which was correct. "But I can't remember much more than that."

Felicia suddenly realised that there was still one thing she wasn't sure about. "What happened to that giant dinosaur?"

"Oh, Zimmerman called it back. I don't think it was supposed to even follow us, but for whatever reason it did. I don't even know why they'd have one swimming in the Hudson. People will be putting pictures of it up all over the internet now, I guess." He tapped at the console again, and this time a six of the roundels on one wall glowed and disappeared as a rectangular window to the real world opened up. The cars were driving away, presumably having taken the Zygon with them. The Doctor pressed some more, and the scanner moved around taking a 360 degree view, but the crowds were dispersing. There were also no Zygons in sight.

"Well you guys can go now," the Doctor said, and he moved to another part of the console before tapping on it. The double doors at the end of the room slid apart, and the Doctor gestured towards them. "It's getting late, I think."

Felicia looked at her phone and was surprised to see it said 5.30pm. Had they only met the Doctor that morning? They seemed to have done more in this one day than she had done in her entire life. Felicia paused as that particularly sobering thought settled on her.

"Will we see you again?" Julianna was asking the Doctor.

"Well, I still have some things to sort out, not least of which is to find out why the Zygons are impersonating a group of physics lecturers, so we'll probably run into each other tomorrow, I guess." He stuck a hand out. "Catch ya then," he added with a smile. Julianna shook it, and then paused.

"Oh, are these..." she faltered, indicating the robes.

"Give them back to me tomorrow," the Doctor said. Julianna smiled, and then turned, and then turned back and hugged him. He looked a little astonished and hugged her in return. Then she turned and moved towards the exit. Felicia regarded him cautiously.

"I don't think we're at the hug stage yet," she said.

"No," the Doctor agreed with a false sense of sincerity.

"We aren't," Felicia protested, but the Doctor bounded over to her and enveloped her.

"Always at the hug stage," he said as he let her go.

"God, that was like being attacked by a bear," Felicia said, unable to control the smile on her face. "Come on," she said, and pushed Julianna ahead of her through the door. She gave a quick turn back and saw the Doctor watching them leave. Then she too left the TARDIS.