DOCTOR WHO:
Twelve Greys
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
"Delt-Fazon VI, is that you?" cried corporal Saul Mars as he raced across the blackened and charred landscape of the planet Minoriarty Major. His reflexes sharp, but the desperation in his face all too apparent to himself, he was breaking down, his hands were all a jitter, his communication device wrought with static and faint, yet assuring voices.
They were playing music. He was certain of it. He just needed to focus on that and trace the music to its source. His navigation pad embedded in the right shoulder of his armoured gear pointed him North. A safe zone in a perpetual place of Ion pulse bombardment.
He'd seen so much death, he needed
"Keep playing Delt-Fazon VI, lead me to your command bunker"
Saul hastened his pace as his navigator latched onto co-ordinates, the pulses grew larger in sheer power, gliding across the planet's surface and boiling any dry patch it settled on. Saul chastised himself for every instance he would jump out of his skin whenever the weapon high in orbit around the planet rained down pulse after pulse packed with a punch that would
"Delt-Fazon VI, I am on fast approach" he said as the music grew louder, it seemed to diminish in volume whenever he strayed too far up, too far left. Down and right. That seemed to suit the singing.
When he arrived at the location, he was met with surprise. Standing before him was not the familiar old pale-grey bunkers that had once littered the previously occupied planet, but a tall blue capsule of sorts, the lettering atop it reading 'POLICE CALL BOX'.
"...Funny, my navigation says I'm right on top of the base, but all I see is this...capsule" he said
"You are on top of the base" came a quiet voice from Saul's armour loudspeakers, interrupting the singing.
"Excuse me? Who is this?"
"I take requests you know, 'Letter From America', good when you want to proclaim something...got anything else? Well...I've got two songs to play. Two options. What about you? Care to do some counting?"
"Counting?"
"What have you got? I'm sorry, about the base I mean, went down during the last bombardment, I had to deceive you...keep you moving ahead of the ones coming in your direction. It won't be long before a wider range overtakes the area. You've got two options"
"What options are they?" asked Saul.
"Let's do some more counting. What's in your hand?"
"A...a weapon"
"No, no, get it right, what else are you holding? For example, I've got two cups of coffee in my hand, taking them back to a friend, it's been an exhausting exercise forking out expenses for them, so if you don't mind, I'd like you to count something else. Question, what do you hold continuously in place? That endures an age with you, and it's only when you fear what all soldiers on the front line fear...that you'll become too comfortable in what you jump straight out of, that you allow things to grow, only then do you dispose of it. A cut by regulation. A...
"...Haircut? That's my second option? You want me to get a haircut?"
"Count the grey hairs on you"
"This is making no sense"
"Do you want me to count for you? Here's your options...come in without the weapon or come in and get a haircut without the weapon"
Saul finally caught on that the voice was situated within the blue capsule that stood atop the remains of the bunker. Faced with the unknown in a period wrought with uncertainty, he decided to embrace the allure of the absurd, somehow trusting more of it than the predictable presence of the pulse inviting in the terrifying promise of uncertainty in the life after death.
He lowered his weapon to the ground. The lamp atop the capsule lit up, and cast a beam of light atop the man's armour, Saul could feel the light passing through him
"Twelve grey hairs and pale blue eyes" the voice replied. The doors to the capsule swung open, "Come in and I'll cut them for you"
"Just twelve greys, I could pick away at them myself" said Saul as he cautiously stepped into the capsule. So distracted was he by the curious nature of the occupant's requests that the baffling enigma of the capsule being bigger on the insider than out completely slipped past him.
"No, you'd leave them on the floor, I'm useless at finding little things, like SD cards, combs and Sunday morning cartoons, I still have no idea where I put the ones that aired on Channel 4" the man said.
"What would option three have been then? If I kept my weapon?"
The man didn't make eye contact with Saul, he fidgeted through a utility box and found a pair of scissors.
"Do you want to live as an old man?"
"I'm not an old man"
"Explain the greys"
"What was option three sir?" Saul insisted.
"Soldiers have very little options. I gave you more than enough to wrestle with"
"Two very basic options that deprive me of a weapon and I think my place in a rational thinking world"
"War is never rational. Now sit still while I cut these greys off"
"What will you do with them? You seem to have plenty yourself"
"Twelve greys for a twelve like me, they'll feel right at home"
"Are you some sort of plastic surgeon?"
"With the way my face works, I might as well be"
"So there's no agenda here? Just...a haircut"
"Not even a proper one"
Saul yelped as The Doctor pinched the greys off his scalp.
"I thought you were using scissors"
"No, no these things haven't been used since my granddaughter tried to use them as a weapon, poor girl, I did try to shake that blood thirst out of her, and then I left her in a warzone, or what remained of one..."
"So my hair is... to remind you of her?"
"Loved ones are always at stake in war, or so you tell yourself when you start...and as soon as you finish, the war is all you've ever loved...all you've ever truly known...do me a favour, when we get back to wherever you were stationed, just have a haircut from now on...whenever you're ordered into battle or enlisted, go for a regulation cut. Always. Until you go bald, until you're irregular, and see what kind of fun you can have with that"
"War is not dictated by regulation"
"War is a choice. War is grey. If you value your loved ones, choose them. If you don't want a grey hair so early on in life, choose LIFE"
Saul pondered the words, and, sensing that he was being baited by fate, nodded in understanding.
The Doctor handed him a mirror.
"How do you look?"
"I...look...better"
"Do some counting for me again. How many children do you have?"
Saul pointed to the cups of coffee. Two.
"Then choose them, tell them you're going to get a haircut every week. It doesn't have to be regulation...experiment a bit. Personally, I'd settle on punk. Commanding officers melt when regulation meets radicalization"
"And what about you? Stuck with my grey hairs? Adding to your own stack of greys...what would you do with them?"
The Doctor leaned over the right side of his trusty TARDIS console and another song blazed through the ship's loudspeakers as it touched down. The Doctor afforded Saul a quick smile before opening the doors to the outskirts of a city, Saul's home. He walked out, but took the time to absorb the song, an answer from The Doctor to his question...
"Linger on...pale blue eyes..."