The Rani - For the Love of Science
She wasn't around when Gallifrey fell.
Everyone thought she was under house arrest, pottering around in her chambers, building restricted biological experiments sometimes for the High Council itself. After a while the requests died down. She grew bored. Government projects weren't the only thing to keep her busy. Someone had snuck in the plans for a new ship. She had charmed her way through it, taking in the aspects of what it entailed, pretending that only The Doctor would be able to build such a thing. Had it been the old slabs of metal and parts from a junkyard that most indeed would've been the case. But this was much closer to her forte.
A home closer to you more than ever. Who would've thought of that. All you needed was a little timelord regeneration power linked to interdimensional teleporting. Timelord science and biology using space and time to create a new ship that was an extension of the person in charge of it. It took up most of her lives and over a few centuries but finally she perfected it. Her key was her body, a permenant source of regeneration energy that she sometimes stored in the form of a weapon or jewellery constantly wrapped around her arm and forever linked to her life and soul. Once she had worked out how to teleport in and out of her home it had been easy to pretend she was there. The timelords guarding her never questioned the large source of molecular energy streaming from her home-after all, it was her job.
During her little teleporting escapades she had conquered small planets and minor armies, using their biology against them or the cloned and controlled versions of their enemies. She had even fallen in love, a combination of confused cells and feelings that she still found difficult to comprehend. Worse still, it was for a human. A beautiful Canadian space traveller called Reed had always asked her out for a date and she had always refused.
Reed had died before she could ever get that date. Reed, and her rebellious nineteen nineties Earth clothes floating in space, drowned in ice.
In the wardrobe chambers of her new ship and now permenant home, The Rani flicked her hair back, a long dark glossy mane. She checked out her new appearance. The gold rays of regeneration energy surrounded her like glowing dust.
She smiled at her reflection, revealing perfect white teeth. For a while she preened. It had been a while, her last incarnation had grown old and with it, the ability to regenerate at free will which was hampered by exposure to all the chemicals she had been working with. Small price to pay for the love of science. Her regenerations had ranged from Gallifreyen to high ranking Movellan captains to humble Thal engineers. Now she sported an athletic form of a human Far East Asian woman with severe but striking features. Not bad. Her eyes were unusually large and slanted, her nose slightly hooked and her mouth serious and sensual. Cheekbones were prominent and her figure had a generous portion of curves and muscle. She cut off the strands framing her face until they were close to the scalp. Then she reached for some clippers and began to draw a pattern of circles in her hair on both sides of her head. Her name in Gallifreyen. Still too dull. In a small compartment of her wardrobe, she looked through a meticulously organised range of bottles and potions and selected a small spray with a purple liquid. She sprayed the mixture through the centre of her mane and slid her fingers through it. The hair shortly turned bright fuschia. Much better. She always liked pink. Returning to the small compartment, she unscrewed a tub of pomade and ran the mixture through her hair and the sides of her head. That should keep the pattern and colour for a while.
In the closet before her were Reed's spare clothes. A pair of leather trousers and a matching smart leather jacket. She hugged the jacket close and closed her eyes. She could still smell Reed and her perfume and sweat. She tried the jacket on, fitting a little loosely but it would have to do. She choose a pair of boots with the toughest sole edged with metal and wore them over tight black leather jeans.
This will do. She stroked the lapel of Reed's jacket one last time before heading out of the door back to the control room. It was still in it's silver grey glory, the same as her old Tardis, with walls of circular panels and square grey pillars displaying rare biological specimens. The console which represented her retrosplenial cortex stood in the centre, with adjoined metallic rings constantly revolving in a panel edged with spheres of Hematite. She credited herself again in keeping her sense of interior design constant. Why change something if it was fine in the first place.
'Reed'. The Rani called out
'Heya, babe.' The Tardis replied in the deceased woman's voice.
'I told you not to call me that', she whispered under her breath. She would have to get that fixed somehow.
'Where would you like to go this time?'
'Earth, circa 2037'
The computer paused for a little.
'Are you sure? That's-'
'Yes I know. She's precisely why we need to go. She belongs here.'
'Are you forgetting all about me, babe?' the Tardis said, genuinely affronted.
The Rani cursed herself for ever uploading a realistic conscious onto the Tardis communication system. It was a good thing it couldn't see her-she had chose that setting otherwise she'd never be able to have a bath in peace without flirtatious comments. It wouldn't do well knowing that The Rani was now also wearing Reed's clothing.
And it still had called her 'Babe' even when instructed not to.
'How can I ever forget you?' said The Rani smoothly, 'You've always been a part of me.'
The Tardis may aswell have purred all the way to Cardiff. A projection of a beautiful woman with shoulder length dark hair and Eurasian features appeared between the silver hoops slowly twirling in synchronisation in the centre of the console. Brains and beauty-the winning combination.
'I'm coming for you, girl' murmured the Rani.
Cardiff, 17th May 2037
Mayumi took one last drag of her cigarette. The glowing tip was dangerously close to her porcelain white skin, which covered a beautiful but tired round face, usually younger looking than her early thirties. She had inherited her father's eyes and people had always questioned her at school asking why her name was Japanesey when her eyes weren't. She stood outside the hidden entrance of the Torchwood quarters, it's silver tower warped like melted plastic. The perception filter was ruined, the ground a gaping hole and the lift shaft she remembered as a kid stood in disarray with a dead pterodactyl on the platform. The stink was enough to keep anyone away, down to UNIT who had reassembled for gas masks. Mayumi scoffed at their cowardice, but felt a hint of sadness at the reptile's demise. It had been bred to live for hundreds of years, yet had only lived just over half it's lifespan. It's life had ended early, just like hers, after the death of her parents. They were a loving family all those years ago, before tragedy had struck.
Now after years of being on the run, she could finally use her real name. Mayumi Sato-Harper, chief scientist of Earth's restructure was a complicated figure. Not in the logical sense-both her parents were brilliant scientists. But she knew what her fellow humans were saying about her. A hater of her own species. An evil bitch. A heartless waste of space. Those in higher circles shrugged her off as being a maverick - what else would you expect from the offspring of members of an agency that meddled with alien matters. That was no way to bring up a child. Not that mum and dad had raised her in Torchwood headquarters. She had moved in towards the end of their days as their homes were no longer safe.
Mayumi allowed herself one more twinge of sadness looking at her old home before turning away. There was no time. No time to grieve and definitely no time to remember what was long gone.
On the way back in space from the Himalayas circa 1920s
'Doctor!'
The Doctor pretended not to hear as she finished soldering a slipped wire underneath the Tardis floorboards. She began to hum an improvised dirge which she failed to identify.
'Doctor!' Yasmin ran in, looking a little lost. 'Have you seen my coat anywhere?'
The Doctor strayed a little longer checking the already fixed wire. Not again.
'Nope.' Repeat after me, kid, I am not your mother. Being a spacedad was bad enough.
Yasmin gasped exasperated. 'I am sure I left it on the coat hanger.' She exaggerated on each syllable at top speed.
Ryan who had his feet up in the far corner of the room stifled a giggle as he continued reading a book on interdimensional engineering.
'You know where it is, don't you.' accused Yasmin and pointed at him.
'Your jacket stank. It looked like a Yeti and smelt like one'
Yasmin's mouth dropped open 'You are so rude.'
'It did' insisted Ryan. He looked to the Doctor for support who had suddenly found a toolbox and was noisily clunking the contents of it, reciting each and every item to block out the argument. He looked back at his page and tilted the back of his chair with his weight. 'Graham chucked it in the wash.'
'What? But my phone, my wallet, my PHONE.' Yasmin, threw up her hands, 'Why-'
The Doctor sighed as she marched to the console, threw open a panel and slapped down a phone and wallet with a fat set of keys on the dashboard. 'Phone, keys, wallet. Rule of thumb is to always check pockets if you have them in the first place.'
'She's only angry about her phone,' said Ryan 'waiting for a text from –' he didn't finish as he ducked from a bunch of keys being thrown at him.
The Doctor ignored the brewing argument and set the coordinates for a smooth ride to California, circa 2001. It was high time they all had a quick break after the last trip. They had all voted The Abominable Snowman, who really wasn't in the mood for visitors, making it's mark on Yasmin's coat to prove it's point. She frowned as the Tardis shuddered and the coordinates veered instead towards Cardiff, year 2037.
'Great.' She muttered.
North West London, 18th May 2037
The Chief of Public Security made a statement today.
Mayumi shook her head in disagreement as he announced the destruction of Torchwood quarters. A crackdown on vagabond technologists and terrorists he had said.
'That wasn't my intention' she murmured.
Stupid humans.
The country had taken a right wing turn and never recovered from it when she was a teenager. It had been suddenly been thrown into a fear of other countries, let alone extra-terrestrials. She had remembered it had taken away both her parents in a pub fight that had erupted over all things, the Olympics. China had done their thing in winning in a few bat games. A drunk had approached her mother, asking if she was proud of herself. Her dad had stood up for her. The drunk man was part of a passing Nazi gang and saw Owen as a traitor to his race and Tosh as weak Oriental bait. This didn't sit well with a group of inebriated thugs who overpowered both special agents with drunk courage.
Her parents had only gone out for a pint and returned dead. Their murderers had moved into protected custody.
Mayumi then moved to Japan after their funeral. Her state of mind disallowed her to finish her Masters in Biophysics, a subject she was exceptional in. She stayed with her relatives now and then but her maternal relatives reminded her too much of her mum. She shuttled from place to place on her own, inventing gimmicky objects for smaller technology companies. After a while she left Japan and travelled internationally in her trade until Captain Jack tracked her down and assigned her to UNITs protection in Dubai.
It wasn't intentional.
She had done well in both technology and as she later found out when immediately attending to injured UNIT soldiers, had a knack with medicine. Soon she was dissecting Cybermen parts and fusing it with test subjects.
They were only humans. Humans who had killed her parents. She had handpicked the test subjects herself.
Douglas Warren – the defendant lawyer, also a right winged supremist
Alfred Fitzgerald – the man who had thrown Tosh across the room, causing a brain haemorrhage
Fred Wolsey – the man who had killed her dad with a broken bottle
Martin Simmons – the one who branded her father a traitor
Kevin Hale - the man who had started the fight
A scientist on a temporary assignment caught on this and before he disappeared had released a dossier that UNIT had been picking on innocent civilians for alien technology.
At the request of the government Mayumi had been told to cease all projects linked to the government, secret or otherwise. UNIT couldn't afford to let her go-she was too gifted. She was given her own faction in the outskirts of London, funded by a middleman closely known to UNIT, you could say her own Torchwood but one of pure science. Every alien attack that would occur on Earth she would clean up the mess, inventing masses of memory gas for suburban homes to forget extra-terrestrial activity and converting alien technology into weaponry allegedly meant for UNIT. When she was promoted to Chief Scientist of Earth's Restructure program after a series of alien attacks, she finally found out where her inventions had been used and what had happened to civilians affected by her chemicals. None of the results were biologically positive. She felt momentarily bad but what was done, was done. People hated her for her brilliant mind saying that she should be shipped off back to Vietnam, Mongolia or wherever it was she had come from or better still, go and live with the aliens on another planet.
If only people would understand, she thought, I didn't mean to hurt anyone.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the phone rang.
'Miss Sato-Harper?' the new lad from UNIT was on the other line, attempting a professional tone.
'Yes.'
'Your new advisor is here.'
'I didn't ask for a new advisor'. She thought and sighed inwardly. 'Fine, I'm on my way.'
Her home was in a leafy green suburb and a short drive away from her work. She parked outside her laboratory, a warehouse in Middlesex which was formerly a block of apartments from the 1920s. She hated the art deco and held back a torrent of abuse as some joker had left a blue telephone box in her usual parking spot. By the time she got to her office, her new advisor was waiting for her. She frowned at the sight, wondering if management had been playing a prank. This was the icing on the cake.
'Hi', said the alleged prank, 'I'm Dorothy Gale'
