READ THIS!!Great, okay, now that I have your attention, I need you to know, this is a sequel to "A Modern Myth", I also need to tell you that you don't have to read that story to understand this one, but it would help. Okay then, off you go. Read and review! (No, there isn't any sex in this story!)
ALL RECOGNIZABLE DIALOGUE BELONGS TO BBC!!(I just transcribed it. )
Cale sighed and forced his hands further into his cargo-pant's pockets. His red t-shirt bunched over his wrists as he leaned back against a sandstone-like wall in the TARDIS. The Doctor was on his back underneath the main console, upper body completely obscured by machinery. His blue suit jacket was hanging on the railing and his selves were rolled up. All Cale could see as he watched were the Doctor's skinny blue-clad legs and red All-stars.
Cale ran his hand through his hair, a bad habit he had picked up from the Doctor, after only a week. It had been a week since their adventure with Torchwood. He'd been traveling with the Doctor for seven days now and he honestly couldn't say what he though of it yet. He wasn't an insulated 21st century Earthling who had never seen the universe, but he was hardly well traveled. The Doctor had yet to say a word about Gallifrey, though. It made Cale feel cheated. He'd never get the chance to see his home planet; the least the Doctor could do was describe it to him.
"Burning skies with burning people…"
Cale smiled over at the main console in thanks. Even if the TARDIS spoke in riddles, it was something. More than the Doctor was willing to give at any rate. Cale rolled his eyes skyward and shifted his weight. His feet had begun to hurt from standing so long.
"What are ya doin'?" Cale asked, curiosity finally eroding the last vestiges of his self-control.
"Just a routine tune-up. We'll be back online in no time." the Doctor replied, voice muffled by the console.
"Uh-huh." Cale pushed off the wall and walked over to the Doctor, crouching next to the Time Lord's knees. "But, what are you doin'?"
"I told you, routine check up—ow!" the Doctor told him, voice rising an octave at the end as he managed to prick his hand on something in the TARDIS' innards.
"Yeah, but what does that entail?" Cale persisted, craning his neck to peer inside the console.
"Checking over the time calculation matrixes, fuel conversion unit, Vortex shield generator, Chameleon Arch settings, the works." the Doctor answered in his usual rapid-fire way.
"Okay." Cale blew out on a breath, rocking back on his heels slightly as his balance wavered. "I have no idea what you just said, but I'll take your word for it, Doc."
"What do you mean you don't understand?" the Doctor pushed out from under the console to look at Cale, sonic-screwdriver in one hand and a bunch of sparking wires in the other. He had a comical frown on his face that Cale was rapidly becoming familiar with.
"You should understand every word of what I just said, why don't you?" the Doctor continued to question, frown screwing up his face.
"Why should I understand it?" Cale asked, more confused than insulted at the moment. "I've never seen this type of technology before. The Time Agency hadn't even gotten past…I've never time traveled before, let's leave it at that."
"The Time Agency has nothing to do with this." the Doctor answered, pushing completely out from under the TARDIS controls and sitting up. "You should know this ship by now. It's a Time Lord thing. Well, I'm fairly sure it is, it's been a while since I first met her. Can't really remember."
"I'm not a Time Lord." Cale looked away, eyes focused on the ramp leading to the doors. "I'm not you, Doctor. I won't ever be." he shook his head ruefully and looked back at the Doctor. He rubbed his right cheek, which was still scrapped. He'd just taken the stitches out yesterday. "This should have been healed by now, or so you keep tellin' me."
"Yes, it should've." the Doctor acknowledged, completely missing Cale's indignant frown. "I don't know why it hasn't, Cale, but it should've. I mean, you should know how this ship works. It's inbuilt into your brain, well the pyschic center of your brain."
"No, I shouldn't be healed." Cale interrupted the Doctor's would be ramble. "I'm human too, remember? They break easy and heal slowly. I'm not you and I can't ever be you. I wouldn't even make a decent imitation."
"Time Lord genetics are stronger than weak human genes." the Doctor told him, mind processing a mile a minute. Cale could see it on his face and if he tried hard enough, he could imagine steam billowing out of the Doctor's ears as his mind worked.
"They should have taken over all of your bodily functions, you do have two hearts. It doesn't make sense that only certain things are active while others are completely dormant. It's worrying to be perfectly blunt." the Doctor told him as if he was reporting the evening weather.
Cale glared at him. "Oh, thank you for that!" he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry, I shouldn't have snapped. I do have to point out though, that I wasn't born I was constructed. The best of both worlds picked apart and super-glued together with a retrovirus and some radiation. Stands to rea-"
"-reason that not everything would be working! Of course!" the Doctor finished Cale's brainwave, triumphant grin on his face. Suddenly, he stopped grinning, completely serious. "Oh, that's not good. If they cut and pasted your entire genetic structure, who knows what could be wrong! You're a Time Lord, our brains don't work like humans, we don't suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder like humans. We do, however, suffer extreme cases of schizophrenia. The very mention of the Time Agency shouldn't be making you flinch."
"Gee, go ahead and say it again." Cale muttered darkly under his breath. He'd learned to forgive the Doctor quickly for saying whatever jumped into his mind. He sighed again, gathering what was left of his patience. "So, what, my mind doesn't work right, either? Can't we just settle for 'Cale is human and thus flawed' and leave it at that?"
"I don't just 'settle'." the Doctor informed him haughtily, eyes narrowing in reproach at Cale. "I find the answers, or at least, an acceptable theory. That is not it."
"Okay, so you don't settle." Cale acquiesced, hands raised in a brief gesture of surrender. He put his hands down and shrugged. "But I honestly don't think my body is goin' to suddenly lose molecular cohesion and become a puddle of organic goo. That would've happened by now, yeah?"
"There!" the Doctor exclaimed, moving to rest on his knees and pointing a finger excitedly at Cale. "See? It's in there somewhere! That good ol' Time Lord intelligence. You just can't get to it all of the time, apparently. That's odd. Very odd. And mildly disturbing."
"Right." Cale said disbelievingly. He took in a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. He pushed to his feet, the Doctor following. "We should go somewhere."
"Yeah, we should." the Doctor agreed. A strange harmonic beeping filled the chamber.
The Doctor frowned and raced around to the other side of the TARDIS' main controls. His brown eyes focused on the rectangular shaped LCD screen that usually displayed strange circular symbols. He peered at it intently for a few long moments before his eyes went wide and he grinned. He turned to Cale, a manic look on his face that was becoming normal to Cale.
"I think I've just found us some excitement. In 21st century London." the Doctor told him, looking far to pleased with himself.
Cale grinned back. "So, what are we waitin' for? Let's go!"
"Allons-y!"
RSI
Donna Noble looked up at the large, shiny, and slightly imposing skyscraper with a twisting feeling of dread settling deep in her gut. It had seemed like a good idea when she'd woken up this morning, but right now, she wasn't so sure infiltrating a major corporation was her brightest idea. Neither was lying to her mother, but she'd been doing that since she was fourteen. With a small sigh, she gathered her considerable nerve and walked past the big, streamlined sign proclaiming "Adipose Industries" to the world.
She walked up the concrete steps and into building through a set of revolving doors, and into a marble floored lobby. A smartly dressed, uniformed guard was waiting for her at the door to the auditorium. She pulled an ID from her purse.
"Donna Noble, health and safety." she told him, swiftly flashing her—now invalid—ID card.
The guard just nodded and let her inside.
Well, that was one hurdle jumped. About half a million more to go. Joy.
RSI
"21st century London!" the Doctor jovially pronounced as he and Cale stepped out of the TARDIS and into an alley. "Well, an alley in 21st century London. Would you like to get a look around?"
"As long as it leads us in the direction of those strange signals." Cale responded with a smirk. He gestured towards the street. "Lead the way, brave sir."
"I was knighted once, you know." the Doctor said absently as they joined the rest of London on the wide sidewalk. "But, just after I was banished. By the Queen, no less. And after I'd saved her from that werewolf, too, of all things!"
"You've gotta be kiddin' me." Cale scoffed. "A werewolf? Get outta here. Those don't exist."
"Well, no, you're right, they don't." the Doctor answered, confusing Cale even further. "It was an alien that took over a human body and transformed into the shape of a wolf in the moonlight. Which, when you think about it, doesn't make very much sense as the light that comes from the moon is, essentially, sunlight."
"Huh." Cale mumbled, frowning. He thought about it for a few moments before shrugging and giving up. He'd never understand it, anyway.
"Ah, here we go!" the Doctor stopped, craning his head back to look up at the large, towering skyscraper. "Adipose Industries."
"We parked close this time." Cale said, looking over his shoulder down the block towards the alley. "I'm sure it'll come in handy. Maybe. Hopefully. Dammit, I jinxed it!"
"Oh, hardly," the Doctor dismissed with a wave of his hand, "words don't influence your luck. Well, actually, I take that back. That's what the Carranights were all about."
"The who-whats?" Cale asked as they walked towards the building's back fire door.
"Carranights." the Doctor repeated as he used his sonic-screwdriver to open the door, creating a shower of sparks on the inside. "What this planet would call witches. They used words and pyschic energy to influence their surroundings. Met them back with Martha and Shakespeare."
"Ah, okay." Cale sighed, resigning himself to the fact he'd never understand even half of what the Doctor was talking about.
He followed the Doctor inside the doors, carefully closing them to the best of his abilities behind himself. He had to hot-foot it to keep up with the Doctor's long, quick strides as they strode down the concrete hallway. It was wet, mildly humid and dimly lit the light from outside just barely supporting the internal lighting system. Cale longed for 51st century technology at that very moment in time. Things would be a whole lot cleaner and far more streamlined. Well, they were in the future London they'd visited three days ago.
Cale's eyes suddenly went wide as he spotted a guard walking towards them down the hallway. His heart leapt into his throat, panic beginning to gnaw at his insides as all sorts of worst-case scenarios flooded his mind. He could see them being, shot, arrested, questioned, tarred and feathered…okay, Cale, enough of that! He told himself firmly. He swallowed hard and gave the Doctor's back a nervous glance.
As they passed the guard, the Doctor withdrew a wallet with a blank piece of paper in it from his pocket and flashed it, saying. "John Smith, health and safety."
"Excuse me, sir." the guard spoke, stopping Cale and the Doctor in their tracks. "What about him?"
"Cale Harkness." Cale said before he could think it through. "Job shadow from Bristol Secondary school."
"He's with me." the Doctor added, tilting his head towards Cale.
"Carry on, then." the guard let out a longsuffering sigh and continued on his way.
Cale let out a relieved breath and hurried once more to keep up with the Doctor's rapid gait. He had honestly thought they were in for it when the guard had appeared, but apparently, he could be swayed by a blank sheet of paper in a fancy wallet flashed in an official manner. Adipose needed to up their security, Cale thought condescendingly.
"Harkness? Out of every possible name in the universe, you chose Harkness?" the Doctor hissed at him once they were out of earshot of the guard.
"It was the first name that came to mind!" Cale defended himself. "Smith would have been too suspicious." Cale frowned over at the Doctor. "Besides, I thought you liked Jack. I do, anyway."
"I like Jack just fine." the Doctor rebutted. "I just don't see why you had to go and use his name."
"Oh for the love of…"
RSI
"Adipose Industries. The 21st century way to loose weight. No exercise, no diet, no pay. Just life-long freedom from fat. The holy grail of the modern age. And here it is." the tall, skinny bond woman on the stage held a small red and white pill between her thumb and forefinger in her right hand for all in the audience to see.
Donna stared intently up at the stage, watching closely for any signs of weirdness. It's what she was there for, after all. Weird was where the Doctor was, and if she wanted to find the Doctor, then she had to follow the weird.
"You just take one capsule. One capsule once a day for three weeks, and the fat, as they say," the woman turned slightly, looking back at the large projection screen showing a blue Adipose Industries logo.
The screen rippled and words appeared at the bottom, bubbling then returning to normal. A male voice and a strange shimmering sound filtered through the sound system proclaiming,
"The fat just walks away."
"Excuse me, Miss Foster," a young dark skinned woman called out across the isle from Donna, "if I could, I'm Penny Carter, science correspondent for the Observer. There are a thousand diet pills on the market, a thousand conmen stealing people's money. How do we know the fat isn't going straight into your bank account?"
"Oh, Penny, if cynicism burnt off calories, we'd all be as thin as rakes. But if you want the science, I can oblige." the woman said with cloying sweetness. She removed her glasses and once again turned to look at the overlarge projection screen.
The Adipose logo spun, zoomed in, then disappeared, leaving a strange blue colored outline of a human being, an overweight human being. The sound system once again issued forth the voice of a man.
"Adipose Industries. The Adipose capsule is composed of a synthesized mobilizing lipase bound to a large protein molecule. The mobilizing lipase breaks up the triglycerides stored in the Adipose cells. Which then enters the blood stream…"
RSI
The Doctor and Cale stopped outside a blue metal door marked "Projection Room" and shared a brief look before the Doctor opened the door and stepped in, leaving Cale to once again close the door behind them. The Doctor looked out the small projection window at the large black screen, sparing a brief calculating glance at the animation before focusing on the man running the projector itself. He whipped out his psychic paper once more.
"..causing spontaneous fat consumption…"
"John Smith, Health and safety." the man gave the Doctor an odd look. "Film Department." he gestured to Cale, who was standing on the balls of his feet trying to see over the machine and out of the small projection hole. "He's my job shadow."
The man gave him another dubious look but didn't comment as the Doctor slipped his physic paper back into his pocket. The Doctor gave the man a brief smile, shot Cale a warning look, then focused his attention on what the thin blond woman on the stage was saying as she began to speak after the animated presentation ended.
"One hundred percent legal, one hundred percent effective." the woman told the crowd, a superior air about her.
RSI
"But, can I just ask," Penny once more interrupted. Donna shot her a brief look across the isle that was completely ignored, "how many people have taken the pills to date?"
"We've already got over one million customers within the greater London area alone. But from next week, we start rolling out nation wide." the woman informed Penny, giving her a condescending smile.
Penny was hurriedly scribbling notes and missed the look entirely, but Donna caught it. It made her frown. Most business people didn't do that sort of thing in public, in her experience. Something was most definitely going on in this strange place, that was for sure.
"The future starts here." the woman went on to say, pointing to the ground to indicate Adipose as the beginning. "And Brittan will be thin."
RSI
Donna pushed open yet another bland steel-blue door and stepped into a flurry of activity. It took a moment for her sense to adjust to all of the noise and motion going on around her. Row upon row upon row of cubicles filled the room. Everyone was on a phone in front of a computer and there were multiple phones ringing at once all over the place. Donna got the impression that there was always the sound of ringing from nine to five. That would get very annoying, she was sure.
She'd been here for all of thirty seconds and it was already starting to grate.
With a loud sigh, she walked down a random row of cubicles, trying in vain to block out the constant ringing like everyone else seemed to be able to. It was no wonder her job with the telephone company hadn't lasted very long. She could hardly stand it right now and she didn't work here every day five days a week. What an absolute hell.
She spotted a man busily engaged in a conversation with someone else and slipped—what she hoped—was inconspicuously into the cubicle.
"…that's a three week course of pills for the special price of 25 pounds." the man trailed off at the end of his sentence, giving Donna curious and wary look.
She flashed her ID at him and whispered, "Donna Noble, Health and Safety, don't mind me."
The man nodded to her and continued, "Box comes with 21 days worth of pills, full information pack and our special free gift, an Adipose Industries pendant."
The man hung up his phone after a brief conversation with the person on the other end, then turned in his rolling chair to face Donna.
She smiled disarmingly at him. "I'll need one of those pendants, if you don't mind."
"Yes, of course." the man reached over to the other side of his desk and handed Donna a blue case.
She smiled nervously and opened it, dangling the gold pill in front of her face. She frowned at it. "I'll need to keep this for testing, if you don't mind. And I just need a list of your customers, could you print it off?"
"I suppose so." the man agreed reluctantly.
"Where's the printer?" Donna asked, briefly scanning the cubicle for the device.
The man tipped his head up. "Just over there by the plant."
Donna stood up and looked over the thin carpeted wall of the cubicle. "Which plant? That plant?"
The man sat up straighter in his chair to see over the wall as well. "Yeah, that's the one."
"Lovely." Donna said as she sat back down. She gave the man another quick smile. She suddenly stood up again. "Does it need a code? Last place I worked, printer needed a code."
"No." the man responded, now starting to get impatient. "You can do it from here."
Just as Donna was about to leave the cubicle, Miss Foster strode into the main bullpen of cubicles. Her hair was immaculately done up in a bun, her back ramrod straight and clothes meticulously pressed. She had two guards flanking her on either side. They made Donna nervous. She ducked low, watching Foster just over the top of the cubicle. For one disturbing moment, she had a flashback of the Matrix. She suddenly understood how Neo felt at that exact moment. Here's the day, Donna thought irritably, that I've finally lost it.
"Excuse me, everyone!" Foster raised her voice over the din and suddenly everything was quiet. Even the phones had stopped ringing. "If I could have your attention,"
Every single one of the workers stood up and faced Miss Foster, hands folded behind their backs or resting just at their sides. Donna felt like she'd fallen into some bizarre corporate boot camp.
"On average you're each selling forty Adipose packs per day," she paused, eyeing them all in turn, "it's not enough. I want one hundred sales per person, per day."
Donna ducked completely behind the walls of the cubicle, wincing and berating herself for even attempting to investigate Adipose Industries. This was not working at all. Not even remotely. In the history of bad ideas I've ever had, this comes in first bloody place, she thought angrily.
"And if not," Miss Foster continued, her next words were obviously going to be a corporate threat, "you'll be replaced. And if anyone's good at trimming the fat, it's me. Now," she pulled on the hem of her suit jacket, giving all of the employees one final look, "back to it."
With that, she turned on her heels and walked out, posture still as regal as it had been when she walked in. Donna gave a relieved sigh when the man she was with sat back down in his cubicle chair. She had the strangest feeling she had been extremely lucky.
"Sir, if you could just print off that list, I'll get out of your way, thank you." Donna said as she stood, wanting to get out of the place as quickly as humanly possible. She didn't want the poor man to get fired because of her.
"Sure." the man said distractedly as he pressed the correct button to print on his keyboard.
"Lovely. Thanks, then. See ya." Donna said as she gathered her large, black leather purse. She gave the man one last smile before striding confidently over to the printer, red clipboard clutched to her chest, like she owned the place. She found that approach worked rather well.
She watched, tapping her foot impatiently as the printer spit out yellow pages with the required contact information for Adipose's clients. She needed to get to these people and talk to them, find out what was going on. She could feel it in the air; something wasn't right with this place. That or the oatmeal she'd had for breakfast just wasn't sitting right. It was hard to tell sometimes, trouble and indigestion felt startlingly similar.
Finally, the printer spit out the pages and she hastily gathered them up, walking away just as a man in a brown suit and a boy in a red shirt walked up to it. Must be job shadow day, she thought absently, mind already forming a plan to get into the first client's house without arousing suspicion. She barely suppressed a grin. This was going to be absolutely insane, she thought excitedly.
That's the end of chappie one! This story is finished and I'll be posting one chapter a day for five days, as per usual to all of those who know me. Now, tell me what ya think!