Voyagers! ~ Doctor Who Crossover
Silence Of The Worlds
The blue Police box attempted to ground to a halt…once…twice…more than three times, and merely bounced up and down for its troubles. It faded in and out of visibility. The brake system activated to the limit, rudely disturbing the silence of the dark cobblestone alley. It heaved and sputtered to no avail.
Inside the Police box was chaos. A young man and woman ran around pounding buttons and pulling cranks and levers, while the control systems shot out sparks and zapped their hands. The lights flashed on and off in multi-warning colors throughout the entire room.
"Doctor! We've already landed, what's wrong with her!" The petite brunette woman gave up trying to commandeer the ship when she was nearly knocked off her feet. She clung to a railing for her life. The man whizzed by her and slid underneath the control station in one fluid motion.
"I've never seen her so temperamental! She won't let us leave or stay…" He dug into a nearby toolbox. "My dear, this will hurt me more than it hurts you!" He squeezed wire clippers, and his lithe body thrashed as he absorbed a few irate jolts of electricity from his beloved Time Machine, the "TARDIS."
The woman shouted. "Doctor! Are you hurt?"
The Doctor found his voice and gave the ship an annoyed kick. "Ughhh...so many stars…Never better, sweetie!...If I can just get this..." He pulled open the panel lid, revealing a mass of coiled wires, all shapes and sizes. They tumbled on his head like a spaghetti wig. "Stop it right now, you're being very naughty." He scolded his machine. "Poor Clara's turning into a pretzel."
Snipping a random green wire did the trick and the Tardis powered down, then settled the lights to its usual "sexy" and subdued tawny ambiance. The green light in the generator pulsed steadily in the center of the control panel as if nothing were amiss.
An image from outside the box appeared on the Tardis monitor. The doctor jumped to his feet. He smoothed his thick brown hair on the side and adjusted his black bowtie. He hurried to his friend and held out his hand.
"Clara, are you hurt?"
"I didn't do it this time. I swear. I'm fine, Doctor. Just a bit shaken." She untangled her arms and legs from the railing and allowed the Doctor to pull her up. She straightened her skirt. "But not stirred. What's going on?"
Barely reaching the tall Doctor's chest, she tugged the screen closer to her eye level. "Are we on earth? I recognize those street lamps. The shops...that pub. This all seems very familiar."
The Doctor understood why. Clara Oswald was a central and intricate figure in his entire life course. Throughout all his regenerations a version of Clara was there to guide and save him. He'd finally and truly noticed the pretty little Governess in person for the first time in Victorian era London. That Clara died before he could whisk her away in the Tardis.
But their epic story was long and involved and the situation at hand occupied his foremost thoughts.
The Doctor readjusted the screen to his level. "Unless there's a planet that looks like Victorian era London…well, there are a few that try to imitate…" The Doctor ran to the doors and poked his head out into a dense fog and chilly air. "This is earth's atmosphere." He raised his pointer finger and waggled it around. "Ahh, I was right. London, 1880…" He licked his finger. "7. 1887, final answer."
Clara, ever the teacher, but also observing the Tardis data, gave him her pretty, cheeky grin. "Oooh, Doctor, so, so, close. 1889."
"Why am I always off by two years?" He peered at his pointer fingers and nearly jabbed his eyes. "This finger's losing the touch. But isn't this splendid? Maybe the Tardis intercepted a signal from the Silurian lizard lady Vastra and her human companion Jenny. Perhaps they're just inviting us to tea."
Clara rolled her eyes. She never felt entirely comfortable around Vastra. Particularly when she drank human blood like fine wine. "Well, it can't possibly be Strax."
"I wouldn't put it past that overgrown potato head to get bored and sabotage my Tardis." He huffed. "No…it's not them. He's a Sontaran and lives for warfare, but he's loyal to me. They'd be standing right outside with my carriage if it were them. Last time we popped in, I adjusted their trackers to detect where the Tardis will appear. But they only call me for absolute emergencies. Did I get a ring while I was taking a dip?"
"Nothing. I would've told you, Doctor. Besides, Vastra's the only one in this era with your number. She'd never betray you and give it to some stranger."
Two images appeared on the monitor, a tall man and a woman sprinted down the street. They split up to cower in the shadows. The moonlight revealed a deep fear on their faces. The Doctor and Clara gripped the monitor handles at the same time and shouted out names.
"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!"
"Nellie Bly. My favorite American heroine!" Clara gasped.
The Doctor rubbed his long hands together. "I haven't seen Artie in hundreds of years! Quite the storyteller. Always doubting his marvelous abilities of deduction. Of course he won't recognize me with this handsome, broad mug. I was shorter, older, and wore ghastly question marks all over my vest…I still have that somewhere in my wardrobe. You know, I think he believed in fairies." He crossed his arms and pouted. "And I still never got to visit Fairyland."
"As if that's a real place." Clara sighed. "Dealing with aliens and monsters that should only exist in Science Fiction is more than enough for me."
The Doctor dropped down and rifled through a cubbie hidden under the steering. He tossed clothes left and right until he found a tweed greatcoat, deerstalker hat and long clay pipe. He blew into it and filled the room with bubbles. He held up a magnifying glass.
"Ha! Still works. How do I look?"
Clara sneezed as bubbles flew into her face. She wagged them away. "Like you're about to solve a murder. Let me guess, you gave Doyle inspiration for Sherlock's costume?"
"Not quite. He's rather stingy with his clothing description, but his illustrator Sidney Paget loved the look." He posed with a stern profile. "If only I had this face back then – then you might've seen me drawn in the original novels. I've been told I look very much like the image of the great Detective."
Clara popped the remaining bubbles. "Oh, silly Doctor…yeah, I guess so…I think you're just as brilliant and fantastic as Sherlock Holmes." She knitted her thick dark brows and folded her arms. "But it's strange. Nellie Bly shouldn't be out and about on the London streets this late. She's supposed to be traveling around the world, attempting to break Phileas Fogg's record. You know, from Jules Vern's book?"
"Quite right. "Around the World in Eighty Days." " The Doctor searched for Nellie Bly's biography and timeline on a smaller monitor. "History puts her in London at this point in her journey. Maybe it's a pit stop for some fish and chips? Which reminds me, I'm a bit hungry. I did as you told me, Clara, and didn't eat before going in the pool. An hour passed."
"Doctor, be serious." Clara gripped his large chin and turned his face to the monitor again. "Shut up. Listen."
The voice of a grim man dressed in black echoed through the Tardis speakers.
"Wrong alley, Miss Bly, Doctor Doyle. This one's a dead end."
"Oh no! We must help them now." Clara made a move for the door but the Doctor yanked her back.
"Wait. Like you said, my brilliant little companion, something peculiar is going on here and I think if we interfere…" The Doctor typed in some codes and the Tardis responded with loud affirmative noises. "I knew it. If we try to change anything we will damage the flux of earth's history and it can't be restored."
"But Doctor, you heard him. He's gonna kill Nellie Bly and Doyle. That is major damage!"
The Doctor lunged for the door and blocked her. "Leave it be! Something important has to happen here. Something that even I can't control. This is a fixed point in history…" He scratched his head agitated. Even he wasn't sure how it'd turn out. "It's a fixed point that went wrong and now…"
Clara wasn't in the mood for his theorizing. "Doctor, lemme go! I can't let them die!" She struggled under his grip, and he pulled her closer.
"Clara, No. Stop. Look at me. I need you…" Clara stiffened and her wide eyes twitched. His face was an inch from her own and his breath bared traces of potent, chalky restaurant mints from a pit stop in an American diner, British vanilla custard, and a slight hint of fish sticks. Although she never caught him, the Doctor was always eating.
He searched her gaze. "Aww, Clara Oswald, my Clara, my impossible girl. You're so good. Always ready to help. But right now, I need you to…Shhhhhhhhhhhh!" The Doctor put a finger to her mouth and traced her lips. "Now just watch."
Clara refrained from speaking. She hated when he did that. The old tease. She once again ignored the rush of blood and heat from her head to her toes and dispelled the onslaught of emotions which tempted her to yank him down by his blasted red suspenders and smother him with kisses. The Doctor eyed her bemused and tapped the screen.
"Come out, Miss Bly. I'm only trying to return your gun. Don't you believe me?" The man in black crept slowly through the alley.
The Tardis picked up every unnerving sound from the click of his boot heels to Nellie Bly's labored breathing - as if they were right outside the Tardis door. The Tardis was merely a few feet away, in fact, but the Doctor put up a peripheral force field block and no one was the wiser.
The Monitor displayed a close up of Nellie and Doyle's terrified expressions. The man in black remained a chilling voice cloaked in the darkness, until a stray moonbeam reflected off his cruel black eyes .
"Oooh, he's a sinister chap, isn't he? I've seen that cold, dead look before, many times." The Doctor grimaced and thought of his once best friend and arch enemy, The Master.
He shook off his bad memories and grinned. "Now Clara, the game's afoot!"
Clara couldn't understand why the Doctor was playing with human lives and not already outside knocking the man on his arse with a sonic screwdriver blast. But she simply nodded and kept her large brown eyes fixated on the scene.
"You know Miss Bly, I can't believe my luck. Nellie Bly, Arthur Conan Doyle and Phineas Bogg. Three birds with one stone. Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not your Jack the Ripper. My life is dedicated to ruining history, not people. You Miss Bly, are just a piece of history to obliterate."
The Doctor's eyes lit up with deep recognition. Clara's nails dug into his arm and she broke her silence.
"That man's a time traveler? How? He's not even wearing a Time Vortex manipulator on his wrist. Do you know him?"
The Doctor didn't answer her. He'd already ruled out that this creep wasn't The Master. The Tardis was not detecting Time Lord activity and her scans found no trace of earthly technology from Torchwood or UNIT. There was however, something otherworldly. It dawned on the Doctor where this hybrid form of time travel came from, but he needed confirmation.
Through the fog, they heard a deep male voice yell for Nellie. Clara bit her lip, her fingers curled over a lever from the suspense. The man in black stopped walking. He saw Nellie Bly from the corner of his eye.
"There you are. Now where is the good Doctor?"
"Hiding in his Tardis and not helping." Clara grumbled and nudged her friend.
The Doctor pumped his fists and jumped around like a boxer. "Good show! You go, Artie!"
Clara nearly choked as they watched brave Sir Arthur Conan Doyle leap from his hiding spot and brandish his cane on the fiend. The Man in Black was unfortunately stronger and shoved him up against the wall as Nellie screamed.
"No! Don't! Help! Someone help!"
The Doctor tossed his arms around Clara in a back hug to stop her from running out. "Clara, that's not our cue. If I'm correct, you're about to see something amazing."
Clara was almost in tears. "Oh that's amazing all right! That bastard just punched Doyle out cold. He's reaching for his gun! Doctor, do something!"
"Now, you get your gun." The man in black sneered at Nellie. She rose up panicked and screamed again.
"Nooo!"
The Doctor clutched Clara and counted down in his head. "If you're out there like you're supposed to be, hurry up and make your move." He demanded.
"Doctor, wha…?"
The Doctor's green eyes widened as a man in pirate garb made a flying leap and slammed into the man in black.
"Yo ho ho! He did it!" The Doctor exclaimed while a fight ensued. "Give the man some grog!"
"Wait. What?" She arched her brow. "Hold on. Who's that hunk?" Clara demanded, loosening herself from the Doctor. She couldn't see the rescuer's face clearly, but from all angles he had a great body. He ducked as the man in black tossed barrels at him. The pirate was not deterred and rammed into his waist. He dragged him up from the ground and pushed him into some hay stacks.
Clara sucked in her breath. "Not bad at all, pirate. Shiver me timbers."
"Blimey, Clara, control that saucy little brain of yours. You're as bad as Geoff." The Doctor admonished, resting his chin on her shoulder. He tapped her temple. Sometimes he crept up on people faster than a Weeping angel.
She turned away and fiddled with her jumper straps. "Sorry. Sorry. I was just…never mind. Wait. Who's Geoff?"
"Some naughty boy who's laptop I borrowed to save the world from an Atraxi invasion. Before your time. Last I heard he's an Internet security agent for UNIT."
"Ahh, when you traveled with the Ponds."
The Doctor leaned closer, his eyes darted in every direction, scanning the scenery and the men. "What am I missing? What is it? where is it? Who is it?"
Clara shook his arm. "Look, the villain gave up the fight."
"Oh, no, Bogg. It's not that easy." The man in black glared and smirked at his nemesis and it seemed as if he stared right through the Tardis at the Doctor and Clara. He pulled out his silver pocket watch, pushed a button on top, and vanished into thin air.
"Wha…what? Explain what just happened? Is he an alien, Doctor?"
The Doctor let out a happy shout and danced around the control panels. Clara had never seen him more wired up. The Tardis responded to her Doctor's good mood and her controls fell back into full working order.
On the monitor a harried Detective-Inspector rushed over, looking to apprehend the pirate Bogg. A boy about thirteen ran to the pirate's side.
"Hello, who's this now?" The Doctor asked.
"His first mate." Clara grinned. The boy was cute, and wore a red and white striped shirt. Confusion followed and Nellie Bly cleared up the Detective-Inspector's accusations.
"I can only report what I saw, Inspector. And what I saw was a man who…disappeared."
The Doctor paused the screen on the pirate Bogg and the boy as they shrugged and feigned ignorance. "Look at that. Those two know exactly what happened."
The Tardis zoomed onto the pirate's belt and scanned his bronze pocket watch. The screen shifted and created three-dimensional images of the device and the Tardis worked to label all its intricate parts.
" "Time waits for no man." " Clara read the inscription across the bottom of the lid. She assumed the large 'V' carved on its center was the first initial of the owner's name. "Doctor, that looks like the same one the man in black used. What is it?"
"The little buggers that stalled my Tardis. That device… think of it as a very early version of a Time Vortex Manipulator. It's called an omnichronometer!"
"Oi. What a horribly long name. Why not just call it an omni? It's much cooler."
"Tsk…because, it's an OMNICHRONOMETER." The Doctor insisted. "Humans. You're always trying to shorten words and phrases."
"Hey, we don't live a billion years like a Time Lord, Doctor. We can't waste our precious breath on long words like OMNICHRONOMETER."
"Fair enough." The Doctor's excitement boiled. "Clara, I haven't seen an omnichronometer in over seven hundred years!" He repeatedly slapped his head. "Of course! No wonder the Tardis went batty! She was getting blasted by temporal electromagnetic readings off the charts from the pirate, the boy, and the man in black. She couldn't control herself."
Clara stared at the pirate's handsome image. "I don't blame her for getting a bit wonky." She patted the steering lever and then eyed the Doctor coyly. "The Tardis has very good taste in men."
The Doctor looked down bashful, but then carried on. "There were two omnichronometers within the same temporal zone. Between that and all the time energy spewing from those three blokes, she would have shorted out completely if I didn't cut her wire. It's like giving a woman chocolate when she's on her monthly. Calms her right down."
Clara shook her head and laughed. "I get the picture, Doctor. So…time energy? Are you saying they're Time Lords?"
"No. They're human. They might not realize it now, but with all the time energy radiating around them they're going to live quite a long, long life if they don't get killed or meet a Weeping Angel statue."
The Doctor switched their view to the pirate and boy as they walked through the streets. Clara smiled at their camaraderie. It was obvious the curly, dark haired boy looked up to the pirate. They both had American accents and she distinctly heard the word, "omni." She gave the Doctor a knowing look and he muttered and grumbled how it's still officially an omnichronometer.
Clara wondered how the two met, all the big "W" questions. No matter what the Doctor said, she was determined to greet them and shoot the breeze about time travel. Clara thought she'd seen it all in the universe, but these mismatched time travelers were simplistic, adorable, and very unique.
The Doctor dug in another cubbie and put a pair of 3-D glasses on Clara. "Do you see it? It's coming out of their pores."
She stared in awe at the beautiful yellow and glittery wisps of energy billowing around the two.
"They're like walking time anomalies." The Doctor said.
"Technically, they're not supposed to be in that time zone. So I guess they are."
The Doctor smiled like a proud father. "It's quite elegant, isn't it? The omnichronometer. I just love saying that word."
Clara handed him the 3-D glasses. "It sure is. How come we've never seen it in a museum? I can imagine River Song would love to have one of those."
The Doctor chuckled. "Oh, she's tried hard to find an omnichronometer. But even as the greatest thief…err…archaeologist in the world can't get her hands on this. I never thought I'd see it again. I told her the original was lost in space, but I have the prototype hidden in my bedroom somewhere."
"Why is it hidden? It's so lovely. You should put it on display in the library."
"As much as I'd like to…No. River'd snatch it up in a minute and press her blasted vortex manipulator the second she stepped off the Tardis. Poof! It'd be gone forever."
Clara narrowed her eyes. "Just tell her to keep her paws off. But…you can't do that, can you? You'd never dare cross the legendary River Song." Clara circled him and he backed up against the control board. A thin bead of sweat appeared on his forehead. It was her turn to enjoy teasing him dangerously close.
"Doctor, I'm curious. Why would she even go to your bedroom?" She twirled his bowtie.
"Clara Oswald! What…oh bother, River goes wherever she wants. I think she knows the Tardis better than me...where do you even come up with these questions?"
"Oh yes, I almost forgot, she's your…"
"Shut up. Never mind that now, it's a long confusing story and she's not part of this one. And it hasn't happened yet anyway because it's my future, her past, and oh, bollocks… Spoilers!" The Doctor gasped in one breath and held his head.
He held her arms. "Clara, let's not complicate things. It's just you, me, and those two time travelers out there…and some aliens…because when you travel with me there's always bound to be aliens!"
Clara was more than happy to change the subject and she laughed. "Doctor, you're so cute when you're nervous. Well, if there's one thing we learned about the Tardis, it takes you where you need to be. So now what? Shall we introduce ourselves?"
"Tut, tut, tut…" The Doctor held her jumper straps. "Not just yet. We can follow them, I have no doubt they're heading to Doyle's Baker Street home. But let's wait and see. We may just have to leave them alone. They're trying to be very discreet."
"Who is? Wait, hold on. The boy's wearing Nike sneakers in 1889. I'd hardly call that discreet."
"Well, I can't account for him just yet, I didn't realize they allowed children in the field work. That's fantastic! Very hands on. I've been out of touch with them too long."
Clara tossed her hands up. "Doctor, what are you talking about? Who are they?"
The Doctor poked the monitor. "Clara, haven't you been paying attention?"
A crimson flag with a silver and gold "V" emblem appeared. A name popped up in big green letters as the Tardis sorted out the particulars. Now the "V" made sense.
"The Voyagers, Clara. Defenders of world history! These are my Voyagers!"
TBC.