Silently, the Doctor watched as the TARDIS took him wherever the instruments had been set. He had twiddled dials and knobs entirely at random, letting fate have its way with his destination. It was only fair; fate had been having its way with him for quite some time now.
He had just recently destroyed—killed—an artificial intelligence that had been trying to defend a small enclave of humanity. The Doctor hadn't known it at the time: the AI had been commanding a gigantic tank in pursuit of aliens that had seemed innocent enough…
The Doctor sighed through his nose. Whether it was his fault or not, he had contributed to the deaths of nearly two thousand people and had directly caused the death of Leonidas, the AI program that had been defending them. All because he had leaped without thinking. There's a very good reason why the first syllable of 'assume' is 'ass.'
"Oh, such dreary thoughts," an oily, acerbic voice behind him said in false pity. "Had I known this was Emo Week, I'd have dressed more somberly. Someone hand me a box cutter; my wrists are getting lonely."
"What?" The Doctor spun and came face-to-face with a man in the ceremonial garb of the Lord President of Gallifrey. But the man in the robes bore no face the Doctor recognized. He had met many of the Lords President of Gallifrey, studied the rest, and tried very hard to avoid getting involved in their politics, but this man was a complete stranger. "Who are you?"
With a puckish smile over his dimpled chin, the man sketched a shallow bow. Beneath the presidential skullcap, the Doctor could see curls of waving brown hair. In the name of Time, please let that not be Fourth Me.
"You are the Doctor, I presume," the man said. "And I am none other than Q. How do you do?"
"You're a what?"
Q stood up, very obviously affronted, and drew back, even more obviously shocked. "I am not a 'what,' sir, I am a 'who.' A Q who, if you must know."
"Q Who. How positively Grinchy," the Doctor mumbled. Louder, he faced the intruder. "So you are Q."
"I see you, like the majority of other hominids, are afflicted with something physicians have termed 'Boomerang Learning Syndrome.' It's a common malady that requires a concept to wing its way around the room a few times after its introduction, preferably being repeated aloud by all involved, before it comes to land inside your head."
"I've never heard of you before," the Doctor said thoughtfully. "Q. Hmm. Q. Are you perhaps that sensation one feels after having a good P?"
"How droll," Q smirked.
The Doctor shrugged. "I thought that was how you wanted to play it. I took a Q from you."
Q's eyelid twitched. "We're now well on our way to tedious, I see."
"Then either leave my TARDIS or tell me why you're here and then leave my TARDIS. I'm not much in the mood for silliness now."
"Indeed, and who can blame you?" Q asked. "Nasty business with that Bolo and such." He clucked his tongue.
"I don't know exactly who you are or what you're about, but you need to leave."
Q's eyebrows raised. Evidently he was a creature of theatrics. "Well, if your temper doesn't improve, I shall, but I doubt you'll appreciate what I leave behind when I go."
"Threats?"
"Statements of fact," Q said. The levity and mockery was gone from his voice. "I made my way inside your little toy by simply willing myself to. I can move solar systems, rearrange molecules, shift you from one dimension to the other without your pathetic ship and leave you there as long as I desire or until you die. Whichever comes first or whichever entertains me the most."
"And why are you here, then?"
"Boredom!" Q was instantly upbeat and expressive. "I managed to stumble across you some time ago and was intrigued by your condition. The last surviving member of your species…well, of your graduating class, that much is certain (or you would be had you graduated)…and you seem to have appointed yourself guardian of Earth and of morals and dignity and goody-two-shoed-ness. I also have encountered a trans-dimensional anomaly of great interest to myself as well as to those it benefits and those it threatens."
The Doctor's eyes narrowed. He could tell where this was going. "So you want to throw me into the equation and see what breaks loose."
Q spared a smug smile. "Correct."
"Why?"
"Because I can."
-oOo-
The shotgun, once a giver of reassurance and power, now felt like a simple lump of steel and polymers; the creatures just kept coming. There were now so many more of them that had come through the portal—the portal I opened like an idiot!—that no matter how many times he reloaded, he'd never be free of them. Sooner or later, they would overwhelm him just as they'd swarmed over and devoured the world they'd just left. Then they'd consume this world and probably move on to another like some kind of plague. A plague of shoppers looking for the next S-Mart Mega-Sale, to be precise.
But it didn't matter. It was his fault they found their way to this world. It was his responsibility to stop them in any way he could.
Pocketing as many shotgun shells as he could find, the man stood and chambered a round. Squaring his not-inconsequential chin, Ash Williams stepped out of the sporting goods section and into the darkening city to meet his fate.
-oOo-
The Doctor stood outside the TARDIS as a cool early autumn breeze ruffled his hair. The sky above was dark, but not because of storm clouds. Rather, the entire troposphere was dominated by what seemed to be a dark-hued vortex ringed with lightning and streaks of orange fire as ripples of purple light flared here and there.
Beneath his feet, broken glass and masonry crunched beneath his turquoise sneakers. The signs were in English, as were…a-HA!...newspapers. He was in Richmond, a Canadian city in the province of British Columbia.
Nice place, Canada. Never invaded anyone, nobody declared war on them. Everyone loves Canadians. Harmless chaps, all. Must be something in the beer.
The question became what had happened to them. It was quite likely that they had fled their city, but some few were bound to have buttoned down and sought shelter within their own homes, to say nothing of looters.
But that didn't take into account how long ago this had begun. Perhaps even the looters had left. The Doctor looked at his left shoe, which raised itself obligingly off the rubble. "Well, no answers will dump themselves in front of me, so we should go find them. Allons y, mes pieds!"
When he didn't move, he sighed through his nose. "Ah. We're not in the French-speaking part of Canada, are we? Onward, feet!" And off he went.
Richmond was quite plainly deserted. The only noises he heard were the howls of the shifting winds and the faint cracking and thundering of the pseudo-lightning coming from the disturbance overhead. It had occurred to the Doctor that it would be best to be in the TARDIS, monitoring the rift and working to seal or mitigate it, but something inside him urged him to get out and try to talk to someone who had seen what was going on, to render aid if he could. With no disrespect to his ever-faithful TARDIS, there was something to be said for the human element.
The Doctor peered through the windows of a restaurant and took note of the interior. The dimensional rift had appeared suddenly, to judge by the half-eaten meals and tipped over chairs. Everyone had apparently decided to flee rather than wait it out. Reasonable, he thought. There would be nothing they could do, unlike a fire or natural disaster like that. Well, that rift is natural and certainly a disaster, but…is it, now? Did that Q cause the rift? If he is all that he says he is…
"Oh, trust me, Doctor, I am."
Q had materialized from seeming nothingness and was standing behind the counter, decked out in an apron, short-sleeved work shirt, and hairnet. And that smug smile. Always the smile.
"So what are you? Specifically. Minus the theatrics. Nobody's filming this."
A small shrug, denoting either acquiescence or indifference. "Some civilizations worship Q as God. Others fear Q as Satan. I am Q, and the Q are me."
"You're a gestalt? A group mind?"
"As best you can understand the concept, yes. Each of us is distinct, with our own personalities and preferences, but each of us is likewise a part of the whole, interconnected in mind and spirit and dimension, unending and eternal. Like you, I am the last of my kind, but because I am Q, I am also the first; I am them and they are me and we are all one together."
The Doctor snorted. "Who are you now? John Lennon?"
"No, but he was one of the very few who understood."
"Understood what?"
"Everything."
Now the Doctor understood that he would get nowhere with this line of questioning, at least at this juncture. "Well, unless you can find him to assist me in this, you might want to shove off. Unless you're looking to gloat or mock or simply be an insufferable p—…"
"Language. I suppose it would speed things along if I nudge you in the right direction." Wiping his hands on a towel, Q came around the counter. "Let me give you a hint as to what you'll be dealing with. Through there, if you please."
The Doctor cautiously entered the kitchen, his eyes and ears straining for the slightest hint of danger. A corner of his mind said he had little to fear: Q put him here for a purpose, not to be killed out of hand. He drew up short in shock. In the dimness he saw a hand lying in a dark pool near the end of a preparation table. Both floor and table were strewn with food, condiments, and utensils.
The Doctor stepped forward and again stopped. The hand he had seen was just that. A hand. There was nothing attached to it. Worse still, not only had it been removed from the arm it once belonged to, it appeared to have been chewed off.
"What in the world happened here?" he said softly, his stomach churning.
"That's what you're here to find out," Q replied. "Take a good look. You might find the owner nearby. Or the one who came to her looking for a hand-out."
"That was totally uncalled for," the Doctor snapped, spinning around in anger only to face an empty room. He looked about anyway, knowing full well that Q could be anywhere he chose or nowhere at all. "Fine, then."
Drawing his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor began searching for life signs, residual heat sources, and sundry signatures that would indicate body masses living or dead. Whether due to the vortex above or Q's meddling, the screwdriver's readings were indeterminate. There could have been a dozen survivors or a thousand cadavers nearby and the Doctor would not have been able to tell the difference.
The faintly whistling wind outside served greatly to unnerve the Doctor. It was just loud enough to obscure any sounds he might have heard and just quiet enough that each sigh or gust could well have been a cry for help or a whispered warning.
An entire city gone the way of the Mary Celeste and again, no clues to point the way. The Doctor shuddered; he had found out what had happened to the passengers and crew of the Mary Celeste and it had involved a few Daleks that had been chasing him. Could there be Daleks behind this? It was possible: they had set their sights on Earth many times before. However, Daleks didn't eat, nor did they mutilate their victims. They simply disintegrated, blasted, or generically "exterminated" them.
Could that severed hand have been because of some Dalek henchmen? Or hench-things? They had employed alien cultures and beasts before, but after scanning for traces of the life forms the Doctor had known the Daleks to employ, he found no signs of them.
That in itself was even stranger. The screwdriver's scanners normally indicated a definite "yes" or "no" in regard to life signs, but were still electronically ambivalent about human signs. Animals, yes. Time Lord, yes. Human, not so much. "Feeling a little under the weather, too, eh?" the Doctor asked, frowning at the screwdriver. Pointing it in a direction that indicated something, he began walking.
Finding what he was after didn't take too terribly long. Someone was hunched over in a doorway, breathing heavily with either exertion or emotion, it seemed. Cautiously, the Doctor stepped forward. "Can I help you? Are you injured?"
The person froze instantly, her—her?—head cocked slightly to the left, evidently surprised by the Doctor's presence. As it turned to face him, he could tell that it was a woman, a rather young one with a trim figure, a short haircut, and dead white eyes, teeth crusted with gore. She had no right hand.
Reflexively, the Doctor stepped back. He spared a quick glance at the sonic screwdriver. Despite being aimed directly at the woman, it still gave no indication one way or the other about whether she had life signs. His highly-trained mind kicking into overdrive, the Doctor began analyzing his options even as he noted that this…being had not dropped what she was eating: she had nothing to drop. She had been chewing on the stump of her own arm.
With the wisdom of nearly a millennium of travel and the education of Gallifrey's finest universities, spurred on by the woman-creature beginning to lurch toward him, the Doctor arrived at the optimum solution for this dilemma and began running.
Whatever this creature was, it was fast. Whether it had been in excellent shape before becoming what it was or if its current condition rendered it immune to fatigue, it managed to keep up with even the Doctor's extraterrestrial muscles.
A remote corner of the Doctor's mind found time to be fascinated that even in the midst of utter, mind-numbing panic, he had enough rational capacity to marvel at his inability to reason.
"What?" He skidded to a stop, wondering exactly where in the name of Time that thought had come from, but upon realizing that the ghoul-girl was still chasing him, resumed his headlong dash down the nearest alley. Strewn with refuse and debris, perhaps it would slow his pursuer sufficiently to allow him time to find an escape and sort out his head.
Granted only the briefest of reprieves when the creature slipped on some newspaper, the Doctor found himself brought up short by a locked door. Clawing the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, he aimed it at the lock, triggered the tumblers, and pushed the door open only to have it stopped by a chain, padlocked shut on the other side.
Behind him, the snarling ghoul had regained its feet and resumed its advance. Sparing only the briefest of glances, the Doctor began setting the screwdriver to open the vexing padlock. A thunderclap sounded behind him, painfully loud in the confined alley, and he spun, both hearts pounding like turbocharged jackhammers.
The ghoul-thing was still standing, yet unsteadily, its head avulsed from its shoulders. As the twice-dead body collapsed, the Doctor heard a voice exult, "Headshot, baby! Doctor Boomstick is in town and I make house calls! Are you okay in there?"
"What?" The Doctor stood slowly, trying to make the transition from prey to perplexed.
"I said, are you okay?" Ash stepped into view of the Doctor, the shotgun held by its pistol grip in his left hand. His right was encased in some kind of glove, the Doctor saw.
"Better than that girl you just killed," the Doctor snapped. "You didn't have to shoot her."
"Actually, I did. Deadites have bad anger management issues and dialog only gets your face chewed off. And not in an angry, Jerry-Springer-guest way," Ash said, smiling over a strong chin as he extended his right hand for a friendly handshake.
The Doctor eschewed a handshake—oh, disgusting! Let's just say I disdained it rather than chewing on anything!—and peered at Ash in his most intensely interrogative way. "So who are you and how do you know what these things are?"
"I'm Ashley J. Williams, and these things have been my personal annoyance for a few years now. They're called Deadites. They're…well, they're kinda sorta all around us now, and maybe that last shot announced my presence a little too well." Ash looked at the gauntlet on his right hand. "Yeah, they're on their way. I have a place to hide for a few minutes. Want to come with me? You can't hang around down here."
"Actually, maybe you should come with me," the Doctor said. "My TARDIS is nearby and I highly doubt these Deadite things can get inside."
"Your what?"
"Come on." Having nothing better to do—and having much worse options at hand, for that matter (again with hands!)—Ash followed the Doctor a few blocks down this road and that until they arrived at the TARDIS.
"You expect both of us to fit in there?"
Jiggling his key in the lock, the Doctor opened the door and unceremoniously dragged Ash in behind him. "The first thing I need to do is analyze that rift above us. It's probably why these 'Deadites' of yours are here. If I can, I want to find a…can I help you?"
Ash had, as with everyone else who stepped into the TARDIS, fetched up short when it dawned on them that there was more to the TARDIS than met the eyes. Ash twisted his head around in so many ways the Doctor half-expected it to spin around a complete 360 degrees and roll onto the floor where it would doubtless bounce around and gape some more.
Never at a loss for words, Ash managed a smile. "Groovy."
"Um, yes. Quite. Maybe a lava lamp or two, I'm thinking. A bead curtain here and there. Focus, please? Here? Very good. Now. You said you've had problems with these things for some time now. How did that start?"
"Well, in about 1987 or so, I was on a vacation with friends of mine in this little cabin, see, and we found this book and some guy's recordings about it and…"
"To make a long story even longer," the Doctor prodded.
"Well, there was some kind of demonic force, something evil in the cabin where we were staying," Ash said, "and it began taking possession of us, of things in the cabin like mirrors, furniture…it even possessed my hand, for crying out loud." He raised his right hand and the Doctor, upon closer examination, saw that it was not a gauntlet at all, but a prosthetic. Fully articulated, mounted with advanced technology, and as functional as a real hand.
"Where did you get that?"
"S-Mart."
"What?"
"S-Mart's electronics department," Ash said. "I'm a clerk at S-Mart and I got a discount on this."
"In 1987 they were making computer-enhanced, armored prosthetic hands?"
"No," Ash said. "This is from about 2064 or so. By that time, of course, my union card had expired and I had a hard time proving I'd ever been an S-Mart employee, but once they dug up the records, I got 15% off and an additional 90-day warranty at no extra cost."
With a world-class "what?" poised on his tongue, the Doctor could but stare at his guest.
"What?" Ash asked.
"You're a…a shop clerk. Who hunts Deadite zombies. With a discount store mechanical hand."
"And my boomstick!" Ash said, happily indicating his shotgun.
"Your what?"
"From S-Mart's sporting goods section! A Mossberg Model 500 Persuader 12-gauge, chambered for 2 ¾" or 3" shells, safe with lead, steel, or bismuth, whichever local regulations or your particular needs may require. No matter what season, what sport, what pastime, S-Mart carries all your outdoor needs from camping to fishing to wiping Deadites from the face of your planet! Just follow the lavender lamp to this week's specials and any of our friendly associates will assist you! Shop smart! Shop S-Mart!" He lapsed into soft, albeit nervous, laughter.
"I'm logging this in the TARDIS' computer as being officially the first time I have ever had no idea what someone is talking about."
Ash wiped his eyes. "I'm sorry. It's just the stress, I think. Reverse post-traumatic stress disorder. Post-happy time reclamation disorder, maybe."
"You just made that up."
Now Ash nodded. "Yeah. It's a condition where you wish all this would just stop and things would go back to being the way they were."
The Doctor paused, nibbling on his lip. "So you, an S-Mart clerk, got sucked into some kind of supernatural phenomenon that has you pelting through time and space with a fake hand on a mission to kill Deadites. When you put it that way, it makes such perfect sense. Should have figured that out right away."
"This whole mess started with the Necronomicon," Ash said, trying to get back on track. "When we found it along with the tapes, and then played the tapes, some kind of force was let loose, some demon or something, and then…I've been sucked into wars against Deadites nearly non-stop. I've even had to travel through time, for God's sake. You have no idea what that's like, going from…"
"Do tell."
Ash stopped. "You don't believe me? Not even with that vortex, that Deadite that chased you?"
"I've seen a bit too much in my life to just dismiss anything out of hand," the Doctor said. "Have you learned how to close that portal, or whatever it is, or to stop these Deadites?"
"Yes," Ash said. "But it's complicated…"
"I can see where this is going." Q, once again in his Time Lord finery, had materialized behind the Doctor, unnoticed by Ash, who had been busy trying to blot out unpleasant memories even as he described them. "Let me summarize, Doctor, before he dithers you to death. This rift opened because of your Cro-Magnon comrade. In his dimension—in every dimension, really—is a book that his species calls the 'Necronomicon.' Every dimension has one; they are connected by means natural and supernatural, incomprehensible to mortal minds. In this most recent incident, he had finally found that dimension's Necronomicon and once again muffed the mystical phrase needed to shut the portal. All that's required is the proper recitation of the phrase and everything stops. However, the rudiments of coherent speech escape Mr. Williams time and again."
"I can enunciate perfectly well," Ash snapped. "You try pronouncing ancient Sumerian or whatever that is some time."
"Please," Q said in his best long-suffering tone of voice. "Do you honestly think Sumerians coined the phrase 'Klaatu bargaining nicotine?' Do you?"
"The Necronomicon doesn't come with an owner's manual! I can't be expected to learn dead languages, much less pronounce them worth a damn! I'm doing the best I can with what I've got!"
Q drew himself up. "That is an arrogant, elitist, and racist remark. You need to attend diversity training at your earliest opportunity, sir! The Deadites have needs just like the living members of your culture. You should adapt, accommodate them."
"What?" Ash demanded. "They tried to eat my brain!"
"Then just tell them you're out of stock and to try another store."
"Q!" the Doctor snapped.
"What, like a raincheck would be a good idea? I doubt he'll be getting another shipment of brains any time soon."
The Doctor came striding around the TARDIS' console and put himself directly between Ash and Q. "That will be sufficient, thank you both for your time and trouble, although you've provided far more trouble than anything else. We need to close that portal and close it now. Do you have any ideas how to do that? If you don't, would you kindly shut up!"
"It's all there in the book," Q said. "Find the Necronomicon, speak the phrase, and done."
The Doctor turned back to the console. "Good. You said it controlled this vortex, so there's some way to track its emanations to their source, which would be the book…"
"Not quite," Q said. "Your instruments can't track it."
"You're tampering with my TARDIS," the Doctor accused.
"Not at all," Q said, almost appearing hurt. "It's simply the nature of the beast. Beasts, really. It is, after all, incomprehensible to mortal minds, and your technology is a product of mortal minds, no matter how refined they may be in relation to other humanoids. What you can't conceive, you can't design your toys to scan for. It's only logical."
The Doctor snorted. "If you want to talk about logic, there's a chap with pointed ears I can introduce you to."
Q's eyes narrowed. "Thank you, no."
Recovering some smattering of his dignity, Ash moved to a different area of the TARDIS console where he could watch both Q and the Doctor. "All right. You I have figured out," he said, pointing at the Doctor. "You're an alien. A space alien."
"Quasi-legal, even." The Doctor returned to his instruments; he was not going to take Q's word that the TARDIS would be totally ineffective.
"And you," Ash said, pointing at Q, "I'm not sure what you are just yet…"
"The feeling is assuredly mutual."
"…but you seem to know an awful lot about what's going on here. Help us finish this. Get us to the Necronomicon and give me the right words to say."
Q shook his head. "Ah, ah, ah, ah! No freebies from me, my stalwart Australopithecine reject. This is your world's dilemma, and it's yours to solve."
"I've never been to Australia," Ash mused. "But for all my lack of traveling experience, I've learned one thing."
This time, both Q and the Doctor fixed him with skeptic looks. "Unlikely, but go ahead," the Doctor said.
"You may not be human," Ash said, pointing at Q, "but you wear a human form, and that means you've taken on human frailties."
With a lightning-quick snap of his wrist, Ash brought the shotgun to bear at Q's head. "And that means you're vulnerable to boomsticks!"
A nova-bright flash of light made Ash blink, and when he could see again, the muzzle of the shotgun was pointed at the Doctor's head. "Would you please?" The Time Lord swatted the gun away. Thankfully, it didn't discharge.
"How did you do that?" Ash demanded. Q was now standing where the Doctor had been, a look of unconcerned, supercilious boredom on his face.
"I knew you were going to do that," he said dismissively.
"You read minds?"
"No, you're just that stupid. It seems the Klingons of this universe have swapped forehead ridges for chins." Q looked to the Doctor. "Find the Necronomicon. Even with your limited mortal faculties, you should be able to perform that simple task. Get him there in one piece, or at least one piece that can still talk, since limbs and certain other organs can be lost with minimal impact on locution. Have him repeat the phrase, which is the same here as it has been the last eight times he's tried, before the Necronomicon, and done. If he fails, and let us not be surprised if he does, the portal will close here. However, because the incantation will be incomplete, it will reopen somewhere else and he gets to go through this all again."
"And I assume you'll send me along with him?" the Doctor asked.
"Hardly. As tasty as this dish may be, I doubt it's delectable enough to sample again. Now," Q said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together, "take your croutons-for-brains and do what you do best."
"Which is?" Ash asked.
"I honestly can't say," Q said. "Just whatever he does best, he needs to do it. Nothing less will get him through this alive. Ta!"
And with a flash of light, he was gone.
-oOo-
It chafed the Doctor tremendously to follow Ash on his trek toward the Necronomicon, but he held his tongue. Nearly as irritating as having to rely on Ash for guidance was the fact that Q had been correct about the TARDIS' sensors. They were nearly useless in tracking the vortex's source. A sizeable portion of the Doctor's considerable brainpower was directed toward figuring that one out. Better that than focusing on following Mr. Boomstick through a deserted town for a potentially suicidal rendezvous with carnivorous extradimensional zombies, anyway.
It was hard to fathom how any dimensional rift couldn't be tracked by the TARDIS' equipment. Whatever the phenomenon was, it was affecting space and time, which responded in certain invariable ways to certain stimuli. Something was ripping a hole between universes, warping not only the four real dimensions of each universe, but likely additional sub- and super-dimensions.
To make that hole appear—to cause those certain effects to manifest—certain things had to be done to manipulate space-time. What those things were, the Doctor couldn't say. The TARDIS had been (and likely still was if it hadn't gotten bored) scanning for anything that could have brought on such wave-forms and had come up with nothing.
A rock causes ripples in water. Every time. Immutable fact. Irrefutable relation between cause and effect. But what rock was causing these ripples? Why could the TARDIS barely even see the ripples, to say nothing of being blind to the cause?
"What?" Ash asked.
"Hm? Oh. Nothing." Talking aloud to myself. A bit frazzled, I'd say. Happens at my age. At least when nine hundred years old you reach, talk in disjointed sentences, you will not. "How much further?"
"We're here," Ash said, stepping inside a small store. "Got to reload before I go any further."
"What? You're after bullets? All this time you've been after bullets, not taking us toward the rift?"
"Shotshells, technically," Ash corrected. "I'm going to need them if we're going to find the Necronomicon. There will be lots of Deadites between there and here."
"And you're not going to kill them," the Doctor insisted, following Ash closely.
Ash reached into a display case. There were only a couple boxes and the shot size was suited more for rabbits than Deadites, but a hungry boomstick couldn't be a choosy one. "Actually, I can't," he said, stuffing his pockets with ammunition.
"Then explain the woman whose head you blew off earlier," the Doctor challenged.
"Oh, don't worry about her," Ash said. "She probably grew a new one and she's back doing whatever it is she does by now. Deadites do stuff like that."
The Doctor had been privileged to have met and been chased by creatures like that before, so he was in no position to challenge Ash's assertions. What he was of a mind to challenge was Ash's solution to the Deadite dilemma. "But you don't need to shoot them, either."
"You didn't notice what that one was doing when I saved you, did you?" Ash asked, stuffing rounds into the shotgun's magazine tube. "Did it say 'hello' or offer to shake hands with you? Either with its remaining hand or one it picked up at random? No. It chased you."
"That doesn't mean I couldn't have talked to it."
"Then why didn't you?"
The Doctor's jaw clenched briefly. "I'll have to admit that it was my fault. I panicked and ran before I had a chance to try anything."
"Exactly, because somewhere in your mind you knew—you knew—that she wasn't something to chat with. She was a threat, same as all these other Deadites, and you reacted not only out of instinct, but in the best way possible."
"Maybe for you fear is best, but Time Lords are a little more evolved than that."
"They certainly run in a more evolved manner."
The Doctor let it drop. Arguing with Ash was like arguing with Q, but from totally different perspectives. Q was hyper-intelligent, godlike, if you would. Ash, on the other hand, was purely Ash, an entity unto himself with his own sets of peculiarities, neuroses, psychoses. Arguing with him on his terms would be quite difficult, at best. However, maybe a little reasoning would be in order.
"All right, we'll do it mostly your way," the Doctor said. "No guns until and unless absolutely necessary, all right? I'll find a way to get you to the center of all this as well as to the Necronomicon. My job will be to help you close this portal with an accurate and direct translation of those words as well as minimizing (if not eliminating) your use of your gun. Okay?"
Ash nodded. "No boomsticking unless absolutely necessary. And how do you plan to translate the Necronomicon?"
The Doctor held up his sonic screwdriver. "This is tied into the TARDIS' computers. The TARDIS can translate anything for me. Any language ever spoken, thought, written, or even conceived from any time, place, civilization, and did you just say 'boomsticking'?"
"Um, yes. Why?"
"Well, 'boomstick' itself isn't a word..."
"Yes, it is. I made it up myself."
"...and it's a noun, if it's anything at all, not a verb."
"Nouns can be verbs."
"Not made-up ones."
"Can, too," Ash protested. "I made it up, I decide what it is. Besides, what about 'hammer'? Noun and verb. Press? Stitch? Drive? Plate? Feed? How about ID? You can carry an ID, or you can be ID'ed, or you can ID someone else. Crate? Fish? Swing! Bill, check, mail..."
"They're not made-up words," the Doctor sighed, sparing his screwdriver a glance and trying to walk away from the conversation.
"They establish precedent. Oh, and let's not forget Tebow. MacGyver. Kirk! I can go on."
And he did.
-oOo-
Ash's prediction of legions of Deadites between the TARDIS and the Necronomicon was off by maybe a factor of a thousand; the few wandering the streets were relatively easy to find and avoid. Even the concentration of Deadites around the epicenter of the distortion, which appeared to be the ruins of a small city park—wasn't as great as the Doctor had expected. Substantially more than was comfortable, of course, but less than he'd feared.
Still, for all the horror of the situation, he managed to find it in himself to marvel at the variety and uniqueness within the Deadites. Some were simple skeletons, others more like zombies. There were humans and humanoids, a few that looked like European versions of demons straight out of medieval woodcarvings, and some that looked like Oriental oni or yaoguai. No, that one was an orang minyak. No question.
Even more delightful—or frightening—a few alien cultures seemed to be represented, as well. Evidently the Necronomicon wasn't any more unique to Earth than it was to this dimension. That gave him pause. Q had said that this distortion was caused by the Necronomicon, and that even if Ash flubbed the incantation to close it, it would open elsewhere. What would be the cumulative effects of an interdimensional rift opening and closing over and over? Perhaps the cascade effect of a rip between dimensions, rippling through the infinite multiverse, would be too much to stop by merely speaking a single mystic phrase.
Then again, there was little choice other than to proceed and hope that Q wasn't lying when he said that all Ash had to do was recite the proper phrase. "Let's hold up here a second," the Doctor said, drawing his sonic screwdriver.
"Why? We're almost there."
"I'm checking to see if the TARDIS has figured this out yet."
Ash peeked at the screwdriver over the Doctor's shoulder. "I thought Ziggy Stardust back there said your machines couldn't scan the vortex."
"Actually, they can't scan it yet," the Doctor corrected. "But the TARDIS is a quick learner, and by scanning what it does understand, it can begin to figure out just what to look for. For instance, you see the disturbances in the atmosphere, like the lightning and wind. The TARDIS has been analyzing them and scanning for things that can cause such effects..."
"But still, if these effects are caused by something outside your TARDIS' experience..."
"Every effect you see here has a cause, and every cause has some kind of signature, whether it's energy emissions or ripples in continuums or whatever," the Doctor continued. "With enough time, the TARDIS can analyze the ripples and deduce their causes. It would take too long to explain, but by eliminating what the TARDIS knows is not contributing, it narrows down the list of things that may be contributing."
"Occam's Razor for physics."
"If that's what it takes to make you quit asking questions, then that's it exactly."
"What if it's not?"
"Then quit asking anyway," the Doctor said.
"So has your TARDIS figured it out yet?"
"Almost. Once it does, I might be able to shut this down without relying on your magic phrase."
Ash nodded. "Can you get me a translation of the phrase anyway? Belt and suspenders."
"Good idea. And before you ask, the answer is no, I can't believe I just said that. But good idea, anyway." The Doctor fiddled with his screwdriver and aimed it at the Necronomicon, which was perched atop a stone dais maybe eighty yards away. The book was open, and with a tight focus on the pages, just maybe...
"Download it into the computer in my gauntlet," Ash said. "I can call it up on the screen and read it off that. Easier than speaking Sumeribabylonipotamian whatever."
As the Doctor transmitted the translation to Ash's prosthetic hand—Windows 39.11? Really?—he had to admit that for someone seemingly so addled, the human did have a few good qualities. A little gun-crazy, but perhaps there had to be allowances made for years of fighting zombies between times and dimensions.
Maybe the same allowances made for someone who fought Daleks between times and dimensions?
"All right. You're ready. Go read your hocus-pocus."
"I can't do it from here. I have to be next to the book. Touching it would be better, but it bites."
"B—what?"
"Yeah." Ash began looking around. The Deadites were milling aimlessly about, which struck him as odd. Usually there was a leader of some sort to direct them, but maybe he, she, or it was off guiding the Deadite armies on some other quest. Or perhaps there was a Bad Ash of this dimension waiting near the Necronomicon to defend it. In the end, though, he arrived at the same conclusion the Doctor had: there was nothing for it but to go forward.
"What do you think? You make your way to the book and do whatever it is you do, while I stay here and work with the TARDIS?"
"Unless you want to take the boomstick and let me play with the TARDIS."
"Right. On your way, then." The Doctor began working the screwdriver's controls as Ash started to sneak his way toward the Necronomicon. Above them, the abyssal vortex swirled angrily. It might have been their proximity or that it was growing, but by now it seemed big enough to swallow if not the planet, then at least a goodly portion of it.
Maybe it was the hairs on the back of his neck or a stray breeze, but something tickled the Doctor's spine with feathery fingers of ice. He turned and came face to skull with a Deadite in medieval leather armor that was half rotted away, a rusty sword in its skeletal hand. The Doctor wondered how it moved with no muscles, much less how it managed to raise its sword and...
Ah, yes. It was time to move. Funny how such complex thoughts could seem to take up so much time when in reality they encompassed less than the instant it took to sidestep and begin running.
The Deadite gave voice to a heart-stopping shriek and gave chase. Luckily, it wasn't quite as fast as a human being, giving the Time Lord a little advantage, but the Doctor soon found himself assailed from all sides. Deadites were converging on his location and although he could dodge small numbers of them, there were enough to encircle him eventually. But he didn't have to keep it up forever. Ash would be at the dais in a second and would recite his phrase. In fact, Ash was...
...being chased by more Deadites. The Doctor's hearts fell. Ash was closer to the Necronomicon than he had been, but was spending most of his time dodging and boomsticking (shooting!) the undead or semi-living creatures. Worse, it seemed that more of them were deciding Ash to be the greater threat. Whether that arose from his shotgun or his proximity to the book didn't matter: the Doctor had to buy him time. But how to draw attention to himself?
Checking the TARDIS' progress again on his screwdriver's interface, the Doctor pointed the blue-tipped instrument at a nearby street lamp. The node glowed brightly and the lamp exploded. There was no electricity flowing in the silent town, but the Gallifreyan device still packed enough punch in its own batteries to send a surge of energy through the darkened lamp. Another lamp was targeted and destroyed and now Deadites began to pay attention to the Doctor and his miniature boomstick. If only they...yes! Some of the Deadites were being drawn away from Ash. Hopefully enough.
On his side of the equation, Ash was busy shooting, dodging, and trying his best to get within speaking distance of the Necronomicon. He had no idea why he had to be so close. Perhaps the book needed to hear him. Even if it had to hear him, it would be hard pressed to do so even if it could: the vortex was churning even more violently and the lightning was crashing even harder than before, almost as if someone or something knew Ash was coming and what he intended to do.
Come on, Doctor. Get your TARDIS in gear! Don't make me have to do this again! The fear that he'd flub the line again nearly made him stop running toward the book, so that the Doctor would have no choice but to close the vortex himself. But Ash knew it was his responsibility. As the one who had opened it, he was not only the only one who could close it again, but he was the one who should close it. He shouldn't ask anyone else to do it for him any more than he should run away from his obligations.
And suddenly he was there. Firing off four successive rounds into the heads of encroaching Deadites, he called up the Doctor's translation on his prosthetic's screen.
The Doctor, causing electronic and mechanical mayhem with his sonic screwdriver, was splitting his attention between buying time for Ash and checking his TARDIS' progress. For a refreshingly happy change of pace, there was progress on both fronts. Ash was at the dais within arm's length of the Necronomicon and the TARDIS had nearly deduced a means to shut the vortex down. A quick flip of a few buttons and he had access to Ash's artificial hand. "The TARDIS is almost there! I just need about two minutes!"
"I think I'll be eaten in one minute! Is that the best you've got?"
"Yes! Can you hold out?"
Boom. "No! Sign off so I can read the screen! My hand isn't the deluxe model; it can't multitask. I can't chat and browse at the same time!"
The Doctor closed the connection and resumed fleeing the Deadites. Those few that got too close were shoved aside or overbalanced with well-placed Venusian aikido techniques, but the Doctor couldn't avoid noticing that "those few" were becoming more and more numerous. The TARDIS still registered only 99.27% complete.
Boom. "Damn screwheads! Get off of me!" Now there was no choice. The Deadites were closing too quickly.
Keying up the screen on his hand, Ash began to read. "Klaatu!"
The intensity of the vortex increased, and the TARDIS reported 99.63% finished.
"Barada!"
The wind rose from a stiff breeze to a gale, debris whipping through the air and thunder roaring. The TARDIS stood at 99.81% complete.
"Nicktoons! Wait, what?"
The tempest stilled for the briefest of instants, then exploded into elemental insanity.
"CrapcrapcrapCRAP! That was not what I meant! I get another chance! Mulligan!"
"Ash, what did you do wrong?" the Doctor screamed through his screwdriver's comlink.
"Your damn TARDIS has sloppy handwriting! It wrote 'Nicktoons' instead of the right word!"
"No, it didn't! It's your installation of Windows! It can't properly read the TARDIS' fonts!"
"No way! Service Pack 40 patched for that last month!" The Deadites were being sucked off the ground and into the shadowy maw of the vortex. The lightning and luminescence that ringed it raged even more brilliantly as they were sucked into the portal's throat. Ash quickly slung his shotgun and held onto the dais with both hands.
"It's all right," the Doctor shouted. "The TARDIS is ready! In four, three..."
And that quickly, it was over. The vortex was gone. Ash was gone. The Necronomicon was gone. Everything. The early fall sun returned to the skies over Richmond, BC, and silence filled the air.
The Doctor shut down his sonic screwdriver. There was no need for it now. In stunned silence, he turned and looked about him. Other than the litter and the blown-out street lights, there was little enough evidence that anything had ever happened.
"I told you not to be surprised," Q said, as usual from directly behind the Doctor, who slowly turned to face the omnipotent alien trickster.
"What was that all about?"
"As I said, a diversion. A being of my cosmic intellect does occasionally find himself bored to tears, and I thought this might amuse me. However, having seen Mr. Williams already prove himself inept and incapable of resolving this dilemma eight times previously, I was fairly certain the ninth time would not be the charm. Perhaps the tenth."
The Doctor snorted softly. "It's worked for me so far. So now what? You just go off on your own and leave Ash to do this all over again?"
"And why not? I didn't instigate this little crisis of his, it's no threat to me, it's no longer in my dimension, and I'm certainly in no way obligated to chase him down and conclude it for him."
"You have the power to save him," the Doctor said. "You can prevent the loss of billions of lives in whatever dimensions that Necronomicon pops up in. You do have an obligation because you have the power."
"Under whose authority?" Q sounded genuinely surprised and amused at the Doctor's presumption.
"You've heard that might makes right, but it doesn't. Might gives you the power and the duty to do what's right," the Doctor said. "Like I do. Within the laws of time and space, I do what I can to help those who can't help themselves."
"Yes, and look what it got you. The people in the subterranean city? The tank that was defending them?"
The Doctor gritted his teeth and tried to rein in his anger. "I made a mistake. I didn't properly analyze the situation and proceeded on assumption. You don't have that excuse. You're omnipotent. You know what's going on. You know how to stop it and you have the power to do just that."
"I certainly do. And your little ticktock timebox gives you the power to do it, too. So why don't you go save him?"
"I can't voluntarily jump into different dimensions. I can only travel in this dimension's space-time."
Q's eyebrows lifted. "You're certain?"
"I've tried."
"Well, since you're so sure, far be it from moi to dissuade you. I'm sure I'll be seeing you around some day. Enjoy your trips, Time Lad."
"Don't leave. Help Ash end this insanity or..."
Q paused as the Doctor left his sentence unfinished. "Or? You're offering me a choice? I would advise against that, hominid. There are many races and many individuals in this continuum upon whom you may look down over that precisely-angled nose of yours, but rest assured that I am not one of them."
The Doctor shook his head. "That wasn't even close to what I was going to say. I was going to say that if you didn't help him, you are no better than Deadites or Daleks. Mindlessly self-serving and self-centered, exploiting others for your own pleasure. You have the potential to be so much more, and it's such a shame that you will waste yourself over the course of infinity being nothing more than you are now: a child with godlike powers."
"Why should this disturb you? Do you see something you wish you could control or become, but can't so you belittle it?"
"No. Within my own means, I have considerable power and ability and I use both to do what good I can when I can. On the off chance you were wondering, it pains me as much to see lesser-enabled beings who don't strive to improve themselves or make as positive an influence on their world as they can. Entropy abounds, moral and physical. If we are to survive either as separate species or as a united body, all of us have to work to not only meet it, but outrun it. You have a chance at doing just that by overcoming your emotions, your petty perceptions, and saving Ash."
Q stood looking at the Doctor for the longest time, a faint, quirky half-smile on his face. "I came to you seeking entertainment and was just slightly impressed on that count. I also wondered what else I would find in you. If it makes you feel any better, there is the slightest of sparks I've seen in only a handful of other beings in this universe. You are correct in that entropy can and likely will engulf all reality; it's a near-omniversal constant. However, you may possibly—possibly—be Prometheus, and your spark the flame that lights the way for the sentients of your universe to grow beyond what they are now, and avert at least their own demise and decay."
"Then grow beyond your own boundaries and shut down the Necronomicon's vortex. Save Ash and the worlds that will be affected by it."
Still with that smile, Q vanished in a flash of light, leaving the Doctor alone with the sighing of a gentle breeze. He should have known better, he thought to himself as he silently made his way back to the TARDIS. In the distance, he fancied he heard helicopters and the faint wail of sirens. Emergency vehicles making their way to the city and seeking to render aid, in all likelihood. If such was the case, best the TARDIS and the Doctor not be seen.
As the central column began to rise and fall, the Doctor slipped his sonic screwdriver into its docking port in the console. The TARDIS mulled over the data in the screwdriver's banks and a screen activated nearby. The Doctor smiled.
He was currently unable to transition between universes voluntarily, just as he'd told Q, but if or when he was able to do so, then the information he'd gained by scanning Q would make for a very informative and possibly entertaining test of the TARDIS' ability to shift from one dimension...
...to an entirely different continuum.
The End