DOCTOR WHO SHORT:
THE MENACING MIST IN MEDIEVAL LAND
The Doctor spun around the TARDIS console and dragged the monitor with him so that both him and Martha could have a look. He pointed at a glowing, neon blue planet and said 'See that? That's one of my favorites. A lot of nice architecture. A bit radioactive, but not enough to kill you.' He looked at Martha and smiled. Martha did not smile back. Instead she said 'Yeah… Do you think we could go to somewhere that wouldn't make me incredibly sick?' 'You name it!' The Doctor went back to the other side of the console again, ready to start pressing buttons and flicking switches. 'Well…' Martha said. 'Last time we went close to the middle ages we didn't really get to see too much of the people and the markets and the art…' 'So medieval market place it is then!' He started flicking, clicking and ticking things and the glass bulb middle of the control panel began to move up and down.
The blue box appeared in the middle of a big square of grass. The Doctor opened the door and went outside waiting for Martha to follow. When they were both outside he locked the door and said. 'Well then! Here we are. Welcome to the middle of middles in medieval land!' Martha laughed and asked 'Where are we?' The Doctor looked around. 'I would say…' He licked his finger and pointed at the sky, then he licked it again and said 'Greenwich. Most definitely Greenwich.' Martha looked at the surroundings. They were in a medieval market rigged up on four big, square grass patches. There were two big, white stone buildings mirrored on both sides of the market. 'Did you find that out by the taste of the air or did you recognize those buildings as the big university thingy in Greenwich?' The Doctor didn't answer. They walked past stands selling sweets, paintings, ceramic bowls and imported fruit. Every stand was made out of wood and covered in white and primary colored sheets. Martha felt that she began to get quite hungry when they walked past a blacksmith and a man spinning a bore around on a stick over a large fire. They walked past a tribune slowly emptying after a show involving music and fire it seemed. They walked further past a bunch of teenage girls all dressed in black and grey. Their hair was covered in what looked like colored scarves that were tied in a knot under their chins. Some of them were frowning in the bright daylight. Martha saw a big man wearing a badly cut out cat mask and a blue checkered shirt walking away from the stage where the show had just finished. 'Doctor? Isn't that shirt a little too modern?' The Doctor didn't listen. He was looking straight down with a serious face expression. Suddenly Martha's hungry stomach made a loud rumbling noise snapping him out of it. 'What was THAT?!' Martha tried to explain that she was hungry but the Doctor wouldn't stop. 'Did you eat a bear?! ALIVE?' She tried as best as she could to hide her face in her hands. The Doctor smiled teasingly. When Martha took her hands away from her face again the smile was gone and the Doctor was all serious again. 'What is it?' she asked. 'The mist.' He said and looked down again. 'What about it?' 'When we arrived there was no mist, a second ago we had mist up to our ankles and now our whole legs are covered.' 'So?' 'it's midday, the sun is shining and the mist is too thick.' The mist was now reaching their waists. 'So you mean to say that you think the mist is some kind of alien micro ship army?' 'I couldn't find a better way to describe it myself.' His arm vanished into his coat and he fished out the Sonic Screwdriver from his inner pocket. The Doctor crouched into the mist and started scanning with the device. The mist was now up to their necks. After about a minute the Doctors head appeared over the white misty sea. He checked the readings of the screwdriver and put it back into his pocket. Now the mist was no longer mist. It was a thick fog that made it impossible to see any more than your own hand before you. Martha realized that she had lost the Doctor. She tried to shout out his name but her voice drowned in the chaos that had occurred in the fog. Martha started to feel herself around trying not to walk into people and wooden stands. After three minutes or so she noticed that everything around her was silent and that she hadn't bumped into anyone or anything. Then she heard the lovely noise of the Doctors sonic screwdriver whirring about not too far away. Martha yelled out in happiness when she finally saw a little blue light in the fog. The Doctor hugged her when they found each other and when he let go they noticed that the fog was clearing up. It took a few minutes before they could see enough to get shocked. The whole market and its people were gone. Not one thing was left on the four grass squares except the Doctor, Martha and the TARDIS. 'Where did they go?' Martha said. 'All the people, where did they go?' The Doctor started scanning again. The fog was completely gone now. 'I have no idea.' He said with a worried look on his face. 'I can't do this with the screwdriver. I have to get something stronger from the TARDIS. Wait here. DON'T WANDER OFF!' Martha walked around the place investigating. She jumped onto a ledge on one of the buildings and found something behind one of the giant pillars holding it all up. It was a badly done cat mask less convincing than ever, a pair of shoes, pants and a blue checkered shirt. When the Doctor had found what he was looking for he tried to get it out of the TARDIS but the big machiny scanny thing was too big to get through the doors. Martha came over to the struggling man in a coat with what she had found. 'Look what I found behind one of the pillars!' The Doctor put down the big device and looked at the clothes and the mask. 'Oh…' he said. 'That makes it so much easier!' he tried a different approach to getting the big device through the doors and managed it. 'It does?' Martha asked. 'Yes. Because now I know who did this!' he smiled and began to punch parts of the machine into the ground. 'It is and old friend of the timelords called the KIN. Well- I say friend… Anyways they were originally only one creature that went back in time and met its own future self then did this over and over and over until there was hundreds and thousands of it at the same time. I thought the timelords locked them all up, but it looks like a few is still out there.' He started pressing buttons on the device. They use those masks to blend in. When they want it to look like a good mask it will look like a good mask. This mask isn't very good because the KIN was among a lot of other bad masks making people think he was only another actor in costume.' The Doctor smiled when he saw Martha's confused face. The machine made a sort of a PLING sound and the Doctor checked some readings on a little screen. 'OK then!' he said, ripped the machine out of the ground and started pushing it into the TARDIS again. 'Now I know where to go to find all the people again!' 'But what do they- what did you call them- the KIN want with these people?' Martha asked. 'I don't know. That's what I hope to find out. Come along!' he kept the door open for her and closed it when she was on the other side of it. 'Where are we going?' Martha asked. 'Down.'
The Doctor had to check the monitor before opening the door. He didn't know what was out there. The only thing he could see was darkness. 'Stay here.' He said to Martha and opened the door to stick his head out. Of in the distance there was a blue green light. 'Martha? Can you grab those torches and follow me?' 'Where are we?' Martha asked for the second time that day. 'Somewhere underground, far under Greenwich.' They rounded a corner in the underground cave and turned off their torches. They were standing in blue green light lighting up a pile of wood and cloth which once had been a hundred stands where people had been selling things they had made. On the other side of the pile were a hundred cages each containing a bunch of people. Martha could catch glints of guards but it was like she couldn't see them properly. 'The KIN has a perception filter making it almost impossible to see them if you try to.' Said the Doctor with a lowered voice. They walked into a smaller cave lit up with violet lights hanging in what looked like long white hair or fur growing on the ceiling. In the back of the cave sat a KIN with a monster mask cut out of a newspaper covering its face. 'How did you get in here?' said the creature with a dark voice. 'Didn't you hear us?' said the Doctor. 'We made quite a lot of noise when we landed. Now answer me. What do you need all these people for?' Martha wasn't used to the Doctor going straight at it like that. 'We don't need the people.' Said the KIN. 'We only need the space that they had taken. 'What for?' asked the Doctor. The KIN waved a hand at the opening to the bigger cave and the Doctor turned around. On top of a ginormous rock inside the cave was a gigantic contraption of some sort. 'What is that?!' The Doctor asked the KIN. Why would I tell you, timelord?' The Doctor tried to hide that he was really worried now. 'How- how did you know that I am a…' 'A timelord?' the monster mask turned into a horrific smile. 'Do you think I wouldn't recognize a timelord when I see one?! Do you think I wouldn't recognize one of those who were so close to dooming my race?!' 'You have no race!' The Doctor was angry. 'Now tell me. What does that machine do?!' The mask didn't stop smiling. 'It sends a signal to the timelord prison where my race is held and kills the power, letting my people go.' 'Don't you see what that would do?! There is a reason why you were imprisoned. You were about to rip all of space and time apart!'
While the Doctor and the KIN was arguing Martha had slipped away and was now opening the cages where the people were kept. Apparently there was no guards there now because when all the cages were opened all she had to do was to tell everyone to follow her back to the TARDIS. When they got to the blue police box she tried the door. It was locked.
'The machine is ready Doctor.' Said the KIN in the smiling, newspaper monster mask. 'Since you want to hear all of my plans I will tell you what is about to happen. The machine will dig itself up to the surface, rig itself up and then it will send the signal.' 'That will make this whole cave collapse! Even you won't be able to make it out alive!' 'Have you forgotten who you are talking to, Doctor? We will just keep going back in time and there will be more and more of us for every second! And with you squished under tons of rock and dirt there will be no one there to stop us!' The gigantic machine began to move towards the ceiling of the cave and when it hit everything started shaking. The Doctor started running. Out of the cave, past the now empty cages and around the corner into the darkness. 'Martha? Are you there?' the Doctor yelled. The cave began to fall apart. Enormous rocks crashed into the ground. Soon all of London would be falling on top of them staring with Greenwich. 'I'm here, Doctor! Open the TARDIS!' The Doctor found the key and opened the doors letting all the terrified and confused people in. 'I have to stop this fast… Hey you! Boy! Don't touch that!' a little boy dressed in grey had been fiddling with a big red button on one of the control panels. '
The worpy sound of the TARDIS stopped and the Doctor hurried over to Martha. 'Martha. We are just outside of Greenwich so if you could keep all the people here while I fix this that would be nice.' Martha nodded and said 'OK. Good luck! HEY EVERYONE! COME WITH ME!' The Doctor flied the TARDIS back to where it all began and tried not to fall over because of the rumbling ground. He dragged out four big black fishbowls of some sort covered in wires. He put a fishbowl down on each of the four grass squares and soniced them. They attached to the ground and the rumbling stopped. 'That should keep it silent for a while.' He said and returned to the TARDIS. He ran down a corridor and entered a big room full of homemade knickknacks. He found a little machine quite like the one the KIN was using just that instead of the radar disc it had a bomb attached to the top. 'Never thought I would get to use this.' The Doctor ran outside again and put the little machine on the ground in the middle of the gravel road between the grass squares. He pressed the button on top and the little bomb began to dig itself straight down. The Doctor hoped that the KIN radar was still far down so that the bomb didn't ruin to much of the surface. To be on the safe side he ran back to the TARDIS and went back to Martha and the locals. They could hear a loud BOOM on the other side of the river and the Doctor could see dirt and gravel flying into the air. He knew that so much had been changed that day especially for the people so he couldn't let them go before he had been in their heads and deleted everything about the market, the KIN and the TARDIS. They would all be there outside on the streets thinking that they all went outside to enjoy the weather.
The Doctor and Martha was walking back to the TARDIS when Martha's stomach once again made a rumbling noise. The Doctor smiled and said 'Well then. I guess the middle ages just doesn't like you. How about lunch?'