The Ambassador Gets a Drink

by spazenport

Raychel gets a surprise visit from an old friend and is swept away in adventure with Al Capone and Chicago era mobsters. Can The Ambassador and the Doctor save Capone and his thugs from an Alien Menace?

The Ambassador Gets a Drink

Running as hard as she could, Raychel leapt through the crowd, ignoring the string of curse words that followed every time she elbowed a new pedestrian out of her path. She was guided by sound, a very loud sound that echoed deep within her memory. As it got louder, she moved faster.
The sound was akin to that of an old engine, groaning as though dragged through gravel, and echoing all over the neighborhood.
Raychel rounded another corner and found the cause of the sound. The sight that greeted her was exactly as she remembered it, but at the same time she hadn't realized how much she'd expected it to be a false alarm. With all of time and space to travel through, how could she expect this to be him? Her surprise was buried deep within her excitement.
Before Raychel stood a large blue box, rectangular by design, it was an old British Police Box used for the temporary detainment of criminals. Well, it looked like a police box. Raychel knew from experience that it was really something from another world, a spaceship, used for traveling through all of time and space. It was piloted by a friend of hers who had invited her to save an entire world.
At least she hoped that it was so. As she crept forward, she halted abruptly as the door swung inward and out walked a man completely different from the one in her memory. This man was lanky by all descriptions and looked a little younger than her friend had been. He wore a tweed jacket, suspenders, and a bow tie. He wasn't wearing pinstripes or bright red shoes. He turned, oblivious to her staring, and locked the police box, before spinning around and facing her.
"Raychel!" He clapped his hands together and strode closer to her. "What are you doing in 18th century Verona?" He looked around taking in the street corner that he'd landed in and frowning before looking back to Raychel. "And what did you do to your hair?" He waved his hands about indicating her black hair which was straight and short as opposed to the dreadlocks that she used to wear.
"You're not the Doctor..." She eyed him with disbelief.
He looked at her indignantly. "Of course it's me. Who else would it be? And you should talk, all hair changey and the like." He waved his hand at her head.
"I had a haircut."
"Me too, just some work done. New man, same Doctor."
She was looking at him with an eye of disbelief. "What?" He asked.
"For all I know, everyone in outer space flies around in big blue police boxes. Why should I believe that you're the Doctor?"
He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked around her and ended each sentence sharply. "You're absolutely right, everything that I tell you could be a lie. It could all be a complete fabrication. I might not be the Doctor. I might not be the man who travelled with you to the planet of the Trees to save the planet from a civil war brought about by a greedy Slytheen." He stopped in front of her and leaned in closer to her. "It could all be a lie, Ambassador. If that's the case, I could be some completely random stranger asking you to travel through time and space on an adventure that could be dangerous and exciting, and that leaves me with just one question for you."
Raychel crossed her arms and looked at him, not exactly appreciating his sarcasm. "Oh, yeah? What's the question?"
The Doctor smiled. "Why not?"
She smiled back.
The Doctor clapped his hands together again and rocked backwards on his heels. "That's enough of catching up." He turned back towards his spaceship, the TARDIS, or Time and Relative Dimension in Space, and unlocked the door, holding his hand on it as he stated over his shoulder. "Wait until you see what I've done to the old girl."
Raychel entered the TARDIS as the Doctor held the door open for her.
The sight that greeted her was completely different from the one she remembered. She had last seen the inside of the TARDIS as a large green walled room with pillars that looked as though they'd been grown from coral and a floor made of grating.
This new TARDIS was different, the theme was still of an orange and green, but more of a steampunk look over coral. The grating had been replaced by glass floors and the middle piston had been changed from tubes to a blown glass sculpture. Raychel saw no mallets hanging anywhere, and found this surprising.
"I guess a lot of things change," she stated staring at the new console. Turning she asked. "What have you been up to since I saw you last?"
The Doctor ran up the steps to the TARDIS console and joined Raychel as he flipped by levers and spun knobs. "Well, I've been around. Kind of doing my thing. Became an imaginary friend, rebooted the Universe, got married, faked my death." He arched an eyebrow and smiled slyly, "You'd be surprised what faking your death can do for a marriage."
"And changed your face." Raychel looked around and then back to the Doctor. "Where's the misses, she isn't bothered by you kidnapping girls to help you save the Universe?"
The Doctor walked around the TARDIS console wagging his finger up and down. "She's in prison, but let me get just one thing straight, if you were going to be kidnapped and forced to save the Universe, I'd have used rope, or really strong glue, or even a Stangali holding ray, but I'm rubbish with kidnappings. Besides, I opened the door and you walked in, that means you're probably trespassing."
He put his hands in his pockets and faced Raychel. "I should have you arrested or something." Before she could open her mouth to respond the Doctor spun on his heel and yanked on another lever. "But I've got a better idea. Let's go visit some outlaws."
"Outlaws?"
"Hoodlums, crooks, cheats, scoundrels, the best kind really." The TARDIS thumped loudly and stopped groaning. The Doctor ran down the stairs. "Raychel, do you like to drink?"
"Well, yeah." She said through a confused look.
The Doctor smiled a huge grin, "Then do I have a treat for you."
The Doctor held open the door and let Raychel through. Following her out, he said loudly with arms spread wide, "Prohibition era Chicago!" He clapped his hands together, rubbing them mischievously.
They had stepped into a large warehouse filled with crates and dim lighting. Raychel and the Doctor looked around and saw no one about. "Hello," the Doctor called. "Anyone home?"
He was answered with gunfire, and lots of it, launching over his and Raychel's head. They ran behind the TARDIS.
"You shot my TARDIS!" He turned to Raychel. "They shot my TARDIS."
"How will we get home?" Raychel asked, a little concerned.
"Oh, the TARDIS is fine, she's held up to Time Lord weapons, a gun won't hurt her."
Raychel managed to look confused during the onslaught. "Then what do you care?"
The Doctor looked at her as if she had just said that his face was on backwards. "Its the principal of the thing," he mumbled mostly to himself.
The Doctor stepped from behind the TARDIS with his hands raised. "STOP!" He bellowed and much to Raychel's surprise, the gunfire stopped.
A man stepped out of the shadows and he was covered in a nice suit and fedora. He was quickly followed by another man dressed similarly, both in gray colors and each carrying a machine gun. "You a copper?"
The Doctor smiled and looked back at Raychel, "A copper? This is fun." He looked back at the thugs and gave his most charming smile. "No. I'm the Doctor, and she's the Ambassador. Take us to your leader."

They were tied up quickly and dragged to a back room with nothing in it but a couple of chairs and a table. Only one light hang from the ceiling.
"This looks like an interrogation room." Raychel observed.
"Oh good, I've been interrogated by Slytheen, Daleks, Cybermen, Silurians, Jadoon, and Sontarans. Gangsters are an all new adventure!"
Raychel looked at him incredulously before deciding to try to have the same optimism towards their situation. She's seen the Doctor scared, and this wasn't it. She had nothing to worry about.
She hoped.
The door flew open and the Doctor smiled up at the man who entered. "You ain't a cop."
The man was shorter and dressed like the previous men, but without the fedora. He was bald on top and a little rounder. He held a pistol in his hand, but held it more like a man would hold a hammer or screwdriver. To him, it was a tool to be used, not a weapon.
"No, not a cop, or copper, or bobby, or whatever we're going to call them. As a matter of fact, I'm an outlaw in many places." He was smiling as he said, "I'm the Doctor, and this is the Ambassador."
"Outlaw?" The Chicago mobster ignored the introductions. "You can't be very intelligent. If you're an outlaw you might've known better than to drop a big box labeled police in the middle of Al Capone's operation."
"Capone?" The Doctor looked at Raychel, "This is Christmas!"
The mobster turned away from the Doctor and frowned at Raychel. "Ain't never heard of a woman ambassador. What's your deal, dame?"
"Maybe you need to read the news more." Raychel said, annoyed at this pre-Equal Rights attitude wasn't going to let him use it on her.
"Dame, I don't read the news, I make it." He slammed the gun down on the table. Raychel jumped, but the Doctor didn't even flinch. The mobster caught this and said nothing. "What are you doing here?"
"That's simple." The Doctor said calmly. "We'd like a drink."
That made the mobster smile. "A drink? There's easier ways to go about it."
"But none nearly as fun."
The mobster nodded towards Raychel. "So the Doc needs some medicine, what brings the Ambassador?"
"We all need medicine." Raychel's eyes burned with anticipation. This man made her uneasy. This man made her angry.
"You're either stupid or you're damned liars, but you've entertained me. I'm Al Capone." He walked behind Raychel and the Doctor and untied their hands.
Rubbing their wrists, they stood slowly. "Don't be stupid. If you're stupid, I'll kill you." He looked at Raychel and the Doctor with hard eyes. "Let's get you that drink."

They had followed Capone out into the warehouse when he asked them to wait there. As soon as he was out of sight, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the crates all around them. After a quick scan he pulled it back and stared at it as though he could read something from it.
"Why do you keep introducing me as the Ambassador?" Raychel pressed.
The Doctor didn't look up from his task, as he dropped to the floor and started running his eyes across it. "You are the Ambassador. Speaker to the Trees of Cheem. Through your works entire civilizations have put you in their history books. You're responsible for the the saving of billions of lives and entire species." He stood, pocketed his screwdriver and walked slowly towards her, clasping his hands together. "The worlds hear that you are coming and they kneel to your wisdom. I could introduce you as Raychel, but I feel as though that hardly reminds people of what you're capable of." He stopped just inches from her face and looked at her with old eyes. "Maybe, I introduce you as the Ambassador to remind you of what you're capable of."
"Great speech. I don't mind it. I was just curious." Raychel looked around the room. "This feels off."
"It is off. Its very off. If off were a very large box, this place would be smack dab in the middle of it."
Raychel shook her head. "What are you talking about?"
The Doctor walked in the direction that Capone stormed off jabbing a finger and almost angry in his appearance. "That was not Al Capone."
"What?" Raychel's eyes shot open.
The Doctor reached into his jacket and pulled out his psychic paper. Flipping it open, Raychel watched as an image appeared on it. In the image was the Doctor in a fedora and the man who had just claimed himself to be Al Capone.
"If that was Al Capone then why doesn't he remember me?" The Doctor said smugly.
"You were a mobster?" Raychel asked.
"No, not at all. That's not the life for me. Tying me down, shooting people...with guns? No, I wanted the hat."
"A fedora?"
"Yes, I wanted a fedora." He shaped his finger and thumb like a gun and aimed it at Raychel with a wink. "Fedora's are cool."
Raychel sat down on a crate. "Why doesn't Al Capone remember you?"
The Doctor sat down next to her and crossed his leg. "Temporal schism creating false histories. The Meddling Monk. A good bump on the head. Maybe he's been dipping too much into his own stock?"
"You don't believe any of that." It wasn't a question.
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver again and stared at it before quickly hiding it back inside his coat. "No, not at all. The energy signature in this warehouse is off."
Raychel raised her eyebrow. "Off how?"
"I don't know. There's an energy field that doesn't belong. A sort of signal."
"Like a radio?"
The Doctor put his finger to his lips as Capone and a couple of his cronies came back around with two glasses and a large bottle.
The mobster set the glasses down onto the crate next to Raychel and the Doctor and popped the cork on the bottle. As he poured, he spoke. "My boys keep telling me that you're cops. I tell them that isn't possible. Cops aren't nearly as interesting as you two are. No cop would have her marks, and sure as hell wouldn't be dressed as ridiculous as you two. So I says to them, 'Boys, they only want a drink. If they need to be killed then we can kill them anytime, but for right now I'd like to see how this plays.'" He handed the glasses to Raychel and the Doctor.
Raychel and the Doctor both looked at their glasses tentatively. The Doctor, afraid to start a firefight by pulling out his sonic screwdriver, sniffed the glass and tried to look at it through the light. Capone slapped one of his cronies on the shoulder and pointed laughingly at the Doctor. Finding nothing wrong, the Doctor tipped his back.
But not before Raychel slapped the glass out of his hand and to the floor. The shattered mess splashed alcohol all over the floor and the closest mobsters shoes. This included Capone.
"That was hardly necessary, Raychel," the Doctor was surprised. "It was just one glass."
Raychel ignored the Doctor, and the guns that trained on her as she stepped right up to Capone and put her face only inches to his.
"The Doctor's been around, and I mean around, but he's never been too much for the harder stuff I'm betting. I'm the Ambassador, drinking and meeting with kings and queens, the poor and the forgotten, and hell, just enjoying some pizza, beer, telly. Tree people, bar boys, and moonshiners, and I've smelled every alcohol you can produce. That wasn't booze."
Al Capone wasn't used to being addressed this way and the Doctor could see that things might literally explode at any second. Hopping to his feet he slid between Raychel and the Mobster and faced Raychel. In doing so, he pushed her ever slighlty back so that he wasn't squished directly between them. "Raychel, while I appreciate you potentially saving my life, getting shot isn't the kind of thanks that I'd like to share with you." With his back to Capone, he winked at Raychel and took the opportunity to pull his sonic screwdriver from his coat. Very quietly he added. "Why don't you let me take it from here."
Pulling his elbows in tightly, he swung around and then lashed out with the screwdriver, the resonating signal blasting the three mobsters weapons from their hands. Keeping his screwdriver aimed at Capone, the Doctor raised his voice.
"Normally, I'm quite the party goer. I love a great party. And you know who throws the best parties? Al Capone, that's who. The problem with this entire situation comes in two parts." He stepped closer to Capone. "First part is simple," he didn't lower his voice. "You aimed a gun at my friend, a woman under my care who came along with me for a drink. I hate guns, but I mostly hate the people who aim them at my friends." The screwdriver stilled aimed at Capone, the Doctor stepped back. "The second part, the other part, the part that makes this all wonky is that you're not Al Capone."
The anger slid from Capone's face and he managed a half smirk. "You ain't a doc, but you need one."
The Doctor ignored him and kept talking, "Its this signal. It took me a while to ferret it out, but in the end it was a matter of memory and comparison. I'm over a thousand years old, sometimes the memory isn't what it used to be, things fall through the cracks or get dislodged all together, but sometimes, they're just covered with dust. Once I brushed off this one, it was beautiful. I've seen this signal a thousand times, only this time you've changed it." He walked right up to Capone again, except this time, he seemed to be trying to see something behind the mobster's eyes. "What's wrong? Not enough plastic?"
Capone's eyes changed at the Doctor's comment. He recognized that the Doctor knew whatever his terrible secret was. With blinding speed, Capone drew his arm back in what was obviously going to be a jab at the Doctor's chest, but before he could thrust his arm forward, the Doctor turned on the screwdriver.
Nothing happened, literally. Raychel watched as Capone just stood there, face frozen in a sneer and arm pulled back for an attack, but the mobster didn't move. Neither did either of his thugs who he'd brought with him.
"What just happened?" Raychel asked.
The Doctor pocketed his screwdriver and started looking up and down the length of Capone. "Duplicates. Not the real things. That signal we were picking up was a remote control."
Raychel shrugs. "Right, duplicates. I was going to say that. What about the booze?"
"Not just duplicates, Raychel. These are Nestene Duplicates. Plastic people. The alcohol is filled with their eggs. They're in the wrong time, though. The Nestene wouldn't want anything to do with Earth now, today. Not enough plastic. Maybe another ten or twenty years and they could easily take over, but now, they're just invaders." The Doctor walked to one of the crates and pulled the top off before pulling out a bottle of booze. "Clever dispersal. The Nestene need full heat submersion to come to full living breathing plastic. The alcohol is a catalyst and our stomachs are the incubators." He walked up to Raychel and pointed at the bottle. "This is using our bodies to create duplicates of our bodies. Replacing us to take over the world."
Raychel took the bottle from the Doctor and threw it back into the box, loudly and breaking it. "Where's the real Capone?"
The Doctor swallowed. "Around here somewhere I suppose. Hopefully in one piece." He turned away from Raychel and back to the duplicates. "My real question is where the brain is." Before Raychel can ask, he explained. "There's always a central brain that controls and commands them. A Nestene Consciousness."
"Alright," Raychel said, "We find the real Capone and we find this Nestene brain and we take it down."
"Good plan. No, that's a brilliant plan." The Doctor clapped his hands together. "But how? And..." The Doctor turned and looked at Capone and his two thugs who were now twitching. "...what do we do about them?"
Raychel grabbed the Doctor and turned him around quickly. "They're just plastic?"
"Yes, the Nestene are plastic."
Raychel nodded and walked back to the crate she'd dropped the bottle of Nestene booze into. Reaching in she grabbed two larger, jagged shards of bottle glass and gently handed one to the Doctor.
"Start hacking."
It wasn't three minutes later and the Doctor and Raychel had completely removed the heads from each of the Nestene duplicates.
Raychel hefted the two thugs heads, one in each hand, as their eyes started to flutter open. "Do you think you can find the real Capone with these?"
The Doctor shook his head. "I could track the signal to the Nestene Consciousness, but Autons, the duplicates, can destroy themselves before we finish the trace."
The duplicate's eyes were still fluttering when Raychel said, "Follow my lead."
The Capone duplicate's eyes stopped fluttering and focused on Raychel. Before he could say anything, Raychel stated flatly, "The Doctor and his companion have escaped."
Capone looked at them dubiously, eyes drifting from Raychel, straight ahead, to the Doctor, directly above. Finally, the Nestene duplicate smiled. "They drank then?" It was a rhetorical question. "Their birthing screams must have been exquisite."
"Very," Raychel continued in her flat tone. Tilting her head in a mechanical manner, she added. "Connection with host mind is...weak."
The Doctor saw his cue. "Yes, ...miracle of...birth... was very... difficult. We are unable to make a connection to the collective consciousness. Perhaps proximity will help establish a, um, stronger connection."
Capone bought it without any hesitation and shifted his eyes to the back of the warehouse. "Common problem associated with this primitive method of duplication. Just move in that direction."
Raychel took over from here, "What should we do if we run into our originals?"
The Capone duplicate's voice took on the Chicago mobster's accent again. "Put them on ice with the others next to da boss."
"Raychel, that was genius." He yanked out his screwdriver and waived it at each of the heads, bathing them in the hum of the green light. "And thank you." All three heads liquefied and splashed onto the floor.

Without waiting for the puddles to coalesce, Raychel and the Doctor started walking hurriedly in the direction that the Capone-clone indicated. Rounding several crates of alcohol infused with Nestene eggs, they came upon a large shifting mass of plastic. Far from being a uniform color, the beast was burned and discolored on each of its sides shifting towards the uniform flesh color of the Autons near the top. It had been severely burned sometime recently.

The nearby group of captives noticed the Doctor and Raychel and showed intense relief. "Hey Doc," the real Al Capone spoke up, "You sure took your time showing up. Figured on the Chicago cops breakin' in before you." His hands tied behind his back he nodded towards Raychel. "Who's the dame?"

The Doctor waved to Capone. "No time for introductions, Alphonse. You're currently being eyed by quite the Nestene Consciousness." The Doctor shifted his voice a little louder to address the large mass of living plastic. "For just a minute, let's ignore that you're currently illegally invading a level 5 planet, and talk more about why you're here." He pointed at the darkened spots marking the burns on the Nestene. "You're out of time and badly hurt. What are you doing here?"

The mass shifted, no audible noise being made. Raychel thought back to the Autons and assumed it was telepathic.

The Doctor turned towards her but didn't take his eyes off of the Nestene. "He was exiled here by his people. He was supposed to burn up when he entered the atmosphere, but managed to survive." The Doctor took his sonic screwdriver and aimed it at Capone and his several thugs. Raychel watched as the ropes came undone that held the mobsters together. "He was insane before he was burned alive." The Doctor took his eyes off of the Nestene and frowned with wide eyes towards Raychel. "I assume that he's only gotten worse." The thugs were jumping up and running over to the Doctor and Raychel, never taking their eyes off of their captor.

The Doctor stepped forward and held his screwdriver high above his head. "I'm giving you a chance. I can take you away from here. My friend and I can drop you off somewhere where you can live out the rest of your life, but you cannot stay here." The mass shifted in great shivers and lurched towards the Doctor but didn't reach him, stopping instead to rear up.

"I think that was a 'no.'" Raychel stated. "What do we do now?"

"We run." The Doctor activated the screwdriver. "The booze has to be destroyed." The Doctor's face took on a deep sadness. "He's in agonizing pain. He's begging me." A tear rolled down the Doctor's face and several of the nearby boxes lit on fire. "I've disconnected his link to his plastic body. He'll feel nothing." The Doctor looked from Raychel to Al Capone. "We need to run, now."

Raychel looked up at the Nestene. "We won't let this go." She ran.

The Doctor ran behind her.

The molten pits of the Nestene Council gurgled and sloshed as the large masses of molten plastic discussed the most recent appearance on their central dias.

Their shivers halted as the door to the large blue box creaked open slowly. Out stepped Raychel, halting only to answer to the doorway that she just left. "Yes, I'm sure. This needs to be done."

Addressing the Council of the Nestene, Raychel shouted. "You might not recognize me, but you might have heard of me." She paused, as she'd rehearsed in the TARDIS. "I am the Ambassador!" The Council of the Nestene shivered violently as their shock and awe at their esteemed guest was evident.

"Be quiet!" Raychel shouted, and the voices reverberating through her mind quieted themselves. "I'm here on behalf of Convict 413, exiled to Earth, a level 5 planet, protected by the Shadow Proclamation." The Doctor hadn't needed to coach her on the next bits. Her anger at what had transpired took over. "While his crimes were horrific, his punishment was even more so. Launched through an atmosphere is ignited his flesh and caused severe torture to his mind and nerves. His landing endangered the populace of a level 5 protected planet, and his continued existence after such a horrific ordeal was only more torture to his being. No matter his crimes, the punishment was cruel and unusual."

Raychel hesitated, taking a deep breath and giving the entire council a chance to think on what she'd said.

"While I believe you to be a wise and open minded council, as I've heard from my dealings with the many groups of Nestene who directed me to you, I believe that you will adjust your practices immediately, effectively making your sentencing of criminals more reasonable." She tried to hold back a smile. "What are you going to do?"

The answers reverberating in her head were exactly what she'd expected. When she'd talked to the Doctor about the Nestene, Raychel had gotten the vibe that they were a very extreme culture.

"That's fine." Raychel looked towards the TARDIS, "Boys?"

Out of the TARDIS came Alphonse Capone and about ten thugs as well as the Doctor. He wore a fedora and carried a tommy gun covered in bright lights cascading up and down the barrel. As the Nestene Council took in all of the thugs, they saw that they all carried tommy guns of the same design. All lit up with different colored lights running up and down their barrels.

"Open fire." She shouted.

And they did.

Energy rings lanced out of the guns as the mobsters and their newly inducted fedora-wearing friend pulled their triggers. Waving the guns back and forth they hit every member of the council. Raychel watched as all of them hardened into solid plastic.

"Obviously," Raychel said when the gun fire stopped, "you'll need some time to rethink your position." She pointed at the TARDIS. "You will be frozen as solid plastic until you've changed your mind. When you have changed your mind, you can send a message to the box. I'm sure you recognize it."

The mobsters and the Doctor piled back into the TARDIS, Raychel trailing behind them. "I'm the Ambassador." She said over her shoulder. "I'm not saying stop being conquering bastards," Raychel leaned out of the TARDIS door and looked at each member of the council. "I'm saying stop hurting the innocent people...Or I'll come back."

"What now, Ambassador?" The Doctor was running around the TARDIS, pulling levers and spinning wheels.

Raychel looked around the TARDIS console room and looked at the thugs and then back to the Doctor. "An entire room filled with the most infamous drinkers in the world? What do you think?"

The Doctor smiled and hooked his thumbs into his suspenders. "A drink it is then."