Author's thoughts (or whatever you wanna call them).
Thank you every one of you for sharing your thoughts, special thanks to BiscuitDude01 for vital advice (especially the first one). Here are some my thoughts but if you don't want to read them then simply skip the paragraph and I'll see you in the end of the chapter.
I so much hate little things in recent DW series. Plot holes, overdrama, that green polka dot shirt, Clara putting the Space Throttle down, not up meaning they had quite a crush after Mummy on the Orient Express, cutscenes and WHERE'S THE VALEYARD, MOFFAT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE SHADOW, I DEMAND THE VALEYARD! However, and it's very funny, the more I hate them, the more I realise that there are many more things to love. And I'm not alone, there are people over a globe who love Moffat era, they might even think it's better than RTD era, and they have a right to love it. You might think the Eleven Doctor is too reckless, goofy, irresponsible, and childish but someone considers him as his/her Doctor, the most favourite. You might think the Twelve Doctor is too dark, rude, old, cranky asshole and frankly scary but he taught me English (Scottish accent included) and how to stop shaking, mumbling, forgetting words and finally speak up – I consider him as my Doctor. The reason why I'll never write bad about any Doctor, even on the Doctor's behalf, is because every fan has a right to love and hate any incarnation he/she chooses. I hope I made myself clear here.
Having the door very carefully shut, the Doctor leaned on the wall. She heaved a long, long excited sight.
If there was the TARDIS she would kiss her to death for the best place to fall on. Metal carcass, synthetic skin, five years old – all united in one old chap, Mr Collins, living next door. Was it Christmas? No, it didn't look like it.
She must tell what she had found out about him someone or the knowledge would burn her from the inside.
The closest victim, who had managed to get herself sleeping only five minutes ago, was upstairs and was not in the least aware of the boiling emotions inside the Doctor.
In her sleep, Alex heard someone's heels smashing down a floor. She realised, too late, that someone was the Doctor and she was racing to her.
The Doctor dashed into the room and, skipping several meters of the floor, jiggled violently the curled up body in the bed.
"Alex! Wake up! You won't believe me what I know about Mr Collins!" The Doctor shouted excitedly, probably waking up the whole street, if not the city.
The woman's eyes fluttered widely, she jumped out of the Doctor's reach, almost falling from the bed in the process, "The f–"
"He's an android!" The Doctor shouted, cuddling on a pillow, her speech was too fast to Alex's comprehension, who was watching her in awe. "Possibly extraterrestrial, but I'm really not sure about that part. What I know for now is that he blames you, or me, or us, for making his Alex, perhaps an android too, disappear, though I'm not quite sure who she was for him, a daughter, a sister, a wife or just a good friend. And he likes your dog. Very. A-a-and, he's not the only android in your city. There might be dozens of them, now I wonder what's on their mind! Oh, I sincerely hope they plan nothing bad."
Her eyes grew as large as saucers, the Doctor waited for her reaction. Alex blinked, twice, thrice, shaking off the last trace of sleep. Her mouth was a perfect O, she tried to transform it into something else. "What?" She finally managed to say.
"I know, it's a lot to consider! And you know what it means?" The Doctor stared at her with a manic smile. The smile gave Alex an unpleasant tremble from the tip of her head to her heart.
"What?" She asked impulsively before she could stop her mouth.
"That I'm staying right here till I know he's not dangerous. Money is not a problem, I'll give you millions for that couch. Nice couch. Very comfortable."
"No," Alex shook her head, "no, no! You can't stay here!"
"Why not?" The Doctor looked sincerely dumbfounded.
"Because it's… my house, you know. I'm living here! And the ambulance car is on its way. Probably." She added timidly.
"Ah, the ambulance." The Doctor chuckled. She seemed to cool down hearing that word. Then, a carefree smile crept on her face as a simple question, and a very simple answer struck her. "Do you know what ambulance doesn't come in the first ten minutes after you called it?"
"A bad one?" Alex guessed.
"No. The one that knows you don't need it." The Doctor stroked her chin.
"But you need it! We need!" Alex cried desperately.
"Not when they consider you as an android." The Doctor smiled smugly as if she had just solved the case. Alex sighed in defeat, she definitely had just lost that young woman who called herself a doctor. "You told me yourself, the lady who sold you this house, she was Alex, the one that is missed by Mr Collins, the one which is an android like him, probably. No, why probably? Likely! And now they must think you're her! How did you find this house?"
"On the internet."
"And did nothing strike you as odd? Any funny demands to the buyer?" The Doctor questioned her.
Alex considered her words. She tried to recall the old lady's sentient eyes and a sweet aroma of tangerines, how she had been happy to sell her the house and her warning that the crazy chap next door might miss her but she mustn't worry, it would pass. Alex had been fine with everything, nothing struck her as odd. Except for the price was a bit cheap and the woman had left her a dog, there wasn't anything she would call suspicious.
"No, this is crazy. You're delusional. I should probably have called the police."
"Yes, you should have but haven't, have you?" The Doctor mused. "You should have called it the second time I woke up. You should have called it when you found me unconscious in that forest. But you didn't. You know, for a human being you're very unsocial, Alex, has anybody told you that?"
Alex flinched at that as if she was stung by a needle. She had been making up an answer, an excuse, the line had been dead after all, when the Doctor's posture was lighted up with red and blue colours. Alex came to the window and muttered 'about the time' under her uneven nose.
"It's the ambulance," she told the Doctor.
"Oh." Her tone was bleak all of a sudden. "Well, maybe you were right. Maybe it's that bad." The Doctor left the room. In the hall, she shouted, "I'll tell them they're not needed anymore!"
"Yeah, whatever." Alex buried her head under the pillow. Wait. What had she just said? "No!" The mattress squeaked miserably. "Um... Doctor!"
The Doctor waggled to the door, pulled off the key from the nail in the wall and put it in the lock. Alex shouted something to her but, well, it was too late to stop her now.
"I'm so sorry to say this, guys, but–"
A metallic fist from the door gap met her stomach and sent her away on the floor.
Alex clattered down the stairs and hauled. In the doorway stood a faceless cold creature two meters high, its surface smooth and shiny. Its arm was still in the air after it hit the Doctor, who was gaping at it from the floor, too shocked to say anything. Having turned its head in her direction, it sensed Alex's presence and trod to her.
"Unit two point five point three nine nine point four point zero zero, 'Alex'," the robot screeched, the source of voice unknown. "You have reached the end of your lifespan. The recycle is required."
"What…" the woman mouthed, her eyebrows up on her forehead in shock.
The Doctor gripped the creature's leg with a strong grasp; the robot turned its head to her and kicked its leg aiming at her face. "Run!"
But Alex didn't. She refused to believe in what she was seeing in her house. She'd been living in Lidunburgh for several years and used to see the place as the most boring hole in North England, it was the quietest place in the world with the majority number of people over 60 years of age. She had regretted several times in the past that she moved in there if not for the cheap price.
The robot shook off the Doctor effortlessly as if she was an empty sack, and ominously took the direction towards Alex.
"Do not resist and the deactivation process will be painless." The arm that had sent the Doctor away stretched to her.
A howling whir filled the hall. The faceless bulk shut down before Alex, the hand was close to her neck. Mirrored in the polished surface, she saw herself, frightened.
"I told you to run." Alex flinched as from a dream.
"You alright?" The Doctor appeared from the left of the deactivated robot. From what Alex saw, she was deeply concerned, one eyebrow was up on her face.
"Yes." Alex timidly shook her head. No, of course, she wasn't. She was far from alright, not even close, not even a bit. What was that thing? Had it just tried to kill her?
The Doctor held a device, kind of a wand of a blue colour, which she swiped around the robot.
"Oh." The Doctor gave a peek to the human, but she hadn't reacted in any way to her exclamation. Right, her attempt to distract her from the shock had failed.
"Is– is it dead?" Alex asked.
"No. It's deactivated. Permanent. Until…" The Doctor poked the creature's shoulder.
"Until what?"
"Until whoever or, more likely, whatever has sent it turns it on again." The Doctor pointed the sonic at the head.
Feeling colder, Alex folded her arms on the chest. She distanced from the robot, leaving the Doctor to do whatever she liked with it.
"Oh…" The Doctor's eyebrows knitted deeply on her head. "Oh!"
"What is it?"
"Oh?" She asked as she saw Alex for the first time. "Ah. Well, things got more interesting, that is."
"Excuse me?"
The Doctor put a thumb between her teeth. "The carcass is the same as Mr Collins'."
"Mr Collins?"
"Yeah, the one who is an android." The Doctor didn't care to explain any further because she had told Alex everything in her bedroom and believed she had listened to her carefully. "But this, this is a primitive creation. It's stupider, it's slower, it's," the Doctor gave it a scan again, "twenty years old! It's older than your friendly neighbour, now that's very interesting, you see. Help me move it into the living room."
"What?"
"Well, it can't just stay here. It blocks the way to the stairs." The Doctor said nonchalantly, putting her hands around the robot's chest.
Alex obeyed the Doctor, she held its legs and they put it on the couch in the living room.
The woman wasn't okay, the Doctor wasn't stupid to miss such a simple truth. Though she didn't quite remember how she could know that, she knew that she must fix her, cheer her up somehow because that's what she felt she must do.
"Never stand still." She said as they put the robot on the couch.
"What?"
"When the robot stepped to you, you froze on the spot." She explained. "You just watched it slowly moving to you. You had time to run to the second floor and hide in the bedroom. You should have done that. But you didn't."
"I dunno what happened. I was…"
"Afraid, I know." The Doctor gave her a meaningful look. "But if it was quicker, if I didn't stop it, you would be dead. If you can't fight back, you run. Promise me?"
The dog entered the room, its tongue out of its maw. Alvin sniffed the metallic body on the couch and yawned loudly. Alex beckoned him to her, patting the dog on his head.
"Why must I promise you anything? It's not likely this situation is going to be twice." The woman chuckled nervously. She cast a glance at the Doctor, her face was grim.
"Alex, I have a theory." She didn't want to tell her it but it seemed she was left with no choice. "It's just a theory, but my gut tells me it's more than a theory. Remember what I told you about why the ambulance hadn't come?"
"Because it thought I don't need it." Her fingers scratched the spot under the dog's ear.
"Exactly." The Doctor fidgeted a sonic screwdriver in her hand. "You know what is it?"
"No…"
"It's a sonic screwdriver. The best equipment for a time traveller, must-have if you wish to call it so. You can build this handy thing on your own or ask your TARDIS to give it to you. It can fix things, open doors, make a sound but most importantly it can scan the surroundings for many useful things and even analyse them as it is connected with the TARDIS data banks. You believe me?"
"I don't know. Am I sleeping?"
"If I told you you were sleeping, would you believe me?"
Alex hesitated and then answered. "Yes."
"No, you're not sleeping. I'm sorry. This is for real. Mr Collins is an android, his skin is made of synthetic material, he has an artificial heart and stomach, his blood is not real; this thing on the couch wanted to kill you and its bones are the same as in Mr Collins. But back to my theory, a sonic screwdriver and why it took the ambulance almost a day to arrive. How many people living on this street?"
"I'm not sure. But they're mostly senior citizens like Mr Collins–" Alex seemed to get her idea. "Wait…"
The Doctor pointed the sonic at nothing in particular. The dog licked Alex's open palm. A whizzing noise filled the room.
"Two organic living beings." Their eyes met each other. "For 100 meters. For 500 meters." The Doctor's voice was getting quieter. "For 1 kilometre. For 25 kilometres…"
"Oh, god," Alex's eyes doubled in size.
She shoved the sonic in the left pocket. There was no need anymore to test her theory, now they knew it was true. Better to find out what these creatures were doing on Earth and who was in charge of them.
"Alex?"
"Yes, Doctor?" Alex's face looked troubled, she repeatedly stroked the dog's ear.
"I strongly recommend you to go back to your bedroom."
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to find out where this thing came from and I have a hunch this won't be easy. I need to be sure that I'll have time to stop it if it goes out of my control."
"But…"
"Take your dog with you." The Doctor cast a glance at Alvin who was grinning with a wide smile. "He has something sentient in his eyes."
Alex nodded. Leading the dog under the collar, she left the living room to the Doctor and the metallic creature on their own.
When the door was shut, the Doctor heaved a long sigh of the orange cloud. Still in the process, she was unstable. Any minute could happen something unpredictable and she wasn't exactly welcome to surprises. If the robot woke up, she wasn't sure she would stop it this time. She wasn't sure for how long the regeneration process would take.
The Doctor slipped down on her knees near the couch. There were more important affairs than her instability. This city, for example. The big and lovely city, she'd seen it in the sky, wonderful lighting system. Except she hadn't ever heard about it. It didn't exist, not on the map, not anywhere.
"Lidunburgh," she tried it on her tongue. "Li-dun-burgh."
No, it didn't ring any bell at all.
Meanwhile, Mr Collins was looking out of the window of his house. The old car of the ambulance was outside the neighbour's house, Alex's. He watched it with no interest on his face, how blue and red changed each other in a whirling dance. Inside his head though, thousands and thousands of artificial neurones were processing this information and trying to find a proper emotion to show. An error by an error by an error by an error, they couldn't find the one. Ironically, they couldn't find the reason for countless errors either.
Mr Collins looked up at the sky. Bad weather to stargaze, he realised.
He shut the curtains.
Alex got into her bed, though refused to turn off the lights. Having Alvin under her armpit, she repeated the same phrase the Doctor had told her over and over again. And though she could hardly understand what was going on and what those words really meant due to the shock, she felt it was no good news to her.
"Two organic living beings," the woman who called herself the Doctor and a time-traveller repeated in her head. "For 100 meters. For 500 meters. For 1 kilometre…"
Hi! Leave a review down below, I always appreciate that, and reviews are kind of help me writing this story. Tun-Tun-TUN, so the Doctor is surrounded by robots with only one non-artificial being, huh? What a surprise... What do you think of the new logo, btw? To get a faster response ('cause I'm updating once per 10 days or less) follow me on Twitter.