Shinigami Jones, the Hunter!

by Phantazm

On his way to Earth after that Red Dwarf business, Ten finds himself on a small planet with a big secret and an even bigger pain in his side. It's hard enough challenging his arch-enemies without his "ally's" help.

3. Retribution Deferred

Retribution Deferred

"I was about to say something along those lines," Jones said dryly. His hands began edging toward the inside of his coat, slowly, so slowly.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," the Doctor said, loudly, ever so loudly. "Always with the extermination, you two. Always with the bang-bang and zap-zap-kaboom. Would you both just please give it a rest?"

"Your extermination will be delayed only long enough for you to explain how you discovered us," Caan said.

The Doctor pursed his lips and scowled in thought. "So if I say, 'by accident' or something like that, you'll kill us right away and I won't have gained all that much, will I?"

"No," Caan agreed.

"Then let me get back to you on that," the Doctor said. "Shouldn't take too long to think up a suitably long explanation. Not too long at all."

"Do you expect me to believe that the appearance of the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, is a coincidence?" Caan asked, his modulated voice still managing to convey a sense of incredulity.

"That hinges entirely on what we were discussing, you know, the whole 'execution' thing…"

Caan's optic sensor swiveled to face Jones. "You are the Doctor's companion. Identify."

"I'm Shinigami Jones, and you shouldn't have to ask who I am."

The Dalek sat motionless for a moment, either calculating Jones' identity or simply pondering whether or not to blast him out of existence. Finally, Caan's dome twitched almost imperceptibly. "Your identity is unknown. You are a non-entity of negligible threat level."

Jones bristled. "You think so? I've spent the last twelve years of my life hunting down and destroying Daleks—and the total is up to seventeen thousand and change, thank you—and I'm negligible?"

"That is correct," Caan said. "Approximately 1,416 Daleks per year, regardless of your methods of temporal calculation, is statistically insignificant when measured against the total might of the Dalek Empire."

"Thought you said you'd lost track," the Doctor whispered.

Jones nudged him angrily. "Insignificant when you figure in the fact that I've achieved this all on my own?"

"Even without the masses you said you had to try to impress?" the Doctor asked sotto voce.

"Would you mind?" Jones snapped.

"Escort these two to holding areas," Caan commanded, evidently tired of the banter. "Initiate a city-wide search for the Doctor's TARDIS. Inform me when it is found and we will take possession of it."

As they were guided out of the room, the Doctor looked over his shoulder. "Not that I'm being pushy or anything, but what about that whole 'execution' business…?"

"It is unwise to discard potentially useful material," Caan replied. "When it is determined that you have no further use, you will be exterminated. However, given your extreme threat level, you will be closely monitored during your detention. If you offer any resistance, you will be exterminated and relevant data will be extracted from your remains."

"Makes you wonder why they don't just do that now," Jones mumbled to himself on the way out the door.

"Because the quality of data retrieved degrades significantly when taken from dead tissues," Caan continued, even as the prisoners were guided down the hall. "Living organisms can, with appropriate stimuli, impart timely and relevant information in a far more satisfactory manner."

"Just keeps talking, doesn't he?" Jones noted softly.

The Doctor kept his silence with great difficulty, but as soon as they were put inside the holding cell, he rounded on Jones. "What was that all about, 'why don't they do that now?' What were you thinking?"

"I was doing what I always do," Jones snapped back. "Daleks can't handle randomness or unpredictability. They go into momentary feedback loops while they try to figure out what to do. That's what I was doing to that Dalek in there."

"Well, it won't work," the Doctor said. "That's Dalek Caan, the last member of the Cult of Skaro. He's not like other Daleks. He can think for himself. Independent and creative, like one of us. And by 'one of us' I mean 'me,' in case you were wondering."

Jones smirked. "A judgmental and arrogant Dalek. Who'd have thought?"

"Anyone but you, since thinking appears to be one of your weak points. Even if Caan had been a regular Dalek, he probably would have been goaded into killing us then and there because of that."

"More likely, he'd have contacted a superior for confirmation," Jones countered. "Daleks can't work worth a damn on their own. They're like ants. A single Dalek is susceptible to confusion and misdirection, and what I was trying to do, despite your interference, was confuse that one long enough to escape. Since he's obviously controlling things around here, his indecision would have rippled downward into his command net and affected his minions."

"He doesn't have any superiors, and you're assuming that he's in direct control of the Deemed," the Doctor said. "There's no evidence that he is."

"Aside from them magically appearing whenever he calls them."

"What, they don't have cell phones or radios on your planet?"

"Have you seen the Deemed using communication devices?"

"No, but my sonic screwdriver, the same thing I've been using to scan for technological traces, tells me that inside every Deemed's robe is a walkie-talkie of sorts. Didn't your ship's sensors tell you that?"

"I haven't had a reason to use them for that," Jones said.

"Oh, that's just brilliant. You have sensors and don't sense things?"

"Let me finish! I haven't used them since about four years ago. I was on Delmaris XI and I discovered that Daleks, at least those Daleks, are telepathic as well. Since then, I never bothered scanning for communications equipment and just assumed that one way or the other, Daleks can talk amongst themselves regardless of the medium."

The Doctor snapped his mouth shut. Telepathic Daleks? He pondered that. He had personally never seen such creatures, but given Dalek genetic engineering and evolution, it was certainly possible, and a definite threat worth investigating and stopping. But still… "That doesn't justify your argument that Caan is directly controlling the Deemed, either with telepathy or mechanical means."

"Yes, it does. They're subordinate to him and don't act without his orders, either preplanned or spontaneous. It's highly unlikely that he had instructions in place to deal with us if we showed up, and the Deemed would be indecisive and hesitant if we interfered with their command net."

Now the Doctor shook his head. "That presupposes that we specifically were anticipated. Wouldn't it be more logical to assume that Caan has measures in place to deal with saboteurs or the like regardless of their identities?"

Jones threw his hands in the air. "Not with the entire city, if not planet, subjugated! It's as logical as assuming that some supercilious alien would force himself into my line of work and that I'd somehow be magically prepared for it."

"Fortune does favor the prepared."

"Which explains why you're in here."

"Exactly," the Doctor said. "I'm in here, not in front of a firing squad or in a torture device."

"So you planned to get thrown in a cell," Jones said, the sarcasm puddling about his boots.

"If the alternative were death, yes. Called a 'contingency plan,' you see. Ever hear of it?"

"Got a few myself."

"Planning on using them?"

"Yes." Jones crossed his arms and looked at the Doctor.

The Doctor likewise crossed his arms and returned Jones' look. As Jones returned the Doctor's look.

As looks ricocheted between them, the Time Lord's patience ran out first. Call it a sense of urgency or Jones' innate ability to irritate him, the Doctor drew his sonic screwdriver and went to the door. The tip glowed blue as the Doctor slowly moved the screwdriver up and down along the doorjamb.

"Something wrong?" Jones asked.

Biting his lip, the Doctor replied, "Yes, in fact. Loath as I am to admit it. To you, anyway. It seems the door has just a bit of an odd refractory metal incorporated in it. Makes it so the screwdriver can't get a good grip on the latch."

"Whip out the contingency plan, then," Jones offered helpfully.

With a scathing sidewise look at his antagonist, the Doctor moved over to the opposite jamb and took a quick look. In short order, he had aimed and deployed his screwdriver six times, two seconds each time. He stuffed the screwdriver back in his pocket and aimed a lopsided yet victorious grin at Jones.

"And you just did what, exactly?"

The Doctor gave a gentle shove and the door yawed outward slightly. "Just enough of a gap between the door and the jamb that I could undo the hinges. It's only held on now by the latch and deadbolt. Contingency!"

Cautiously, fearful of any noise, the Doctor pushed the door open and tried his best to keep it from falling. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he and Jones crept into the hall and pushed the door back in place.

"Workable," Jones admitted.

"At least I got us out," the Doctor countered. "What was your contingency plan?"

With his own lopsided victory grin, Jones said, "Getting you to open the door for me."

"You didn't have a plan at all," the Doctor accused.

"Did. And it worked. Stop Daleks now?"

The Doctor held his tongue and began to tread softly down the hall the same way he'd come. Jones held back long enough to adjust his coat and shrug even deeper into it before he followed, but follow he did, for once keeping his comments to himself. There would be precious little amusement to be had in the moments ahead.

-oOo-

For reasons known only to Fate—or to Dalek Caan, the Doctor corrected himself—there were no Deemed in the corridor. That gave the Doctor pause.

Caan knows I'm here, knows I have my sonic screwdriver, and all he does is lock me in an unguarded storage room? What is he up to? I thought I was to be 'closely monitored.'

"Funny how the 'Oncoming Storm' only rates a broom closet," Jones said quietly. "Guess you don't rate that high, after all."

Ah, that settles it. He truly is the manifestation of all I hold most negative and pessimistic about myself. "I was thinking something similar. Maybe you have ideas. Most likely not, in which case why not go think of some? Not that listening to them is any great thrill, but it will keep you occupied and out of my way for a bit."

"No real ideas," Jones said, "just the main objective. Kill the Daleks."

"You and your one-track mind."

"Several tracks," Jones corrected. "Just all headed to the same destination."

Ignoring his companion for the moment, the Doctor consulted his screwdriver. He needed another path back to the incubation chamber and the screwdriver's scanning functions would provide exactly that if…ah. There we go.

"You know they're watching us," Jones murmured, looking in every direction at once, looking for all the world like a paranoid chicken on a caffeine overdose.

"Yes."

"Got any plans?"

"Yes."

"What are they?"

"Yes."

Jones frowned. "What?"

The Doctor looked up in a reasonable facsimile of feigned surprise. "Oh, so sorry. That was you talking? Just watch our backs; I have this under control."

Without incident—which made the Doctor even more apprehensive—they managed to reach the incubation chambers. The lights had dimmed, most likely to conserve power since the hybrids didn't need to sleep. There was enough of a soft blue glow from the tubes that the Doctor could still see.

"Look for a computer terminal," the Doctor said. "I need to find the logs so I can find out how and where to start reversing the process. Separate the Daleks from the humans if the process hasn't been going on too long. And no more bombs!"

Jones made his way to the far end of the chamber, dutifully looking for a terminal of some kind. The Doctor kept panning his screwdriver back and forth, up and down, looking for any kind of interface that he could access manually, with the screwdriver, or via the TARDIS' systems. The screwdriver flashed briefly, indicating an anomalous power surge…

"I knew you would return to this chamber," Caan intoned slowly. "And you did so within the expected time frame. My projections and estimates were accurate."

The Doctor heard Jones' hissed intake of breath, but the Time Lord's eyes were fixed solely on Caan's eyestalk. "You have to stop this, Caan. Let these people go."

"I cannot. This is the only way to ensure the future of the Daleks. Any other method would take too long and place too great a strain on my systems, both biological and mechanical."

"But you're killing these humans," the Doctor argued softly. "You don't need to do that."

Caan's eyestalk twitched. "By my calculations, this period in galactic history boasts a human or human-descended population of well over thirty-two point eight trillion units. The numbers I am using to repopulate the Dalek race will not affect either their current or their future numbers."

"But individually, they're being affected right here, Caan. I can help you find a better way."

"I know. That is why you were permitted to escape and make your way here."

"You knew I'd come back here?"

"Not precisely. I had calculated so. I had…hoped, if that is the term." Caan seemed almost wistful, but only for a moment. The Doctor attributed it to his own wishful thinking; Caan would never be remorseful over the deaths of humans. But what is his game, then? His open use of such an abstract, human term as 'hope'…he's up to something.

"Why, Caan? What were you hoping for?"

The Dalek scanned the hybrids' tubes. "That you could find a way to more efficiently repopulate the Dalek race."

"Repopulate? But a minute ago you said that the Dalek Empire was so big that nothing Jones could do could touch it."

Caan gave the impression that he nodded. "That is true, but the Empire is waning. My scans have indicated that this iteration of the Empire is populated by inferior specimens. These Daleks have been contaminated by impure DNA and each generation becomes more and more flawed. My creations are more pure, closer in execution and intent to the original Daleks."

"What's going to happen to the other Daleks, the impure ones?"

"Eventually, they will become unsustainable. Each generation of cloned or replicated tissue becomes more prone to disease or early degeneration. Within decades, less than a century, the Daleks would die out, which is why I ask for your assistance."

"What makes you think I'd do that?"

"Because the Daleks know you, Doctor," Caan answered, returning his electric blue gaze to the Time Lord's face. "You have advocated endlessly for the preservation of other lives; it seemed logical that your thinking would apply to us."

"Good guess," Jones said, "and odds are that's what he came here to do. Sadly, I'm going to have to rain on his little party."

His hearts sinking, the Doctor turned to look at Jones and as sure as daylight, the Dalek hunter had gotten his hands into the cylinders' power supplies and monkeyed with the wires. "Now what are you up to?"

"Rigged a feedback shunt into each cylinder's life support with an extra added bonus: a standing wave inversion into the building's power core. Flip the switch, kaboom. Alternatively, in case you're thinking of killing me, Caan, I release this switch and we just get the wave inversion." Jones smiled, cockeyed and cold.

"Now that's just redundant and ridiculous," the Doctor mumbled between clenched teeth. "Why not just rig the wave inversion?"

"I want a quick, clean death for the people stuck in the cylinders," Jones said. "System-wide shock from their support unit is nearly instant. Just slagging the power core would make them suffocate. Not my style."

"Oh," the Doctor said, eyebrows raised as he turned back to Caan. "An ethical murderer. I hate that kind."

"But you'll argue to preserve the Daleks. Just what kind of murderers do you like, again?"

The Time Lord's temper flared again. "I do not condone murder, no matter who's committing it or who the victims are!"

He turned back to Caan. "The Daleks can be redeemed. I know. I've seen it. You have to know it, too. Surely in all your calculations, all your projections, you have to have seen that the Daleks can one day be a force for good. They don't have to subjugate everything."

"Such a scenario has been anticipated," Caan said at length. "It has been disregarded as anomalous and all current iterations of Daleks have been modified to prevent such a flawed product."

"Product," Jones said scornfully. "Even your own kind and you can't think of them as anything but numbers. Property."

"Jones! You are only slightly less helpful than an instantaneously spawning quantum singularity. Please, would you just shut up!"

Caan regarded both of them silently, his eyestalk moving from one to the other in silence. It was almost as though he would have had his head cocked to the side as he watched. "Will you assist me, Doctor? Without you, the Dalek race will die."

"No, they won't," the Doctor said. "Daleks exist even now. Ask him. He's been trying for years to kill them."

"Then I am in error in enlisting your aid," Caan said.

"No! No. I can help you. I want to help you. On board the TARDIS, I have samples of technology from worlds and dimensions you've never imagined. Somewhere in that mess, I can find a way for you to repopulate the Dalek race-your wish-and prevent them from killing everyone in this reality. My wish. Everyone wins."

"So you'd supply them with alien technology and boost their empire's ability to procreate and conquer?" Jones exploded. "What makes you think they'd go along with your plan, anyway? They'd just take your 'gifts' and pervert them to their own ends!"

The Doctor spun to snap at Jones again when Caan spoke. "I find myself in accord with the noisy one. It is the Dalek way to conquer, to dominate."

"Why?"

"It is our destiny."

"Who said so?"

"Our creator."

The Doctor stepped toward Caan. "He's dead and gone now. Why be slaves to a dead man's madness?"

"The Daleks are not slaves. We enslave."

"Oh, you're slaves, all right. Just like humans. Thousands of generations marching in lockstep to ideologies whose creators are long since dust, never once thinking for themselves."

"Daleks are superior to humans," Caan said, his voice rising. "Daleks are supreme. Daleks shall survive!" In his agitation, he was slipping into some kind of default mode, speaking and acting like a Dalek of the line rather than as an independent entity

"Then prove yourself superior! Make your own destiny! Join with me. You can still have your empire, but try this: instead of consuming and slaughtering, rule by example, not fear. Be benevolent. Help the worlds you'd otherwise destroy. Make people want to join your cause not out of terror, but out of friendship. Friends won't turn on you. Subjects will always revolt. Sow a garden, not a minefield."

Caan held his silence. For the lives of him, the Doctor had no idea what was going on behind that glowing eyestalk. The Time Lord spoke again, barely whispering. "You know I can travel through time. You know I've seen things you haven't. Believe me. The path you and Davros want the Daleks to follow leads to death, to rape and ruin. Follow that path and the Daleks will join the universe in the fires of Armageddon. You won't even have an empire of ash and rubble to rule, because you will be ash and rubble. If you've predicted that the Daleks can be a force for justice, you surely have to have seen the opposite; it's the Daleks' inevitable fate if they choose to conquer. Trust me, Caan. I've seen it a thousand times over in a thousand different timelines. It's the way the Daleks will always end up unless someone-someone like you-changes their future.

"And you have that chance right now. Will you take it? Will you condemn the future Daleks to destruction? Will you consign your empire to oblivion?"

The Dalek was so still and silent, not even twitching his dome, arms, or eyestalk, that the Doctor almost thought he'd shut down. "I have entertained such thoughts. Visions of grand and glorious conquest, of the Dalek Emperor standing alone atop a pyramid of our enemies' toppled idols. Sontarans, Cybermen, Antudi. All fallen before our might. Yet I also have dreamed of such as you have said, Doctor. The Time War nearly destroyed us. It was only through chance that we were able to secure the Ark and free the survivors from their prison in the Void. Our race was nearly lost. All because of our need for conquest. I begin to wonder, Doctor..."

"Well, wonder no longer, teapot," Jones called out. "Your grand scheme here is finally finished. Thank you, Doctor, for providing a distraction while I worked. See? I did have contingency plans!"

"What have you done?" the Doctor demanded.

Jones shrugged. "Just sabotaged their splicing equipment, wiped their computers clean, and prevented them from ever rebuilding here again."

The Doctor drew his sonic screwdriver and began scanning. Caan turned his dome to look at the human. "You cannot prevent us from rebuilding."

"Can and did," Jones spat. "See this button? I press it like so, and this entire building begins to collapse from the top down. Eventually, this little operation will cave in on itself. No more breeding facility."

"You insufferable idiot!" the Doctor said. "You'll cause the whole town to sink into the hole as the complex breaks down!"

Jones stood and readjusted his coat as he'd been doing, this time drawing another, slightly smaller plasma rifle from under it. The Doctor cursed himself for not suspecting that Jones had hidden another weapon on his person with a cloaking pod, but it was too late to do anything about that now. "Actually, there's a lot of smoke, fire, and suspicious vapor leaking onto the streets about now. Harmless, but frightening. Most of the town will have evacuated, so casualties should be almost exclusively Deemed. And your little friend, here."

Dalek Caan began moving about the area, distant explosions growing closer, and his manipulator arm tried to access computers and activate controls. "You have disabled this entire level. The computers do not respond."

"I said that," Jones said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm leaving."

"You are trapped in here with the Doctor, with these humans you would save but have instead killed," Caan said, indicating the hybrids in their tanks. "The elevators do not work. You cannot possibly hope to escape via the stairwells; there is insufficient time."

Jones held up a compact device that sparkled with lights and displays. "Personal transmat. Takes me to my ship. Enjoy your entombment, pepperpot. I hope you rot."

"Emergency temporal shift!" Caan's form shimmered, wavered, and blinked out of existence, leaving Jones flabbergasted and the Doctor feeling...something. He wasn't sure what.

"Come on," Jones said. "Unless you want to be stuck down here, too."

The Doctor weighed nonexistent options as the lights began to flicker and fires broke out around the room. Clenching his teeth, he ran to Jones' side as the Dalek hunter activated his transmat. As the beam engulfed them, the Doctor couldn't take his eyes from the hybrid Dalek-humans in their support tanks.

He couldn't say for certain if their limbs were moving because of the explosions or if they were trying to get out of their glass prisons before they were buried alive.

-oOo-

Safely aboard Jones' spacecraft, the duo stood a fair distance apart, eyeing each other angrily. "You just killed everyone in that complex," the Doctor hissed. "Every last one of them."

"You must not have been paying attention, Doctor, but the hybridization process is fatal to the human host. They were already dead. I just hastened the process."

"You killed them."

"Yes! I killed them. I prevented them from dying a painful death by inflicting a less painful death! They don't get to live through the pain of carrying a Dalek on their bodies, feeling their organs and bones sucked dry to feed it, then suffer through the separation. They don't get to bleed out or go into shock when the Dalek frees itself, but you know what? I get to live with the memory of what I did! I've killed humans and aliens in the course of my hunt, both as collateral damage and because they were aiding the Daleks, but that doesn't mean I like it or that I ever get used to it!" He reached into a pocket and pulled out something heavy, an assortment of metal tabs on a thick chain.

"What is that?"

"Each tag is a name," Jones said. "A name of someone I've killed, or if I don't have a name, a date and a location. My computers said there were three hundred forty-two hybrids down there. By the end of the day, my ship will have fashioned three hundred forty-two more tags and they'll either be on this chain or another. I carry them with me just as I carry the memories, and they both get heavier every day, so try not to preach to me, Doctor."

"You won't get sympathy from me."

"I wasn't asking for any! Who the hell do you think you are that I even need your sympathy or your forgiveness? Who are you to judge me? I work to prevent the Daleks from killing more innocents. You actually offered to help the Daleks make more Daleks! What kind of morality is that? All life is precious? Even when that life kills other life? That makes you as responsible for their acts as they are!"

"Listen," the Doctor said, trying his best not to raise his voice. "I've seen that the Daleks can fight on the side of the angels. Those Daleks deserve a chance to be born and live and do their good works. But their genesis has to begin somewhere."

"Their genesis is in genocide! My world! The worlds of thousands of races across the galaxy! The Daleks bring murder as a greeting and leave butchery as their legacy. I know your kind, Doctor. You want the universe to live in harmony where everyone holds hands and sings songs, kids have puppies and candy while rainbow unicorns fart stardust and glitter. Real nice image, but the universe is not like that! There is evil out there and it does not stop and it cannot be diverted or distracted or appeased! The universe is filled with as many demons and devils as angels and gods, and if you want the angels to be ascendant, you have to face down the demons where you find them, and you have to face them on their terms! You have to be evil to defeat evil, because that's all they understand!

"By killing those people, I ensured the destruction of the Dalek Empire. You heard Caan! Less than a century and they're all dead. Because I killed over three hundred more people, I save billions more. That's how the universe works, Doctor. It's harsh, it's brutal, and it has no mercy for the soft or the cowardly, and you can't save those who need saving until and unless you decide to be as hard and unforgiving as the evil you're fighting."

The Doctor looked into Jones' eyes and saw what almost appeared to be tears in them. But only for a moment. His hands deep in his pockets, the Doctor fiddled with his screwdriver and pressed the activation controls. Every display in Jones' ship went blank, then relit to a basic screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.

"You're right that evil has to be faced down, Mister Jones," the Doctor said softly. "It must be confronted wherever it is found and it must be excised like a tumor before the infection spreads. But you're wrong about how to fight it. You don't banish the darkness by turning off the lights. You can't defeat the shadows by deepening the night. You must become a light. The deeper the darkness, the brighter you must shine, otherwise you'll find yourself so steeped in shadow that you'll never see your way out again.

"I've just wiped your entire ship's systems," the Doctor said, turning away and heading toward an airlock. "No maps, navigation, weapons, nothing. Obviously there's still power, so you have air conditioning-always nice to have come summertime-and maybe you can charge up your electric shaver. But for the time being, you're stuck here. No more crusades, no more killing, no more Dalek hunting."

"For now," Jones growled. "Just get off my ship and don't cross me again."

Pausing at the open door, the Doctor looked over his shoulder. "For your sake, I'll try not to."

The airlock door slid closed as the Doctor descended the ramp and began walking back toward his TARDIS. Jones shoved the chain of tags into his pocket, then shucked his coat and threw it into a corner.

Stomping over to a locker, he withdrew several cases of optical media, backups for his ship's operating systems and immune to erasure. Plugging the first one into a terminal, he began the long and tedious task of reinstalling his ship's software.

Two days, maybe three if he had trouble synchronizing it all, and he would be back in action. And he would be sure to add the word "Doctor" to his list of targets.