"All right, Fry," said Leela, as she steered the Planet Express ship towards the surface of the Planet Doom. "I want you to think very, very hard. What did this weapon look like?"
Fry hated it when Leela told him to think hard. Thinking hard hurt. He thought back to what had happened back when he'd met… it was a guy, wasn't it? Fry was pretty sure it wasn't a monkey-wearing-a-hat. But all Fry could really remember was that the guy was English, and had been talking a lot, and then Fry had asked if he could have the little bird thing, and the guy had given it to him, and…
Well, the bird thing had basically trumped everything else.
"Brown," Fry decided.
"Okay, great!" said Bender. "We go in, steal us some 'brown', find some sexy robot wenches to seduce, pick up some cool stuff, then skedaddle on out of there!"
Leela hit her hand against her forehead.
"What was brown?" she asked. "Skin? Hair? Eyes?"
Fry frowned. "I don't know!" he said. "These are hard questions, and my thinking-thing hurts." He sagged.
"Would you at least be able to recognize it if you saw it again?" Leela asked.
"I guess," said Fry. "And if I don't, I could always offer him…" He blinked, and then realized. "Hey, wait a minute. He stole all of my bananas!"
"That's nothing!" Bender snapped. "I stole Fry's kidney last week!"
"That good for nothing, banana-stealing… something," said Fry, pushing up the sleeves of his red jacket, as if getting ready to fight. "When I see him…"
"You're going to bring him back here, so we can go back to Earth without being labeled as traitors," said Leela. "Or… my having to sleep with Zapp."
"Again!" said Bender.
Leela's cheeks burned.
"You know what?" said Fry. "I bet he did something. That bird must have been some kind of magic mind-erasing bird, and when I touched it, it made me—"
"Or maybe you're just an idiot!" said Bender. He gave a Bender-chuckle, and put his feet-cups up on the ship's dashboard.
The Planet Express ship swooped down through the atmosphere of the planet, and landed, with a soft thud, against the dirt.
Leela and Fry ran down the steps of the Planet Express ship, then halted as they got to the bottom. Fry and Leela's jaws dropped, horror washing across their faces as they took in the destruction before them.
Around them lay a completely destroyed city, the brown, newly abandoned buildings crumbling to rubble, dead bodies lining the streets. The bodies looked as if they'd only just been killed, the rubble was still crumbling around them, and the city still hummed with power from generators nearby.
A short time ago, there had been millions of people living in this city. Now, the only sound was that of the wind running through Fry and Leela's hair, and the only people who remained were the corpses nearby.
"Ooh!" said Bender, coming up behind them and noticing the dead bodies. "Dibs on their stuff!"
Leela's wrist computer beeped, and she hit a button, examining it.
"What… what's it say?" asked Fry, trying to sound brave and macho, but it was like a moth pretending to be brave and macho in the middle of a high-fission explosion.
"'Leave while you're still alive'," Leela read.
Leela, Fry, and Bender walked through the ruined city, taking in their surroundings. Leela's mind couldn't quite wrap around the idea that everyone — everyone was dead. She kept looking for signs of life, but so far, they'd found no survivors.
Was this what the weapon she'd brought had done? Had she just doomed the Planet Doom? What was this thing she'd delivered? Fry had said it was English and 'brown' — whatever that meant. Nibbler had said it was sentient — cunning, manipulative, and highly destructive. Kif said it defied description. Wikipedia said that Nibbler owed it fifteen dollars.
How could a humanoid creature like that be able to do something like this?
"Leela," said Fry. "I'm scared."
"Don't worry, Fry," said Leela. "Everything's going to be just—" She gave a cry, as the ground cracked beneath her, and she fell down into the sewer with a small splash.
Bender and Fry looked down at her. Fry looked panicked.
"Leela? Leela!" he cried.
Leela tried not to think of how completely and utterly gross this was, as she emerged from the sewer water.
"I'm okay!" she shouted up to them.
"Bender, you're a robot! Go down there and get her!" said Fry.
"What do you think I am, a ladder?" asked Bender. "You get her yourself, meatbag. I'm going to go find some better stuff to steal." He gave a wave, and started walking off. "So long, chumps!"
Fry looked over at the departing Bender, then back down at Leela. "Don't move!" he said. "I'll be right back."
Then Fry's face disappeared from view.
Leela sighed. She wasn't sure she'd ever see them again. Or, actually, she probably would, because she usually wound up having to save their skins. Fry could be phenomenally stupid, sometimes. Still, there wasn't all that much trouble he could get into, in a completely dead city like this one. There weren't even any sewer mutants!
Leela got to her feet, and climbed onto the ledge at the side of the sewer. Then she froze. She thought… she could hear something. Or was that… someone? It sounded like an echoing shout, reverberating through the sewers.
Leela stepped forwards, tentatively. "Hello?" she called.
The shouting seemed to increase, although the words were still garbled, and she couldn't understand them.
"Are you alright?" she called, again, advancing forwards. "My name is Leela. I—"
She was cut off, dramatically, as she was grabbed from behind and pulled into an adjacent sewer tunnel, a hand over her mouth.
"Shhhh," someone whispered into her ear.
Leela struggled, but the hands didn't give. She was about to bite down on the hand around her mouth, when the shouting voices came in clearer, their metallic edge sounding far more grating and angry at close range.
"SEEK! LOCATE! EXTERMINATE!" the voices shouted. "SEEK! LOCATE! EXTERMINATE!"
The metallic pepper-pot shaped objects that drifted by were not, exactly, what Leela had been expecting. They were sort of brown, but they didn't sound English, and… well, there was more than one of them, which wasn't at all right. Maybe she'd been carrying one, in the crate, and it had come here to join its friends?
One of the metallic objects stopped, right next to the sewer tunnel where she was being held captive.
"SCANS DETECT UNIDENTIFIED LIFE FORMS IN THE VICINITY." It swirled around, its eyestalk glinting blue in the darkness.
Leela felt the hands release her, all at once, and a cool hand grabbed hers.
"Run!" shouted an English-sounding voice, as Leela was yanked off her feet and down the sewer tunnel.
"ALERT! ALERT! IT IS THE DOCTOR!" shouted the metallic voice.
"IT IS THE DOCTOR!" shouted the others. "IT IS THE DOCTOR!"
Leela struggled to regain her footing on the ground, as she was pulled around a corner.
"Humans!" the English voice said. "Tell them to leave, and what do they do? Waltz on in!"
"I… I don't…"
"I mean, honestly," the English voice continued, as Leela was yanked down another tunnel. "What part of 'leave while you're still alive' didn't you understand?"
Leela felt her breath catch in her throat, as her single eye adjusted to the dark, and she could make out a brown pinstripe suit dragging her along behind him. Brown. And English.
And there was only one of him.
"Course, can't blame you for being curious," said the man. "But blimey, you do pick your moments, don't you? Wherever trouble's afoot, you can bet the human race will be there, blogging or eyephoning or whatever it is you lot do these days."
Leela managed to skid to a stop, digging her black boots into the concrete of the sewer tunnel. The man (weapon? Whatever) turned.
"What—?" he started.
Leela gave a flying kick, and knocked him unconscious. Okay, great. So she had the weapon. Now she just needed to get Fry and Bender, and they could be on their way home.
Leela hoisted the guy up onto her shoulder, but froze, when she heard the metallic voice screech:
"DO NOT MOVE! DO NOT MOVE! YOU ARE A PRISONER OF THE DALEKS!"
She turned, and noticed the pepper-pot objects circling her.
"Look, I'm sorry about your city being completely destroyed and everything," said Leela. "We just had a teensy weensy problem with a misplaced package. But it's been fixed, now. So, if you don't mind, we'll just be on our way."
"YOU WILL OBEY!" shouted the metallic voices. "OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED."
For the first time, Leela noticed the twitching gun barrels sticking out from the metallic pepper-pot shaped objects. Leela put her hands in the air, suddenly realizing that she might be in slightly more danger than she'd thought.
"Now, there's been a little misunderstanding," she said. "We weren't the ones who did this. It was just this weapon we accidentally…"
One of the pepper-pot things drifted up to her, a sink plunger extending towards her as it moved.
"TEMPORAL SIGNATURE DOES NOT MATCH REQUIREMENTS," the pepper-pot announced, its plunger retracting. "YOU WILL COME WITH US."
"Huh?" asked Leela. "Look, if you're trying to sue us, I have to warn you that we don't actually have any money, and our building is worth pretty much—"
"YOU WILL COME WITH US!" the pepper-pots shouted at her. "OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
"Better do what they say," said the English guy draped across her shoulder. "They're not messing around. When they say they'll exterminate you, they mean it."
Leela actually dropped the guy onto the ground, she was so startled. The guy groaned, and got back to his feet. He rubbed his head.
"Blimey, you can kick," he said.
The metallic pepper-pot things surrounding them seemed to shudder back the moment the man got to his feet.
"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!" one of them shouted. "YOU ARE A PRISONER OF—"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said the Doctor. "I know the drill. Although, technically, I already was a prisoner of the Daleks before you decided to ship me via air mail. Which was terribly uncomfortable and highly degrading." He glared at them. "Now. How'd you survive the war?"
"WE SURVIVED WITHIN THE GENESIS ARC," the Dalek said. "WE ESCAPED YOUR SLAUGHTER."
"Emergency temporal shift," sighed the Doctor, running a hand through his hair. "Only you lot went forwards in time, not backwards. And you found me."
"THE DOCTOR WILL OBEY!" shouted the Dalek. "OR THE HUMANOID FEMALE WILL BE EXTERMINATED."
"Oh, I'll obey, will I?" The Doctor flicked his eyes over to Leela. "Wait a tic. Are you one of the lot who shipped me over here?"
"Um… maybe?" said Leela.
"SILENCE!" shouted the Dalek. "THE DOCTOR WILL FOLLOW!"
"Just, just, before I do," said the Doctor, raising up a small metal tube, "just… little experiment. See, it's said that there's a rather large carnivorous creature living in these sewers, and I'm guessing that if I do this…" He flicked a switch, and the sewer water suddenly morphed together, surging into life and rushing towards the Daleks.
"EXTERMINATE!" the Daleks cried.
The Doctor grabbed Leela by the hand, and, for the second time that day, Leela felt herself yanked off her feet as she and the Doctor raced away from the metal pepper-pots.
When they emerged onto the surface, Leela was a little out of breath. She stared at this… Doctor whatever who'd been in that crate. He wasn't a small, furry animal, but he was kind of cute.
"Right, then!" said the Doctor. "Time for introductions. I'm the Doctor. They're the Daleks. They've single-handedly destroyed this city, and if you and your friends value your lives, you should leave right now."
"Not so fast," said Leela. "I don't know anything about these Daleks, but I know that you were the one in that crate. That makes you a dangerous biological weapon."
The Doctor blinked. "Sorry, that makes me what?"
"According to…" Leela sighed, as she realized that her authority on the subject was a jerk and an idiot. "…Zapp Brannigan, you're a deadly super-weapon." She paused. "And Nibbler agrees," she added, trying to give her protest some authority.
"Nibbler?"
"My pet… I mean, the ambassador to Earth," said Leela. "From the planet—"
"Oh, you mean…" the Doctor made a sound that was half way between a whistle and a screech. He gave a half shrug. "Least, that's what I call him. Name the size of a phone book, that one."
"Yeah, well, Nibbler told me that you were cunning, manipulative, and highly destructive," said Leela. "And he's cuter than you." She paused. "Possibly."
The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "Well, course he would. He and I… aren't terribly good friends. What with his entire race leaving us high and dry during the Time War." He muttered something under his breath that sounded like "Arcadia", but Leela wasn't sure what that meant.
Leela crossed her arms. "Okay, hot shot. Answer me this. If you're not a weapon, then why were you in that crate?"
"Bit of bad luck," said the Doctor. "Got kidnapped by a group of robot thugs shortly after arriving in this century. Which was normal enough, until they locked me in a temporal isolation field — which is technology humanity shouldn't have for centuries yet. Course, field like that only worked while the crate was closed. Moment your bending robot opened the crate, I got free. Stuck a magnet on its head, blanked out its internal memory, stole the Nimbus, tried to convince you lot to leave, and here we all are."
"So you're saying you're not a dangerous biological weapon or an endangered species?" asked Leela.
"Ah," said the Doctor. "Not… endangered, exactly. More… extinct. Last one left, see."
Leela's eye widened. "Oh."
The Doctor gave her a manic smile that didn't reach his eyes. "But, yes! Any rate. Better get you three off this planet soon as possible, and if you know what's good for you — and that isn't a threat — you will never, ever come close to this galaxy again."
"Wait a minute," said Leela. "You can't just threaten me and then say, 'that isn't a threat'!"
"I'm not threatening you at all!" the Doctor insisted. "I'm warning you. The Daleks are the ones threatening you."
"No, they're threatening you," said Leela. "You're the enemy of the Daleks. Fry, Bender and I have nothing to do with it."
"You have everything to do with it!" said the Doctor.
Leela gave him a dubious look.
"Look, the Daleks want me," said the Doctor. "That much is clear. But if they wanted me so much, why ship me here using you lot? Why not just pick me up themselves, the way they did with my TARDIS?"
"They support struggling independent delivery companies?" Leela offered.
The Doctor shook his head. "It's not me they're really after," he said. "It's you three. I don't know what they want from you, but whatever it is, it's not good." He paused. "Sorry, just realized. I never got your name."
"It's Leela," said Leela.
The Doctor gaped at her. "What, is it really?"
"Yes!" Leela insisted.
The Doctor beamed. "Oh, that's brilliant, it is!"
Leela had no idea why her name was so incredibly brilliant to this guy. But, at the very least, he didn't seem to be a total moron like the other members of her party.
"Okay, fine," said Leela. "I'll go get Fry and Bender, we can go back to the Planet Express Ship and leave, and then we'll take you to the Nimbus so you can explain to Zapp Brannigan yourself why I'm not a traitor."
The Doctor, however, wasn't paying her any attention. He was fishing around in his pocket, muttering to himself under his breath, too softly for Leela to pick up. She leaned in a little closer, and thought she could make out the words, "temporal signature."
"What?" Leela asked.
"Temporal signature," the Doctor repeated, a little louder. "That's what the Daleks said they wanted you for." He brought the small, thin metal tube from earlier out of his pocket, and pointed it at Leela.
Leela kicked it out of his hand with a, "Hi-ya!"
"Oi!" said the Doctor, retrieving it from the ground. "That's my screwdriver."
"Nice try," said Leela. "I saw what that thing did in the sewer. I'm not letting you summon any more sewer mutants. Not even if my parents happen to be ones."
"Sonic trick," the Doctor told her, looking at the screwdriver, carefully. "It wasn't real. Just an illusion. Distraction." He took a pair of black rimmed glasses out of his pocket, and perched them on his nose, squinting at the screwdriver. "As I thought. The temporal radiation around you isn't nearly strong enough to do anything useful." He tucked the screwdriver into his pocket, then ruffled his hair. "So what do they want you for? And what do they want your friends for?"
Leela didn't answer, partly because she was trying to give off an air of authority and captainness, but mostly because the Doctor looked really, really cute with his hair all ruffled and those sexy black glasses on his face. Damn it, why did he have to be so adorable-looking?
The Doctor then gave Leela a radiant beam, which just made the cuteness thing that much worse.
"Better find out!" he said, with a wink.
