Chapter 6:
Bobby's Explanation

The Doctor turned around and ran back to the perception bubble. Or at least, where he thought the perception bubble was since on this side of the bubble, it just looks like ruins. And fearing that the darkness was going to catch up to him, he dived through the bubble.

He watched intently as he hurried up the darkness that was rapidly catching up as the hole was slowly closing in. His jacket pulled a bit while the things on the playground leaned towards the closing hole as the atmosphere was venting.

Just as the darkness reached the bubble, the hole was completely closed. The Doctor sighed, relieved before he turned around and noticed that Bobby was standing and staring at him by the entrance to the kindergarten building.

The Doctor watched Bobby stare at him for a bit longer before Bobby turned around and walked back inside the kindergarten. The Doctor followed him.

When the Doctor walked inside, Bobby was sitting back down to where he was previously napping. The Doctor took a free bean bag and repositioned it so that he was sitting right in front of Bobby.

"So..." the Doctor started.

He laughed and clapped his hands together, "I'm guessing, you're not human."

"That is correct." Bobby answered.

"Please, Heather's not in here, you can drop the act." The Doctor said.

"We cannot 'drop the act' because if we do, the Black Beast will be able to find us." Bobby said, his voice now in an unnatural, guttural octave.

"Oh, I see. And is this Black Beast the thing that I just barely managed to escape from?" the Doctor asked.

Bobby responded by nodding.

"So, Bobby," he accentuated the name, "where are we?"

"We are currently residing on the surface of Cyrin 53."

"Cyrin 53? That means that you guys must be the Marcines! Always wanted to meet you guys, the 'planet terraformers'." The Doctor laughed.

Bobby simply watched him.

"So, you're not a very talkative bunch, are you?"

Still silence.

"Okay, fine, let's get to the point," the Doctor's voice became low and serious, "why have you held Heather hostage in this perception bubble – I'll give you credit for it, it's excellent – but what has she done to deserve to be imprisoned like this?"

"We have not imprisoned Heather Langford." Bobby answered.

"No, no, no, no. Fine. If you're not then, why are you keeping her here? Working so hard to make it seem like she's living in the 21st century? Cause this is obviously far in the future, yes? You've branded Earth as your own. It can't be the 21st century."

"We do not know what date it is." Bobby said.

"First, it's the Tardis, then the sonic screwdriver and now you? How hard is it to get the date around here?" the Doctor mumbled, then he snapped back to action, "why are you pretending that she is on Earth back in her own time era?"

"We were under orders to do so. To attempt to recover her memories." Bobby explained.

"You were ordered to?" the Doctor asked, "ordered to by who?"

"Why, by you Doctor." Bobby answered suddenly.

The Doctor froze, shocked by the revelation, eyes wide with confusion. "I ordered you to?" the Doctor said slowly.

"You came to us with Heather Langford in your arms, screaming, crying out in pain and you ordered us to help. You told us, that we 'owed you one'."

The Doctor jumped up and started pacing, nearly kicking the children that were still napping on the ground. "No, no, no, no, no. This isn't possible. How is this possible? How come I can't remember anything about this? What's happening? What's happened?"

He looked over to Bobby for answers, but Bobby just watched him, "So, why have you only got the perception bubble running? Don't the Marcine have better technology for recovering memories?"

"There was only a limited amount of time, with the Black Beast rapidly consuming the world. You yourself told us to use the perception bubble, Doctor. You explained that, by allowing Heather to live in her normal environment, her chances of remembering her lost memories will be greater. You also upgraded our perception bubble so that from outside the bubble, it looks like ruins." Bobby explained.

"So, I made the bubble be like the Cloak from Stargate: Atlantis." The Doctor mumbled, "sounds like something I would do."

Bobby nodded.

"Okay, my next question is, how come nothing and no body knows what date or even what time era we're in?" the Doctor continued.

Bobby hesitated for a bit, choosing his words carefully, "Because, time is out-of-sync with itself and something has been stopping it from automatically syncing back."

The Doctor shook his head vigorously, "no, that's completely impossible. No way."

"It is the truth Doctor. We, the Marcine, along with other great races in the universe, did not see the importance of time until it was out-of-sync with itself."

"No, you don't understand Bobby," once again, he lingered condescendingly on the name, "time cannot simply get out-of-sync with itself. It doesn't just happen. It doesn't go 'oh whoopsies, I'm now out-of-sync with myself'. That's impossible. And even then, nothing can prevent it from fixing itself. The universe won't let you keep time out-of-sync, otherwise the whole of reality will stop. Laws of physics are thrown out the window. Evolution will stop. Days will stop coming and going. Whole planets will disappear one by one..."

Bobby nodded.

"That's already starting to happen...of course." The Doctor groaned. He rubbed his eyes in frustration.

"This...Earth, as you call it, Cyrin 53, is all that is left of the great Marcine Empire." Bobby told him.

"How many of you are left?" the Doctor asked.

Bobby looked around at the children lying down, "we are all that is left of the Marcine race."

The Doctor paced around the room. "So, have you figured out what is keeping time from re-syncing with itself?"

"We believe that it might be the Black Beast."


Everything is being explained now, we are nearing the final moments of Episode 1. I would love reviews. But until next time, hope your reads are all good ones.

Kid.