"Alright, Mister Grumpy. I think you know where this creator of yours is. So, tell me."
The android looked confused as if it was asked a question everybody knew the answer for.
"It's everywhere."
The Doctor blinked. So did Alex.
"Oh, c'mon! Every entity has an address. Can't you be more specific?"
"I don't know." Mr Collins shrugged.
The Doctor sighed heavily.
"That would have saved us a few takes of breath if you hadn't played mysterious. Thank you very much."
"Doctor, concentrate!" Alex lightly pocked her in the ribs. And very quickly thought that she shouldn't have done that. But when the Doctor smiled and shook her head, she relaxed: well, it looked like she could do that after all.
"Oh, yes! Sorry, still cooking, can't stop myself being sarcastic." She paused. A great idea was forming in that head of hers. She swiped her index finger up in the air. "Previously, you told us that the creator is waking up from a long-long dream. How do you know that? No, don't answer me. 'Cause I know." She clicked her fingers but the sound didn't come off… Cringy. "A connection. Every creator has it with his toy, why should it be any different with robots. You have that link, you received a signal. And every signal can be intensified. You just need a beacon," The one she retrieved from her pocket, "a very handy screwdriver," which was in the same pocket, "several modifications," She pointed the sonic at the beacon. And she had thought that thing would be useless! "plug to the source and… done!"
Here came nothing, but the Doctor grinned all her white teeth so, Alex assumed, there must be something… or not. No click or tick indicating that something triggered in Mr Collins after the Doctor glued the modified beacon straight to his forehead. Nothing, except for a funny angry look from Mr Collins.
"What exactly have you done?"
The Doctor was waiving a sci-fi wand in the face of the android as if the poor chap hadn't suffered from humiliation enough.
"Oh, you weren't exaggerating. It's everywhere. Somewhere under the soil… but the signal is all jingle bells. But there must be a way in!"
"There is no…"
"Argh, you're such a downer, mister Collins!"
"Sorry, you lost me there. What are we looking for?" Alex tried to comprehend why the Doctor was listening to the sonic screwdriver but was clueless.
"Basically, an HQ. It must be a quiet, isolated place, with many danger and personnel only signs, with big antennas to command androids and be suspiciously out of ordinary."
She thought about it. The city centre was quite dull and boring, and she didn't remember any big working antennas anywhere. But there was something…
"Well, there's one place matching the description."
"Yes?"
Alex couldn't help herself but smile.
"The pine grove."
"Oh! The one I fell down on? Brilliant!"
"I guess we're taking Alvin on a walk."
They were already in the threshold when the Doctor turned around and asked the android,
"Mr Collins, care to join us?"
"No." It shook its head with the beacon still glued to it. "I don't like what you're doing. It's dangerous. I'm staying here."
"See? He's very sentient. Unlike us." The Doctor winked.
A silent downed on the city of Lidunburgh, the night was coming. They were strolling to the park as if they didn't care for the world, Alvin was somewhere ahead of them.
Alex was reminded of comics she had used to read when she was at uni. Yes, comics, where superheroes were destined to meet the villain and stop whatever the villain planned. Everyone was into them, so she easily caught up and became the ultimate geek. But it wasn't of nostalgia that she remembered bright old days.
They were heading to the villain's lair, but it didn't look like it. More like two women had sleeping problems and it was their everyday evening route. And they didn't look very heroic! Which reminded her of another important thing...
"So, what's our plan?"
The Doctor halted.
"What plan?" She asked with a face only the one who doesn't approve any plans can do.
"Are you saying we don't have any?"
The Doctor continued the pace.
"We'd get into the HQ and find out the creator's plan."
"That's it?"
"Yes. Why?"
Why?! Seriously, Doctor?
"I thought superheroes always have a plan."
"But I do! I've just told you."
"It's not a plan."
"Okay. If you know better, I want to hear your plan."
Well, that was an unexpected turn of event. What was also portrayed in the comics?
"Right. Umm. Every superhero has gadgets. What do we have?" Because she was certain the Doctor had many things in her hoodie pocket, it was literally full and pulling down from its content.
"A screwdriver, umm," she took out a ball and two handkerchiefs… "I think there was a ring but I can't find it anywhere, oh! And a packet of nuts." The Doctor proudly showed off the packet in Alex's face.
"A packet of nuts?!"
"Yep. From your fridge."
"But they're for squirrels!"
"I was hungry."
Right. Alex almost forgot this woman beside her was an alien. Oh, dear.
"Doctor, you do realize we look stupid? It's like we're not about to blow up the city. More like we have an evening stroll before sleep."
"We don't blow up the place." The Doctor turned her serious mode like when Alex had joked about memories wiping.
"No? Cause from what I've heard Alex the Android ran because otherwise she would have been used for the next gen creation. And making the androids to blend with people doesn't sound cheerful."
"We don't know their actual intentions." The Doctor shook her head. And opened the packet and shoved a hazel in her mouth.
"But it can't be good! Look, I know you're alien and you can barely understand that, but imagine someone from London finds out their neighbour is an android!"
"Believe me, they'd be more freaked out to find their neighbour is a Zygon."
"A Zygon?..." Wait, what was she talking about, she couldn't be serious about it now, could she?
"Long story. I'll tell you later." The Doctor said, her mouth now full of hazels. "Ah! My pine grove!"
Alex was always mesmerised by the look of a small grove of massive pines in the park. It was something so unusual in them: the size of them was ginormous for an average scots pine, their branches compounded between each other creating a wooden roof that blocked the day and night light so it was always dark in there. They were like total aliens to this place.
And now she definitely knew they were.
Not a living soul in the park. But now she knew why it had always been only her and the dog. Androids just don't do strolling.
They were walking down the park paths, and as the pine grove was getting closer and closer, especially when the Doctor took her pace, Alex was recalling the first night she had met this strange woman.
"Aye, Alvin, behave! Don't wander off!" The Doctor shouted to the dog. He barked at her something in return. "What have you just barked at me?!"
If she hadn't gone to the night stroll that day, she would never have guessed she had been literally living in the city by herself. But it had looked so real! She had used to buy food and clothes and it had felt real! It had tasted real. Maybe if she had been outdoor more, she would have noticed it, the little mechanical creeks from people around her, fake adverts with fake products, the radio being on loop since after-war time. Maybe she would have known if she had noticed that she had never been sick and ill since she had moved in. But, well, she didn't, too absorbed with her leaking creative skills, drawing squares and circles and triangles day after day.
The Doctor was right. She was more inside than outside. She needed to catch up with the rest of the world before she turned into a woman in her early thirties with an existential crisis, more than two extra kilos and a nervous breakdown.
They entered the dark woods, the roof hiding the last remnants of evening light. Alvin was leading them somewhere, the Doctor followed him with a sci-fi wand torch turned on, so it cast off the strong light of red, green and blue colours, each colour for several seconds.
The wood is full of shining eyes,
The wood is full of creeping feet,
The wood is full of tiny cries;
You must not go to the wood at night!
"Stop it, please, you're scaring me." Alex pleaded the Doctor. "Why are you doing this?"
"To get you into the mood."
"The mood?"
"To make you feel scared. My last incarnation used to believe that fear is a superpower. I still don't know what I believe, so I stick with his beliefs for a while."
"Him?"
"I was an old Scottish grumpy man just several days ago. You should have seen me, you would have liked me!.. I was charming, in a very strange way and after some very hardcore years of training."
"Oh. So, this your regeneration thing is like… changing into a different person while having the memories of your past?"
"You can put it that way. Why do you look disappointed?" The Doctor pointed the colourful screwdriver in her face.
"I always thought regeneration thing looked like the one Deadpool or Wolverine has."
"Well, it would be a really boring world if everything worked the same way in every corner of the universe."
Alvin barked at them, he found something hidden in the roots of a tree. The Doctor tumbled on her knees and brushed away fallen leaves to unveil the hidden entrance to the underground. She pulled at handles and it opened with a long screech. Behind it was a ladder down, to the long-lost facility. With a trembling hesitation, two women and one dog were descending into the darkness…
"It's dark." Alex started the obvious just for stating the obvious. She didn't expect the lights to turn on with a loud clunk, illuminating the long corridor at the end of which was a vault-like door.
"Woah! Does it have voice control?"
The Doctor looked around in pure concentration. The screwdriver told that there was no one in ten yards, not like she expected it showing that much under the soil. But there was something, she could feel it with a back of her neck, not organic, not alive, but still living.
"I don't know." The Doctor's echo ping-ponged through the walls of the corridor. "It's still dim, though."
They didn't expect it to light up a bit more.
"Well." The Doctor coughed awkwardly. "Either the whole underground has voice control, or we're being closely watched."
"Or both."
"It can be both."
The Doctor took the sonic screwdriver out of her hoodie pocket to open the door, but she didn't have time to wave it at the massive lock when it suddenly started turning by itself.
The Doctor, being the one in the little gang of three who carried something that could be used in defence, stepped forward. Alex with Alvin was coming straight after her.
Behind the door was a ginormous space about 20 yards in height and somewhat 40 in length. It looked like storage, a very abandoned one. Alex looked inside one of many metallic containers and saw only some scraps and carcasses.
"Do you think the androids are made here?" Alex asked the Doctor, who was pacing from one container to another and waving her screwdriver all over.
The Doctor gave her a light node. "It's possible."
"Hey, look! What do you think is there?" Alex was pointing at the windowed futuristic gallery, settled above them.
"I don't know. Let's find out, eh?"
They found the stairwell to the second floor, and very soon, with the Doctor rushing up and missing several steps in excitement, they were in the gallery. There were some panels and massive bleeping containers with wires sticking in different directions and dots. One container had a display, all covered in dust and yellow sticky slime of unknown origin. Walls were made of glasses, so the maze of storage was all like on a palm of one's hand.
"Is it a computer?" Alex looked closer at the display. It looked like it was active but behind the dirt, it was almost obscure.
"More like a command centre. I think we can look around the databanks from here, to understand the whole facility better."
The Doctor wiped the dust and slime with her sleeve. Yikes!
"No keyboard… Well, so good I still have the screwdriver. Very cool thing, by the way, multifunctional, a bit more than just any screwdriver. I recommend you to have one."
As the Doctor was rumbling something about her screwdriver, Alex got a closer look at the panel. It seemed lacking any tumblers and moving parts, there were just several buttons and that was all.
"Doctor?"
"Orgh, the security is too tight, it won't let me break through! Just give me more time, Alex, lock-picking and hacking is my second name. I'm not even lying."
She touched one button out of mere curiosity and was surprised to see the panel warming up alive.
"Doctor!"
"The thing is very rusty. So it must be really old. Well, old-young, future-past, it's all irrelevant."
The panel, which appeared to be a very long display, flickered once, twice, and showed a picture. Alex was confused, she couldn't understand what it was. She took out a handkerchief from her pocket and swiped the dirt away.
"Doctor, it's a spaceship!"
"A wut?"
"A spaceship!"
"What makes you think it's a spaceship?"
"A map which has many dots stars apparently. It showed up immediately when I touched the panel."
"Yeah, this's the first sign you're on a spaceship."
"But, this is ridiculous."
"What is?"
"Sixty years ago, or so, the spaceship crashed on Britain, nobody noticed, then it dug into the soil to hide, nobody noticed, then it built the whole city and still…"
"No-bo-dy noticed!" The Doctor exclaimed. "This is ridiculous, you're right!"
And just as then, Alvin barked loudly to get attention and blitzed to the stairwell.
"Alvin! Oh, no! Come back! I'll go and catch him," said Alex as she stormed after him.
"And I'll hack into databanks." The Doctor said to no one in particular.
Alex was running down the corridors, turning left and right, running through more storages and strange factories and never quite catching Alvin, she always saw only his black tail wiggling at her in a mocking way. The underground spaceship was huge, she was out of breath, but new corridors and new turns weren't subsiding. The poor woman lost any track of sense of where she was now and hadn't the slightest idea how to return to the Doctor.
"Alvin, for our sake's, stop!"
But he didn't, his paws rapping somewhere near but never in her sight.
"Alvin!"
There was something off. Alex halted at the crossroad with corridors, long, and cornerless.
The dog was nowhere to see.
The Doctor was nearly there, or so she kept telling herself. She couldn't find any crack in the firewall and it was like something was distracting her, pulling her away from the computer.
She made herself concentrate on the command centre. C'mon, this wasn't something difficult, she could hack far more complicated systems with her eyes being closed, or even blind. She couldn't have lost this important skill now, could she!
Or what if she had? All those years of her studying went all in a dump with just a finger snapping.
Great.
No, concentrate!
Her hands were shaking. She wasn't ready yet, she was still in the process. She needed to meditate, or have a really good cup of tea, or put herself into the
Zero room to calm down her body and soul.
Concentrate!
A lack of concentration, was that a new thing in this body? Or had she suffered from it before?
Was Alex an android after all?
The Doctor slapped herself on the head.
Alex had chosen the corridor on the left, a mere hunch that something would be there.
The corridor led her to the open-doored chamber, not too big unlike previous she had faced. The walls of this chamber were painted in blue metallic colour with light red horizontal stripes. About fifty thin wires were strained to the centre of the roof to be merged with the central column. Alex looked around. The chamber looked like some kind of engine. She listened: it was activating, warming up.
There was something with her in this chamber. She hadn't noticed it because it was hidden behind the column. Some kind of… blue box with a police sign on it.
"Oh, you must be…"
"Kidding me," the Doctor stared at the display in disbelief. That actually did explain why the hell the spaceship SS C.R.E.A.T.O.R. was buried underground unnoticeably. "Space-time bubble drive. You didn't just crush on Earth, you crushed in Earth. But what was your original mission?"
"Ah, a colony on Avisiveon. You were supposed to deliver android factories to help colonists, but now you're stuck here and you don't know what to do."
"Why did you crash? Oh, a human factor. Right. Someone called Adas Adino Soto miscalculated the third stop."
"Your drive is broken, you're stuck in the Earth…"
"Poor thing."
Had she always been talking to herself when alone?
"I definitely need someone to stop looking stupid. Alex!"
"So this is the TARDIS!" Alex patted the door of the blue box excitingly and, dare she say, the box was giving her some kind of reaction, a confusion but a pleasure to finally meet someone else. Though how Alex could feel this by merely touching its surface was strange to her. And, the Doctor was right, her spaceship did look like a police box from the mid-twentieth century, actually, it was the exact replica of it, maybe with several slight changes.
"Tar-dis?" a whisper echoed in the room.
Alex turned around but no one was there. She moved from the TARDIS, checked behind the central column but no, she was alone with a blue box in this chamber.
"Hello?"
Maybe she was alone after all. Nobody answered her. Or decided not to.
"Alvin, is that you?" Of course it wasn't him, he doesn't speak, he's a dog, why would she ever say that.
Fear was creeping up on her neck, closer and closer to the spot where her short hairs began. She felt her feet froze inside the sneakers. What chances were that someone was in this very chamber in the city with only two living creatures alive? Well, except for androids and god knows what.
If fear was a superpower, then Alex was a mere mortal soul.
Hi! I couldn't leave you without a new chapter in this year, so, here it is. The next one will be last in this adventure-episode-whatever.
I know that many people read this fic from different countries, what famous, legendary, or not very, person you'd like to see in Doctor Who?
What do you think of new series with Jodie Whittaker? What should I bring in this alternative series? And, that's tricky but, if there was a chance to travel with the Doctor, what would be your reason to refuse? (Don't you worry, Alex stays in this for a long run ;) ).
C ya
