Not of This World chapter seven: 'Déjà Vu'.
"Tell me, what's the name of this planet?"
"Spiridon - one of the nastiest pieces of space garbage in the ninth system."
(The Doctor & Vaber - Planet of the Daleks)
Disclaimer - Alas, I do not own Doctor Who.
Chapter 7 - Déjà Vu
The Doctor moved swiftly through the high undergrowth. Knowing Myra and the Captain as he did, he had only given himself around twenty minutes head start, but that was enough. He knew this planet - they didn't. Well. Myra knew a little, of course. But watching it was different to experiencing it. Plus, she had mentioned something about not following the 'old series' - as she called them - too closely. Maybe she wouldn't remember much about this planet.
She'd be okay. Jack would look after her. Hell, she'd look after Jack! The two were made for each other. He only hoped the Captain's... friendliness... wouldn't put her off too much. Nah. She didn't seem like the type to let that bother her. Her first reaction to him was amazingly refreshing - it seemed all sentients he met were immediately entrapped by the man's 'charm'.
A plant to his right twitched, and the Doctor moved a little away from it, uneasily. He dug his hands further into his pockets to ensure no skin was exposed, and continued through the shrubbery, head lowered.
He glanced at every group of flowers he saw, carefully. Nope. Nothing yet. Surprising. No doubt the two back at the TARDIS had realised how they could be here by now. How would they have done it? He himself would have done a planetary alignment check, but Myra wouldn't know how to do that, and wouldn't understand what the readings meant even if she could. No, Myra... Myra would have checked the population level. Found out that they had landed before the Dalek invasion. Smart girl, that one. Almost as smart as him. Well, not quite.
There was a low groan as one of the huge, fascinating trees nearby moved, a giant branch sweeping down a little to brush across the floor. The movement sent marigold leaves scattering to the grass, covering the ground around the thick brown trunk.
Something caught his eye. Where leaves had covered the floor, dropping like rain from the trees, they had caught onto something. Something about six foot, thin. And completely clear.
He took an automatic step back and bumped into something behind him, turning round, retreating a little, and they were all around him, he could feel them.
The Doctor raised his hands, slowly, his eyes flickering over the floor in front of him. Footsteps crunched the leaves around him, shuffling, some of the plants going wild as they sensed the invisible creatures moving closer.
He heard something stop in front of him, breathing heavily. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, giving a small, weak smile, "I come in peace?"
There was a pause as the Spiridon seemed to consider him. Then rustling again as it moved closer. "Secure him."
Hands grabbed his wrists and yanked them behind his back, "Hey hey hey, no need for that! I told you, I don't mean you any harm!"
"He was aware of our presence. Disable him."
He immediately backed a little bit, "Oh no, no no no, don't you -"
Something hit him in the back of the head, hard, and he blacked out.
"How you doin' on that override?"
"I'm going as fast as I can!"
Myra retreated at his anger, putting up her hands, "Okay, okay..."
"It's a difficult system," Jack relented, by way of an apology, "It's just taking me... Just needs a bit of a..."
He twisted a dial to the right, painfully slowly with the precision of a season lock-picker, and then shook his head and countered the motion by giving the console base a vicious kick.
Myra shook her head, incredulously, "Alright, take it easy, she's an old girl, y'know!"
"She's a cantankerous old girl. She's not doing what I'm telling her to."
"Yeah, well, I don't think I'd do what you said if you kicked me, either..."
He shook his head, frustrated, "Dully noted. Now if you would please give me a hand with this...?"
She moved over to him, eyes flickering over the console, "What d'you need."
He shook his head, tapping again at keys, "I need... to get that open," he motioned with his head towards a storage compartment at his feet, "'Cause that has got the system override switch in. But I can't get through this damned system, it keeps throwing me out."
"You need to get into that?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, well, try this." She snapped her fingers, sharply, and, with a small creak, the door moved open.
Jack looked at her, his expression a cross between frustration and awe, "How the hell did you know that would work?"
"Oh, I didn't. I sorta just... guessed."
There was a pause, and then a grin spread across the Captain's face, "Course you did. C'mon, let's get outta here."
The TARDIS door finally swung open, and the two rushed straight through it.
Myra grimaced slightly at the heat, brushing her hair out her face with a hand, "Blimey. Wherever we are... it's damned boiling."
Jack glanced at her, smiling, "You could take off your shirt if you want. Don't mind me."
She looked at him for a second, and then shook her head, "Very funny, Captain Harkness."
His smile grew, "Who's joking?"
She sighed, wearily, "Either way... I don't think it's particularly good for either of us to be removing any clothes right now. Especially not here."
"A pity. Why's that, then?"
She shook her head, "Just... do me a favour. Don't touch the plants."
"Why."
"Because they'll kill you."
He frowned a little, glancing over a nearby plant, cautiously, "What d'you mean, are they... poisonous?"
She gave a small, grim smile, "A little bit more than that. They're... more animal than plant." She glanced around her, and then pointed out a cluster of strange, bulb-shaped plants to the right, "Those ones there, I'm pretty sure they're eye-plants." She waved a hand in front of them, and then nodded as the bulbs moved to follow her palm, satisfied, "Yeah. Look. They react to movement. Even invisible movement, so keep an eye on them - they freak out when Spiridons are nearby."
"'Freak out'? Is that a technical term?"
"Yep. Now, the eye-plants are harmless. But there are others that aren't. Some... shoot a sort of... toxin from their petals." She took in a slow breath, trying with some difficulty to remind herself that this was now in fact real, "If it gets you... without special treatment... the fungus spreads all over your body."
The Captain made a face, "Nice."
"Incapacitating you... and eventually killing you."
"Ah. Not so nice."
"Yes, not so nice."
"And what do these plants look like?"
Myra paused for a moment, thinking, "I... I don't remember."
Jack shot her a sceptical look, "You don't remember?"
She shook her head, "It's been some time, okay, I don't know. Just... don't touch anything. Keep your jacket on, cover up as much exposed skin as you can. Put your collar up and put your hands in your pockets."
Harkness did as she said, flicking up the collar of his World War Two flight jacket, moving to her side as she started walking, "You're catching on very quick, Myra Hull. What are you, android?"
She rolled her eyes, "God, I wish people would stop asking that, no, I'm not an android, I'm completely and utterly human."
"Good."
She glanced at him, narrowing her eyes, suspiciously, "Why."
He tilted his head slightly to one side in a smooth, innocent shrug, "No reason. So how do you know all this stuff, then? If you're human?"
She looked at him for a second. Then she just shook her head, "You really want to know?"
"Uh-huh."
"Okay. Then... you've gotta trust me. Do you trust me?"
He shrugged, "The Doctor trusts you."
"That wasn't really an answer, you know." He just cocked an eyebrow, and she sighed, "Fine. Listen carefully. I'm only gunna say this once."
The Doctor lifted his head, slowly, and instantly wished he hadn't. He put his forehead back on the floor, giving a low groan. Then realisation flooded over him, and he snapped upright again. He got sharply to his feet, quickly scanning his surroundings. Then he shook his head, slowly, weary frustration sparking up. He was standing in a big empty room, with three white walls and one barred one, with a heavy metal padlock on the door.
The Doctor reached for his pocket, but wasn't surprised when he didn't find it. He looked around, and then spotted his trench coat sitting on a small wooden table... on the other side of the metal bars. He let out a low, half-hearted groan. Another cage, another prison... He really did walk into this sort of thing, didn't he. Except this time he didn't have a ship log. He couldn't make himself a frequency projector. So if the Daleks -
No. There were no Daleks on this planet. There wouldn't be for another five hundred years. When a much younger Master would make his deal, and the Time Lords would send him and Jo to this planet to confront an army of more than ten thousand cryogenically frozen killing machines.
They had survived. But others hadn't. Maro, Vaber, Marat... those countless thousands of Spiridons... the Daleks had murdered them all.
I could stop it. It's right here, right now, I could stop it.
Those words... they stirred something inside of him. A memory moved constantly through his mind, a determined, stubborn Rose, and a much younger self, angry, furious.
When we met, I said 'travel with me in space', you said no - then I said 'time machine'.
It wasn't some big plan. I just... saw it happening and I thought... I can... stop it.
Hypocrite. He was such a damned hypocrite. He shook his head, slowly, leaning back against the wall of his cell. Myra was right. He was useless...
"So we... I mean, the Doctor and me...?"
"You don't exist. You're just characters in this TV show."
Jack nodded, slowly, thoughtfully, "Interesting. What's it called?"
Myra looked at him, sceptically, "Why is that the first question both of you asked? Doctor Who, it's called Doctor Who. Except your series was called Torchwood."
"Torchwood?"
She kept moving, "Yeah, kinda obvious. Did you ever wonder how they thought of the name?"
"It was the name of the house in Scotland, where they first started it."
"No. It's a direct anagram of Doctor Who."
"No it's not." He replied, immediately.
She nodded, "Yes, it is. Try it."
There was a pause a Jack ticked off letters in his head, then he raised his eyebrows, "Damn. So it is..."
"Yeah, well, I expect you lot were busier trying to save the world than figure out anagrams of your name." She paused as her foot got caught in a bunch of long weeds, tugging at it viciously until it came free, "Your series started when you picked up that woman... oh, what was her name... something Welsh..." she clicked her fingers, "Gwen! Gwen Cooper! Sorry, don't watch the Torchwood series, just never got into them, kept showing when I was at work."
"Should've recorded them. I'm crushed."
She shook her head, pulling at her foot again, "Trust you to get indignant about me not watching a show where you yourself are a fictional character. If it helps, I've seen you every single time you were in the Doctor Who episodes. I'm afraid I'm slightly addicted."
"Slightly addicted? You knew everything about this planet before you even found out we were on it."
"I only know what I've seen. And, anyway, come on, Pertwee's acting in 'Planet of the Daleks' was immense. For the time, anyway, of course it was a little bit... florid..."
He raised an eyebrow, "Florid?"
"You never saw the Doctor before his ninth regeneration. Back those days he was... Well. Very different."
"Different..." he paused for a moment, and she saw the glitter move into his eyes before he even said the words, "How different?"
"Not that different," she replied, firmly, "But, well... he was a different man. Literally." She stopped in her place, abruptly, frustrated, taking her hand from her pocket to yank at whatever held her ankle, "What the hell is -"
The thick, tentacle-like vine immediately snapped tight around both her hand and her ankle, and, before she knew it, Myra was on the floor.
