Chapter Fourteen
"Go on then," the Doctor instructed Merlin, motioning towards the door. "We've landed. Take a look!"
A large grin spread across Merlin's face as he raced for the door but stopped short before opening it. His fingers rested on the handle.
"Go on!" the Doctor laughed. "We've talked about the future often enough. See it for yourself!"
Merlin cautiously pulled the handle, opened the door and poked his head outside. His heart froze in his chest. There was so many people! Hundreds and hundreds it seemed, all rushing about and knocking into one another. Merlin swallowed hard. He jumped slightly as Donna placed her hand lightly on his shoulder.
"Are you ok?" she asked him softly.
"All those people!" Merlin replied quietly turning his face towards her. "There's so many of them! Where have they all come from? Where are they all going?"
"It's a shopping centre!" Donna said, matter-of-factly. "Seriously Doctor, of all the places you could have shown him and you've taken him to a shopping centre!"
"Don't blame me!" came the Doctor's reply from inside the TARDIS. "Oh, hang on …"
Merlin turned his eyes back through the door and stared out in wonder. Taking a small tentative step outside the doorway, he looked around him feeling slightly overwhelmed. Crowds of people hurried passed him, large buildings with huge glass windows and dazzling signs above their doors. Merlin faltered back as a car suddenly raced passed them a short distance from the TARDIS. "What the hell was that?" he shrieked.
"It's ok Merlin," Donna said gently, moving by him to stand out in the street. "They're just cars," she said, donning her sunglasses. "It's how people get around nowadays."
Suddenly, Merlin's face fell. His eyes widened and his body turned rigid. "Oh my …." he mumbled. Merlin's eyes followed the young lady as she walked by him. "Donna! But she's … she's …" Merlin's face blushed a deep scarlet and he averted his face.
"What is it? Merlin what's wrong?" Donna asked.
"That lady!" Merlin whispered urgently. "She's … she's nearly naked! I mean she's barely wearing anything at all!" Merlin lowered his voice even further. "You can see her knees!"
Donna laughed affectionately, "It's ok Merlin, it's the fashion. People are allowed to show their knees in public now!" Donna poked her head back through the door of the TARDIS just as the Doctor joined them. "Doctor? Where are we?"
"Home!" replied the Doctor, nudging Merlin from the doorway and pushing him out into the crowded street. "Well, Merlin's home anyway."
"I don't understand," Merlin smiled nervously. "This doesn't look much like Camelot!"
"This is the Camelot of your future." The Doctor placed his hands reassuringly on Merlin's shoulders. "This is what it's all for Merlin! This! People going about their day to day business, living their lives the way they want to live them, without anyone judging them, or worse, burning them at the stake! Freedom Merlin. This is what it's all about!"
Relaxing slightly, Merlin laughed and looked around him in amazement. "Why aren't they stopping? Can't they see us?"
The Doctor considered this for a second. Normally he wouldn't bother going into details about how the TARDIS worked. Normally it was more trouble than it was worth, it just made people confused and uneasy as they didn't understand it, and so they would just waste time asking stupid questions usually involving invisibility cloaks and the like. But, after a moment or two, the Doctor came to the conclusion that Merlin was not normal, and that anyone as clever as Merlin would probably just 'get it'.
"Well," he ventured. "The TARDIS has something built in to her defence systems called a 'perception filter'. It … changes the way people see you, shifts their perception a tiny bit. In this case, it allows the people around you see you but not quite 'register' you enough to really notice you."
"Oh!" said Merlin brightly. "I get it!"
"Yeah, I thought you might!" the Doctor smirked.
Merlin turned back to the hustle and bustle of the city centre. "What year are we in?"
"Errrm, well that's the thing about the TARDIS, you're never really sure where you're gonna end up, but I think I can definitely safely say it's the 21st century. Latter part of the 20th at a push."
"In the future, are there others like you? Time Lords, I mean?"
Donna looked up as the Doctor's face fell slightly. "No, there's just me," he replied quietly. "Just like your old friend Kilgarrah, I am the last of my kind."
"What happened?" Merlin asked quietly. "What happened to your people?"
"There was a war," the Doctor explained. "The Last Great Time War, fought across every corner of every galaxy. Fought throughout the whole of Time and space, by every planet and every species. We all fought, every last one of us. And they all died, except me. I was the only one who could end it. I was the only survivor."
"Then you are alone? Except for Donna I mean."
"Oh I'm not that Merlin!" the Doctor said cheerily. "I'm never that!"
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