Shadew 2
"But it's solid gold," the Doctor insisted.
"You would say that though, wouldn't you sir," the taxi driver said.
Having arrived at their destination they had discovered that they had no money. Always a fast thinker, the Doctor had broken off the spoon attachment from his golden penknife, he had never found much use for that attachment, and had offered that instead. Unfortunately, this no longer being the 11th century, the driver was not swayed by the simple mention of the word 'gold'; the fact that it was a spoon probably didn't help persuade him.
"Look feel it," the Doctor placed it into the man's hand. "Why would I lie about something like this?"
The man felt the weight of it in his hand. It certainly felt heavy enough, and there was something about the Doctor that made him feel that he should trust him. "Even if I did believe you," he said hurriedly, "I cannot accept a lump of metal over money.
The Doctor took the spoon back with a sigh. "Alright," he said. "Take us to a jeweller."
"At this time of night?"
"Or a gold broker, dodgy Des the conman, somewhere I would be able to sell it for cash."
"This world is very complicated," Broxa observed as the taxi sped off once more.
"How can he be back?" The tall porter whispered to his friend. "I thought he was dead."
"He is dead," shorty replied. "I'm as perplexed as you."
They silently followed the Time Lord as he wandered down the corridor, whistling as he went. A fly headed alien walked towards them, immediately catching the Informant's attention.
"Looking sexy tonight Lucy," the Informant called. She (apparently, lofty could not tell) replied with something unintelligible to lofty's ears and carried on past without a backwards glance. The Informant gazed after her. "One of these days," he promised himself. Then he noticed the two porters staring at him. "Look has someone died that I should be aware of, you both seem very anxious."
Lofty would have laughed at the irony, had it not seemed so tragic; and he was busy puzzling over the interaction with the fly headed alien. Eventually it was the shorter porter that spoke.
"Alkrad has defected," he said.
"Defected!" The Informant's eyes widened with shock. "To the Shadow Proclamation? How?"
"He was betrayed on a mission to kill the Doctor," shorty explained.
"Kill the Doctor?" Now the Informant was even more confused. "What was he doing trying to kill the Doctor?"
Now it was the porters' turns to be confused. "There is an open contract on him," the taller one said. "I thought you knew everything?"
The Informant glanced down at the vortex manipulator on his wrist in shock. "What is the date?" He asked frantically. Lofty told him and he swore profusely. "Bloody hunk of scrap metal! All the same, every single one of them! I had better get this fixed and get out of this time zone as quickly as possible. I don't want to end up running into myself and bring about apocalyptic ruptures in the time vortex."
He began sprinting in the opposite direction leaving the two porters to look at each other in confusion.
"Well that explains how come he was always seemed to know everything that was going to happen," shorty said eventually.
"And how he came back from the dead," lofty agreed. "Perhaps we should keep an eye on him until he needs to go."
Shorty nodded in agreement and they both turned to sprint after him.
After finding someone to verify that the spoon was in fact made of gold, and exchanged it for the accepted amount, the Doctor was able to pay the taxi driver and get on his way. He and Broxa were now stood at the entrance to one of the fanciest restaurants in the district. Unfortunately there was one thing that the Doctor had not taken into account.
"I am sorry but we are fully booked tonight," the waiter said. "I cannot let you in without a reservation."
The Doctor sighed. "Well that is a shame," he said. "Mr. Gilt is going to be so disappointed."
"Mr. Gilt?"
The Doctor nodded. "Yes, Reacher Gilt sent me ahead to procure a table for him," he said dramatically.
"Oh, well I'll see if I can find you one then," the waiter said picking up two menus. "Table for two is it?"
The Doctor stared back at him, completely baffled. "You're actually going to do it?"
"Of course," the waiter nodded. "We wouldn't want to upset Reacher Gilt now would we?" he beckoned for them to follow him. Once they were seated he explained the specials and left them to it.
"Reacher Gilt must be very important if simply dropping his name makes them bend their knees to our wills," Broxa commented when she was sure the waiter was out of earshot.
The Doctor didn't answer for a second, struggling to comprehend how a statement that was mostly a joke had worked out so well for them. "That shouldn't have worked. Reacher Gilt isn't real, he's a character from a book, I was merely quoting one of the scenes," he said eventually.
"But if he isn't real," Broxa said, suddenly sharing his confusion, "then how come mentioning him allowed us to get in."
"I have no idea," the Doctor said shaking his head. He then grinned happily. "How exciting!"
The Informant was working like a man possessed. He had opened up his vortex manipulator and had removed several components that needed repairing or replacing; he only looked up when Lucy the fly headed Tritovore came into the room, but upon seeing him she quickly left. He was aided by the quartermaster and his new assistant who were running around the stores trying to find replacement parts; with limited success.
The new assistant came back with a rhondium crystal, holding it with the care normally reserved for a mother carrying a child. "Is this ok?" he asked.
The Informant took it carefully and examined it. "Perfect," he said. "Just the right size and no cracks or blemishes. Can't you tell?"
The assistant shook his head. "It looked good, but I was trained to assess things for value not functionality," he said. "It will take a bit of time to pick it all up."
"Well you have the right instincts," the Informant said encouragingly. "Just need a bit of fine tuning."
The assistant nodded appreciatively and lifted his hand to his shoulder as if he expected there to be hair there for him to fiddle with, as it was his dark hair had been cut short and neat. The Informant noted this behaviour and added it to his increasing profile. There probably wouldn't be much money in selling information on the quartermaster's assistant, but you never knew. So far he had learnt that he had once been a pawn broker, must have lived on a very cold planet, was used to having long hair and was out of his time. He didn't know his story, but it was bound to be interesting.
"So the rumours are true," a voice said behind him. "The Informant has returned."
The Informant turned and was met with the sight of one of the people he had been hoping to avoid. Superior Caprinite. A tall and broad creature of yellow rock, trailing yellow sand in his wake. He was not overly dissimilar to a Golem of Earth legend, the major difference being that he had a head shaped like a goat and had broad cloven feet. Master Quanchi's number two, Caprinite always seemed to look fragile and crumbling but the Informant knew that he was far from fragile; being a silicon based life form the sand that he trailed around was merely part of his natural respiration process.
"I won't be here for long," the Informant said returning to his repairs. "Accidently landed in the wrong time, you know how it is. Although if you do see the current me running about be sure to prevent him from meeting me won't you."
"I don't think we need to worry about that," Caprinite said gravelly.
The Informant turned to him in suspicion. "Why not?" he queried.
"You're, err he is busy scouting the far reaches of err Dromund Kaas," the shorter porter suddenly jumped up to speak.
The Informant now turned his scrutiny on the porter. "That's from Star Wars you fool," he said coldly. "If you are going to lie you could at least make an effort to do it convincingly. What are you lot not telling me?"
"Well we wouldn't want to be the ones to cause temporal distortions by telling you what is going to happen," the taller porter said.
"You don't cause temporal distortions by doing that," the Informant informed him. "But I understand what you are saying."
Lofty nodded in appreciation. "Then you will understand why we are using a codename that is so obviously fake," he continued.
The Informant's suspicion melted, but was quickly replaced with confusion. "Master Quanchi is now using Star Wars codenames?" he exclaimed.
"Of course he isn't," Caprinite boomed, spraying sand all over the Informant.
"The Master doesn't take much interest in the activities of the informants," shorty jumped in before the Superior could spoil it all.
The Informant nodded in sudden understanding and turned back to repairing his vortex manipulator; missing the two porters gently knocking fists together in a celebratory manner. "One of these days I am going to have to get myself a sonic, laser, gamma, lectra or photon screwdriver," he said to himself. "It will make this sort of thing so much easier."
"So you have nothing for us then," Caprinite said forcefully.
"Oh I have lots for you," the Informant replied hotly. "The problem is you almost certainly already know it."
"We were hoping you would have something on the Shadow Proclamation's intentions," Caprinite stated.
"The Shadow Proclamation?" the Informant finished off his repairs and closed the panel over the top. He pressed a few buttons and it gave a flash as it returned to life. "This future is most intriguing. Thanks for your help..."
"Olljo," the assistant supplied.
"Thank you Olljo, I had better be on my way," he tapped a few buttons on the vortex manipulator and a hologram appeared. He froze upon seeing it. "Actually there might be something that I can sell you."
Caprinite paused at the door and turned back to him. "What does it concern?" he asked suspiciously.
"The Doctor."
Everyone turned to him in shock, including Olljo much to the Informant's surprise. "Did you say: the Doctor?" Olljo asked with wide eyes.
"Yes," the Informant nodded. He turned to Caprinite. "Interested?"
"We would be willing to pay the standard rate," he said levelly.
"Ooh, then I'm afraid I can't give it to you," the Informant made a sucking sound, indicating he was in business mode.
"Why not?" Caprinite growled.
"This is very valuable information," the Informant said, not giving anything away. "And he is a Time Lord. You would have to up the price by... say 100 times."
Caprinite growled and sprayed sand out of his body at high speed. "Do you think we are mad!"
"This is the Doctor we are talking about," the Informant said casually. "The Oncoming Storm, Kin Slayer, the Rotmeister, Merlin, My Sworn Enemy! John Smith, the Caretaker. But I can see you aren't interested." He pressed a few buttons making the hologram disappear, then he held up his arm in preparation for slamming down on the dematerialisation button.
"Wait," Caprinite said grudgingly. "I'm sure we can negotiate."
The Informant lowered his hand and smiled mischievously. "I knew you would see sense."
"We would be able to offer you 25 times the standard value," Caprinite offered, more out of hope than expectation.
"And there was me thinking you were going to negotiate," the Informant said raising his hand once again.
"Alright 40," Caprinite bleated. The Informant's hand remained hovering over the button. He was very skilled in the art of negotiation, people found themselves folding to his preferred value very quickly; the trick was to set the price too high and let them slowly make their way up to the desired value. "50?" the hand moved slightly towards the button. "65! 65!"
The Informant paused. "Is that your final offer?" he queried.
Caprinite gave the impression that he wanted to say yes but wouldn't dare out of fear of what the Informant would say. "70?" he suggested.
"Done," the Informant dropped his arm to his side grinning. He would have said yes to 65 but was not going to say no to an extra five. "You can send me the payment when I return from Coruscant or wherever I have gone."
Caprinite cheered up significantly after hearing this. "Very well," he said. "What is this information regarding the Doctor?"
"He is coming," the Informant said.
"The Doctor is coming here?" Olljo exclaimed. "When?"
"Soon," the Informant responded, not understanding the Quartermaster's assistant's interest. "Can't say when. But he will come soon, and he will not be alone."
"What do you mean he will not be alone?" Caprinite asked suspiciously.
"I mean he will have someone with him," the Informant said. "I cannot say whether it will be a harmless little girl or a fearsome cannibal warrior, or how many there will be."
"It matters not," Caprinite shrugged causing a lot of sand to drop to the floor. "The sensors will pick him up."
"Oh no they won't," the Informant sang.
"What?"
"The scanners will miss him, I don't know how, but somehow he will enter the base undetected."
Caprinite turned to the door. "I had better inform the superiors," he rumbled.
"Do send them my regards, especially the Tritovore faction," the Informant called after him.
Olljo ran off for some reason, the Informant didn't care to ask. He turned to the two porters and gave them a cocky salute before activating his vortex manipulator.
"Do you think we should have told him?" the taller one asked his friend.
"Nah, I certainly wouldn't want to know exactly when and where I die," shorty replied.
There was a siren from down the corridor. "No rest for the wicked eh," lofty commented. And they raced down the corridor to prepare for the next arrival.
The Doctor licked the air and sniffed. The distortion was definitely somewhere nearby, he could sense it. It needed to be sorted out fairly quickly, people were already acting like characters from the Discworld so it was only a matter of time before the actual characters themselves started to manifest themselves. The Doctor had wasted many hours of his lives reading Discworld books and while they were jolly and humorous there were still some scary monsters that you wouldn't want to meet on a dark night. And of course it was wrong for a fictional character to appear in the real world, that was not where they belonged.
He wandered out of the toilet and followed the scent of the distortion towards the kitchens and ran into Broxa. "What is it?" he asked. "Has a short bloke with a beard suddenly appeared in the restaurant?"
"Worse," she said gravely.
The Doctor studied her carefully. "It's not a spider is it?" He asked.
"No not that bad," she shook her head and shuddered slightly at the memory.
"Dalek? Cyberman? Silurian? Zygon? Slitheen? Malkavore? Yeti? Evil Carnivorous Robot? Though that's a contradiction in terms. Why would a robot be carnivorous, robots by definition do not require nourishment of any kind. Is some alien holding the room hostage? Though if it is, it isn't doing a very good job."
Broxa allowed him to ramble on for a bit before speaking. "I think it is best if you just come and look," she said hopelessly.
Intrigued, yet slightly concerned, the Doctor chose to follow her back into the main dining area of the restaurant. As soon as they entered the Doctor saw exactly what Broxa was referring to and immediately understood. Sat down at a table in the middle of the room were a young couple. The man was quite handsome, average build, dressed in a smart suit and neatly combed, sand coloured hair. The woman – or perhaps girl was a better description – was blonde, her hair gently curled and pinned behind her head, wearing a glamorous, red cocktail dress and glasses, and staring adoringly at the man opposite her. The Doctor felt his hearts clench. It was Lisa.
"It is her then," Broxa said after observing his reaction. "How?"
"The TARDIS is playing up again," the Doctor said slowly. "The same error that forced me to land on Mondas in your time has made us land here on Earth now, rather than a few years down the line. I had wanted to arrive here a few years after Lisa and I left in the first place but instead we have arrived on the night that Harry proposes to her."
"That's Harry!" Broxa realised. She tensed her shoulders and started forwards. The Doctor, realising what she was going to do pulled her back.
"No, you can't do that," he hissed.
"Why not," she said hotly. "The TARDIS has given us a perfect opportunity. We can kill Harry and in doing so save Lisa."
"Maybe," the Doctor agreed with a pained expression. "But there are other events that will be affected by that action. You can't just re-write time as you see fit, that sort of thing leads to monsters from the dungeon dimensions breaking through. Stars, now I'm starting to talk like we are in a Discworld novel. Even if they don't, you change history dramatically. If Harry dies here, then I don't come looking for him and never meet Lisa. And who knows how that will change my personal time line, one companion who was forced to have never met me through a complex alteration of time resulted in me dying. That's not all, what you don't know is that when I first met Lisa, I rescued her from being raped. Who's to say what will happen if I am not there to stop it."
Broxa was slightly taken aback by this long tirade. "It just doesn't seem fair," she complained.
"One of the curses of time travel," the Doctor said sympathetically. He slowly led her back to their table, trying not to attract attention from Lisa or Harry; he needn't have worried as they only had eyes for each other. "Right we are going to sit here, enjoy this meal, and not interfere with them in any way, understood."
She nodded grudgingly. The waiter arrived with their meals and Broxa quickly forgot all about Lisa. She sniffed at the soup and moaned as the exquisite smell threaded through her nostrils and tingled her taste buds. She leant forwards to begin lapping it up when the Doctor stopped her by grabbing hold of her hair.
"Lesson one," he said, brandishing a soup spoon. "How to use a spoon."
In some dark corner in disreputable area of London, a figure masked by the shadows received a transmission. It was good news, but at the same time displeasing. The figure casually pocketed the communicator and began the long walk towards the restaurant. After decades of avoiding him the organisation which he belonged to had finally decided it was time to confront him once more. The figure did not know whether to laugh or cry. There was no telling how the Doctor would react when coming face to face an agent of one of the most infamous associations in the universe, especially with all the recent assassination attempts.
-break-
The Doctor stepped out of the restaurant and leant against the wall. He had just helped Harry to propose to Lisa, not because he wanted Lisa to get engaged to that psychopath but because he already knew he was going to do it; having seen it whilst sharing in Lisa's flashbacks. He had played his part well, smiling casually and gently steering Harry without raising too much suspicion. Lisa had certainly been completely oblivious, but Harry had looked at him oddly almost as if he knew.
A cyclone of emotions swirled about him. The pain and guilt from discovering that it was in fact him who had pushed Lisa down the path of being Harry's love slave and being unable to stop it. This clashed horribly with the satisfaction of seeing Lisa so happy, she had never been in such a happy state in any of the Doctor's adventures with her. He was proud that while in the long run this event would cause her untold misery he had managed to bring about the single most perfect event in her life. It never occurred to him that Harry would have found the courage to propose to her without his intervention if he had just left them alone, as the third sensation was intensifying. Bio-energy bubbling painfully in his chest once more, giving him heart burn and searing his lungs. Hey maybe it was adding the finishing touches and changing all the organs at last, but that was probably too much to hope for.
He retched and expelled the energy out of his mouth painfully. Once he recovered he did an internal probe with his mind and was disappointed to discover that there were still organs that still belonged to his previous self. But his mind was suddenly clearer, and he was able to sense the being slowly creeping up on him. He whipped his head round and spied a man just exiting the shadows, crouched like a predator and growling deep inside his throat. Tattooed on his goateed face was the unmistakeable symbol of Sundew. Here we go again.
The man raised his hands, palms facing the Doctor and winced slightly as blades from each digit flipped out of the skin like a cutthroat razor blade (slicing the skin that had entombed them) and pointed out of the tips like claws. The sliced skin knitted itself back together before blood could seep out of the wounds.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows at this. "Do they call you Wolverine?" he queried. "Or do you prefer Lady Deathstrike. Probably not as she was a woman actually."
The man snarled in fury. "Do you never get tired of using that line?" he roared. "You should know by now that I am the Panther!"
"Sorry?" the Doctor said in confusion. "We've met before?"
"I have tracked you across time and space," Panther continued. "You blocked me at every turn, outwitted me each time. But not this time. This time I shall be victorious."
"Are you not listening?" the Doctor tried again. "If I've never met you before, yet you have encountered me dozens of times, surely you cannot destroy me now otherwise that will undo all your previous encounters."
"Even when I dragged you into the alternative universe where your science means nothing," Panther continued obliviously, "you still thwarted my attacks and threw me out again. But your pity was foolish, that only allowed me to grow stronger. And now you will die!"
The Panther gave a primal roar and charged at the Doctor, who was still trying to explain the lack of logic in this whole situation, and therefore making no move to defend himself as the steel claws scythed through the air on a collision course with his neck.
