Back to the Doctor

Zombie in Z Minor Part 2

Marty didn't say anything for a long time. He held Doc Brown's letter and just sat on the chair by the consol, just staring into the time vortex. Finally the Doctor cleared his throat in an attempt to get Marty to break out of his trance.

Marty looked over at the Doctor, who smiled cheerfully at him.

"I have something for you."

"Oh?" Marty asked uncertainly.

"You'll really like it," the Doctor ran to one side of the TARDIS and began pulling out random gadgets, looking them over for a moment and then throwing them away like worthless trash. Marty could only stare in bewilderment. Finally the Doctor found a thin, black rectangle slightly smaller than his hand.

He ran over to Marty and with a proud smile handed him the…

"Uh, what is it?"

"Well, it's a phone."

Marty held it up to the light. One side was flat and the other rounded with the picture of an apple someone had taken a bite out of on it.

"How is this a phone?"

"Oh right, I keep forgetting you haven't got mobile phones yet. This thing won't be invented in your time for another 20 years or so for you."

The Doctor pushed the only button on the phone and the flat side lit up. "It's a touch screen."

"Well that's really, uh, cool… but what am I supposed to do with a phone?"

"Call someone."

"Who?"

"Your parents, or maybe – well I was thinking you could call Jennifer."

Marty blinked. "Huh?"

"Look," the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the phone for a moment. "This phone is now tuned to 1985, about a month before we bumped into each other."

"You're kidding."

"Try it out."

Marty called up the keyboard on the phone and with no small amount of trepidation began typing Jennifer's memorized number into the phone. He held it up to his ear for a moment and then there was a click and a soft woman's voice spoke into the other end.

"Hello?"

Marty felt his heart freeze. For a moment he felt like it must be a trick and couldn't bring himself to answer.

"Hey, who is this?" The sleepy voice asked.

"It's- it's Marty."

"Marty?" There was soft laughter. "Are you calling from a payphone? You just left."

"Yeah, well, I had to tell you something…"

"You sound so far away."

"… Today, uh…" He was trying to figure out when this was. Was it before the DeLorean entered his life? Or after?

"Yeah, it was pretty crazy. You don't have to check up on me, I think I can get my head around this time travel stuff."

He was calling her the day he had come back to his own time after travelling to the old west, when he and Jennifer had seen the Doc fly off in his train time machine with his family. The day they had spent the entire day together just talking, about time and the universe and their life. It had been almost a perfect day, the last good day they had had together.

"What did you want to tell me?"

"I just, I want to see you again is all."

"Well not tonight," she laughed. "We'll talk tomorrow. I'm really tired, okay?"

"Yeah, of course," the phone felt heavy. He knew they wouldn't talk tomorrow, or the next day. "Tomorrow" was the day they started avoiding each other, because every time they looked at each other all they could think about was their future together, married, with children- What 17-year-old can suddenly handle being told their entire future is planned out?

"I'll uh- I'll call you later… I just want you to know I miss you, when you're not around."

"Oh Marty, you're sweet, but I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight."

"Yes, right… goodnight," Marty held the phone out and pushed the big red button. End. Without a word he handed the phone out to the Doctor.

"No, it's yours."

Marty stood up and for the first time walked over to where Jennifer was lying, and instead of looking around, jumped down next to her and pulled the blanket away to find her hand. He sat there for a moment, trying to pretend the warmth of his hand was her own. He so desperately wanted to hold her again, and he knew from this point on there could be no distractions.

"Hey Doc," Marty held up the letter still in his hand, "you should probably read this."

OOO

The TARDIS door opened and the Doctor stepped into the cool December sun. "Ah, Austria!"

Marty, who had found a long dark jacket that looked to him like it belonged in the 18th century, came out behind the Doctor. With his jean jacket destroyed and his shirt needing the blood washed out of it, Marty had finally taken the opportunity to dress for the time period with the clothes the Doctor had in his quite expansive wardrobe. Minus the wig, Marty was dressed in the very latest of Salzburg fashion – or so the Doctor had assured him.

The Doctor took a deep breath of air, then pulled out his 3-D glasses and put them on as though it were perfectly normal.

"Come on Doc, you look like you belong in 1955, not 1755."

They closed the TARDIS door and began to walk through the past. Marty was having a hard time appreciating being in Europe for the first time – let alone in a brand new century for him – with the Doctor acting so ridiculously conspicuous.

"1773," the Doctor corrected, "I think. Besides, these glasses are important!"

"Why?"

"I set them to pick up the radiation."

"What radiation?"

"Didn't I tell you about the radiation? Of course I told you about the radiation."

"You did not tell me about the radiation."

"I found this strange radiation signature around the alien spacecraft. I thought it was their craft, but there was no way that type of radiation could have come from that class-"

"Doc, cut to the chase."

"The radiation was coming from the robot it crashed into. I scanned the one that attacked you while you were changing and found the same radiation trace there."

"So…"

"So, I followed that radiation trace to this point in time. Your Doctor Brown listed Austria as one of his destination. The TARDIS managed to find a point in time in Austria where that same radiation existed."

"Wow… I'm impressed Doc."

"Well, it's about time," the Doctor grinned.

"So you can see the radiation?"

"Well, not yet, but it's out there."

"Oh great, that's useful. Really useful."

"More useful than sarcasm."

A man ran by them, nearly pushing them over.

"Hey, watch it!" Marty called after him, but the man ignored them.

The Doctor looked at Marty, a now familiar glint in his eyes.

"Doc, c'mon, we can't keep getting sidetracked like this."

"Whose getting sidetracked? I'm following clues," the Doctor took off running after the frantic man, and with a sigh Marty followed after.

OOO

A huge crowd had gathered on a bridge and curious people from all ends of the city had gathered to see what horror had trespassed there overnight.

As Marty and the Doctor pushed their way through the crowd he took off his 3-D glasses.

"Why take them off now?"

"This bridge is covered in the radiation."

"Jesus Doc! Shouldn't we get them out of here?"

"Doesn't anyone in the 80s know anything about radiation beyond nuclear bombs?"

"Uh, no."

"This radiation won't hurt anyone."

They finally made their way to the centre of the crowd where a line of officers were holding back the crowd, a body covered in a blood-soaked blanket lay on the cobbles.

"Uh, you sure about that?"

The Doctor pulled out a black wallet and opened it out to flash a piece of blank paper at one of the officers. The officer's eyes bulged for a second and he read the words off the psychic paper.

"Oh, sir," he moved aside.

"What is that?"

The Doctor handed the wallet to Marty. "Psychic paper, useful once in a while."

"It's telling me I should avoid rogue time agents."

"Hm," the Doctor took it back, "good advice. Excuse me, are you in charge?"

One of the officers leaning over the body looked up. "Yes. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm the Doctor," he held up the psychic paper.

"How did the Emperor hear about this so soon?" The chief stood up in shock. "He didn't need to send you, sir."

"He has ears everywhere," the Doctor played along, "and he wanted to make sure this was cleaned up as soon as possible."

"And who is this?"

"My, uh, assistant. What happened here? How did he die?"

"A savage attack." The officer's face seemed pale as he shook his head. "I've never seen anything like it. The neck wound looks like an animal bite, but his brains were bashed in as well. We have the culprit if you'd like to question him."

The officer pulled back the blanket, so the Doctor could see what was left of the man's head but the crowd's eyes were still shielded.

"WHOA!" Marty quickly turned around so he was no longer staring at the crushed skull.

"It's his, uh, first time. Could you cover that?" The Doctor turned to Marty. "You go question this culprit. I'll look around."

"Doc, I don't think this has anything to do with us."

"Just go speak to him," the Doctor turned to the officer. "He needs to go speak with this culprit you mentioned."

"I'll send an officer with him," he turned to one of the uniformed men and after quick order he and Marty walked off.

"You say you've never seen anything like this? No strange deaths recently? Murders of any kind?"

"Murders, yes, but nothing strange. A mugging gone wrong, a drunk who drowned – we assume. I've never seen this kind of violence before."

"Why the two wounds?"

"What?"

"Well either of those wounds would be enough to kill a man. Why would his attacker feel the need to kill him twice?"

"I wouldn't know. I don't understand these criminals myself."

"Hm, always a good trait with a detective."

"Sorry?"

"I said: I just need to look around a little bit."

"Yes, of course sir."

The Doctor crouched down next to the body. He pulled the blanket to expose the man's legs and chest which, other than being covered in blood, were free of any signs of a struggled. This man had been attacked so fast there had been no time to struggle.

He put on his 3-D glasses for a second. The radiation was concentrated on the man's head. He switched his glasses for his regular ones and began looking through his pockets, trying to find some information on his identity.

There were no traces of time energy on him, so he clearly wasn't a time traveller. Also, this was hardly how the robot had attacked previously. So why was the head covered in this radiation? What was he missing here?

He spotted a small notebook underneath the man, the corner just sticking out and the top already covered in bright blood. He flipped through the pages. The dead man must have been a musician or a composer, the pages were covered in hand written musical stanzas, bits of notes the Doctor knew would now always remain a patchwork of what might have been a beautiful symphony.

At the front of the book in neat handwriting was the name Ludolf Hochstrasser, and beneath it an address.

To Be Continued…

(This opening scene was very much intended to be at the end of Episode Three, only it just wouldn't fit, so it found its way here. Chronologically it hasn't moved, but story-wise there just needed to be some space after Daisy read Marty's letter. And that is how an ending can become a beginning. I've decided to go for broke with this episode. In every new season of Doctor Who there's an episode where they meet a famous person and an episode where they meet a mythological creature – which always turns out to be aliens – and just to meet my quota I figured I'd shove 'em together. More on why I picked Mozart in another chapter, but I will try to explain my choice of zombies here: It took maybe a little over a second to realize zombies were the way to go. For starters, it's highly unlikely Doctor Who will ever touch zombies with a ten foot pole – I mean real zombies, gory, chomping, guts and blood everywhere zombies. Secondly, I realized I had a chance to do something kinda crazy and awesome here. I love writing gore and fight scenes and I've never written zombies before, so it's a fun little challenge. Also, just the sound of Mozart and Zombies sounds fantastic. You know, phonetically, because of the Z. It was meant to be. So yeah, if you can't tell by now this episode will be gory, I might as well spell it out: There will be blood.)