Author's Notes: Apologies for the late update. I have been working on the story for awhile, but ended up skipping ahead to other chapters while leaving the following one behind. It took awhile to finish up and come back, but in exchange, I've managed to cram about two chapter's worth of content into this update. And with the work I've done in advance, future updates shouldn't be quite as long in forthcoming. As promised, the end of Act 1 is coming up soon, and after that we'll finally begin working on the Time War in earnest. I appreciate your patience and as always, comments and reviews are always welcome. Enjoy!
"That was beautiful," Cassie admitted, tears welling in her eyes. Beside her, Kendra could only nod in agreement.
"I'm glad you thought so," the Doctor replied, smiling to them both. "A bit melodramatic, to be sure, it but helped protect your minds from everything else I had to do while I was there."
"What do you mean?" Cassie asked.
"A Tenkrul is only partially reliant on phereomonal traces to track down its intended mates," the Doctor explained. "It can also psionically attach itself to others so that not only can they follow victims to where they have gone, but to where they plan to end up. The Tenkrul inhabiting your friend's body had attached itself to you, and to a lesser degree to you, also, Kendra. What I did was to enter your minds and remove it's hooks from your consciousness."
"What about that other thing you said?" Kendra asked. "Those pheromones you talked about."
"Thank you for bringing it up, I was just getting to that," the Doctor replied. He reached into a jacket pocket and began rummaging around. "It's what took me so long to get here, unfortunately. Every pheromone signature is unique and requires a unique masking agent in order to counteract. It took me quite some time to find the precise blend required." He frowned slightly as he continued to search. "Let's see...blow dryer, no. Safety pins, spare crayons, Harry Potter Book 8 pocket edition, well worth the wait, by the way. Ah, there it is," he exclaimed, withdrawing a clear crystal vial filled with pale violet liquid. The vial was capped with a fine brass nozzle connected to a tube with a small hand pump at the end.
"Is that a perfume bottle?" Kendra asked dubiously.
"A splendid sense of observation you have, Miss Kendra, don't let anyone tell you different. Now, I think you'll find the lavender fragrance to be prominent yet understated, with just a hint of wheat to evoke that sense of frontier excitement," he explained teasingly as he handed Cassie the bottle.
Hesitant, Cassie took an experimental sniff and, to her surprise, found it to be exactly as the Doctor described. She held the bottle beneath her chin and squeezed the pump, applying the mixture on both sides of her neck as if getting ready for a date. She handed the bottle over to Kendra, who quickly did the same. She handed the bottle back to the Doctor, who nodded approvingly.
"Are you sure this is enough?" Cassie asked.
"About twenty times more than, I should think. The pheromone traces are extremely minute. It will only take a few seconds for the components in the mixture to cancel them out completely."
"You'd probably make a fortune selling this," Kendra remarked, tracing a finger across her neck and sniffing it approvingly.
"I did, once. Calvin promises that the paperwork was simply mixed up but I think he just didn't like being outdone."
"Doctor?" Cassie asked, a sudden shadow crossing her features.
"Yes?"
"You were saying before that Zach, or that Tenkrul thing, could read my mind, right?"
"Only to a very limited degree. Locations, familiar faces, that sort of thing."
"And you stopped by his house earlier, right? And you didn't see him?"
"No, I didn't. Just a...never mind that, for right now," the Doctor cut himself off.
"But that means he's out there right now!" Cassie exclaimed, growing more agitated by the second. "What about my house? My dad, god, my brother, what'll he do to them? I have to go home." She stood from the bed and darted to the chair where her clothes were draped.
The Doctor walked over to her put his hands on her shoulders, looking down at her face. "Cassie, I need you to listen to me. Yes, it may go to your house, but it doesn't want them. It wants you. They shouldn't be in any danger as long as you're not there, but if you show up and it comes looking, then I can't say what might happen. Do you understand?"
Cassie trembled beneath the Doctor's gaze, looking ready to break free and escape, despite his words. Finally, though, she took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. "I understand. But what are we going to do?"
"I'll go to your house, myself," the Doctor replied nonchalantly.
"But you just said..."
"I said that you couldn't go, Cassie. But I have to. If I don't stop it, then it will leave nothing but death and misery in it's wake."
"How are you going to stop it, though?"
"I have my ways."
"But...but you don't even know where I live!" Cassie sputtered, grasping one last time. Her eyes widened when the Doctor blithely recited her address from memory. "How did you know that?" she asked, stunned.
"I'm a substitute teacher, Cassie. A quick trip to student records told me everything I needed to know," the Doctor answered with a hint of amusement, and Cassie blushed at such a common answer when she'd been half-expecting some source of otherworldly knowledge.
"So here's what you're going to do," the Doctor continued. "You're going to stay here, tuck yourselves in nice and snug, and go back to sleep. Now that the pheromones are neutralized and the psychic connection's broken, there's no way for the Tenkrul to track you down here. In the meantime, I'll go to your house and if and when it shows up, I will take care of it. Once that'd done, I'll come back here and tell you that everything's been taken care of, you'll both thank me from the bottom of your hearts, and we'll all enjoy a nice big breakfast of eggs and toast with a tall glass of orange juice. Oh, and a bagel. I like bagels. Good? Sounds like a plan? Splendid." With that, the Doctor patted Cassie on the cheek, waved goodbye to Kendra, and headed out the door.
"Girls? Are you okay in there?" Kim asked from outside the door a few moments later. Clearly she, and likely James, as well, had been waiting outside in the hallway the entire time waiting for 'Dr. Bowman' to finish his business and leave.
"Fine, Mom," Kendra called back. "Sorry again," she added, somewhat sheepishly as her mom cracked open the door and poked her head in.
"It's not your fault, hon. It's just that if there's somebody over this late, your father and I like to know about it."
"I know, Mom. It was a surprise to us, too, but it won't happen again."
"Okay, then. Now go back to sleep," she finished, closing the door behind her.
"'Night," Cassie and Kendra mumbled.
Cassie waited a few moments until she heard Kendra's parent's bedroom door close before grabbing her clothes from the nearby chair.
"What're you doing?" Kendra demanded.
"I'm going after him, what do you think I'm doing?" Cassie shot back.
"But he said he wanted us to stay here," Kendra replied. "I think we should do what he says."
"That's my house, Kendra! That's my home and my family and I'm not going to let anything happen to them because of me!"
"Because of you?" Kendra repeated. "You make it sound like it's your fault."
"Isn't it?" Cassie asked, struggling with haste into her jeans. "If I hadn't been such a...such a girl then this whole thing wouldn't have happened."
"Now I know I'm just a ditsy blond and that big words scare me," Kendra said, tossing her head from side to side with every word. "But it sounded like you didn't have much of a choice about the whole thing."
"But-," Cassie began again before Kendra cut her off.
"Do you think I had a choice when I was up in that room?" Kendra reminded her. "Sitting there and watching while that thing tries to have his way with my best friend. Don't you think I'd have done something about that if I could? I don't think you had it any easier than I did."
Cassie paused for several moments before finally collapsing onto the bed in frustration. "I guess you're right," she mumbled, shrugging out of her pants and kicking them across the room.
"I know I am. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about and he's already helped us, so I say we go with what he wants for right now. Let him take care of things."
"All right, you win," Cassie replied, defeated. Kendra pulled down the covers and they both climbed back in. The bed wasn't any less comfortable than before, but despite her fatigue from the night's events, the Doctor's explanations, Kendra's reassurances, and the utter stillness that now enveloped the house, Cassie was certain that she wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.
The television was showing replays of old poker tournaments when Kyle woke up with a jerk. He squinted at the harsh glare and fumbled through the collection of bottles on the side table before finally finding the remote. He turned off the set and leaned forward in his recliner, rubbing his eyes and trying to knead away the pounding in his head. The amber glow of the street lamps outside cast a dim light through the open window, but Kyle again groped over the side table, knocking over at least one bottle before finding the switch for the small table lamp. The lampshade did its job diffusing the light, but what came through still caused Kyle to wince and clutch his eyes until it became bearable.
The throbbing in his head was growing more insistent. After a false start, Kyle managed to stand up and stumbled into the kitchen, dry swallowing a handful of aspirin and chasing it with water straight from the faucet. It wasn't until he finished drinking and wiped his face with a sleeve that he looked at the microwave clock and saw the time. Christ. Past two in the morning. The weekend meant a somewhat later work shift, but that still meant less than five hours before he had to get up. He didn't know how many hours he'd been sleeping, but it sure as hell wasn't enough. He looked down at himself, still wearing his dirty work clothes from earlier today. Yesterday, he corrected himself, glaring again at the tiny green numbers. He started to head toward his bedroom, unbuttoning his flannel work shirt and trying to decide whether to shower now or later, when he saw Cassie's note sitting on the table. Hanging out at a friend's house and then spending the night at Kendra's? He wanted to be upset that she didn't ask permission, but, as his headache reminded him, she could likely have played reveille on a bugle and he wouldn't have heard it.
The thought stuck with him on his way down the hall and he cracked open the door to Sammy's room and stuck his head in. Seeing nothing in the bed, he flipped on the lights and walked in. Damn that kid! He'd yelled at him about this just this morning and he still skips out! A quick look at the bed and desk told him what he already knew: No note, no nothing. Rubbing a hand across his face, Kyle headed back into the hall toward his own room, resisting the urge to slam the door behind him.
Kyle finally finished peeling off his shirt and threw it in the general direction of the clothes basket. He tried undoing his pants, but the effort of looking down and focusing made his head swim, and he stumbled backwards onto the bed. He managed to sit up and rest his head in his hands, but the thought of standing just then made his legs tremble.
Looking over, his reached out and picked up the one picture he had sitting on his bed stand. He, Yumi, and the kids had all gone to the park on the other side of town for the afternoon. The place had its own picnic tables and fire pits, so he and Sammy had hauled some charcoal and a cooler of hamburgers and sodas with them. He and Yumi had argued good-naturedly over the best way to cook a proper hamburger while Cassie and Sammy tossed a frisbee back and forth. Finally, Yumi had let him have his way and instead broke out her camera and began snapping pictures of him working the spatula while he, always camera shy, tried to shield his face with one hand and work the patties with the other. She then turned the lens toward the kids, snapping a few frames while they were playing until they noticed. Cassie, like her father, had yelped and turned away, hating to be the center of attention, while Sammy began posing with the frisbee like a nine-year-old bodybuilder. Just then, a jogger had come around the corner on the trail next to their table, and Yumi had asked him if he could take their picture. The man obliged and they all got together as a family, Kyle in the middle with an arm around his wife and daughter on either side, and Sammy right in front of him with Yumi's hand on his shoulder. The man had taken a few shots just in case before handing the camera back. A few days later, they'd had the film developed and Yumi had the best of those group photos framed.
None of them could have known that she would be dead less than a year later.
He and Yumi had gone out to dinner, just the two of them, while the kids stayed at home. It had been a rare treat for the couple that didn't get to go out on their own that much anymore. It had taken a split second for it to happen. They had been crossing an intersection and another driver, drunk, it turned out, had ran a red light and slammed into them at full speed, right into the passenger side door, which crumpled like tin foil. Yumi had been killed instantly and the twisted metal had crushed his own leg in too many places to count. The doctors had done what they could, spending the entire night setting the worst of the breaks and telling him that with some surgeries and a bit of luck in the future, he might regain the full use of his leg. But nothing they could do could help the fact that he still had to go home and tell his son and daughter, doubtless already sick with worry by now, that their mother was gone.
They took the news about as well as could be expected. Sammy was hit especially hard. After all the crying was done, he began to regard his father with a kind of passive defiance, acting against his wishes with sullen anger without ever openly saying why. Kyle could guess, though. In a ten-year-old's eyes, a few feet faster or slower, a split second's reaction quicker, and his mother would still be alive. He wasn't old enough to understand that sometimes bad things happened and there's nothing you can do about it. The worst part was wondering if he was right. Could he have been faster? More alert?
Cassie was different. Observant even as a young teenager, she had seen how her mother's death had affected her dad and brother and done everything she could to fill the void. She took on much of the cooking and cleaning her mother had done, acted as peacemaker when her family argued with increasing frequency, excelled in her schoolwork and never gave her dad a reason to complain. She had tried to be the mother when Kyle couldn't quite find a way to tell her that it wasn't her job. Heartbroken, he couldn't see at the time the burden he was placing on her shoulders, and years later, he had no idea how to take it off.
Kyle started when he realized he had been staring at the photo for several minutes while lost in his own thoughts. He set it aside and, with a groan, hauled himself to his feet and headed toward the bathroom. A shower was definitely what he needed right now. He'd clean off the grime and sweat out a bit of the booze. Maybe after work he'd round up the kids and take them to a movie or something. Let them know that he was still there for them. Maybe even sit them down and-
A loud knock at the front door interrupted him. It was almost two-thirty in the morning. Who in the hell would be knocking at this hour? A few moments later, the knocking came again, solid blows that rattled the door in its frame.
Kyle opened a drawer in his bedside table and pulled out a small wooden box, setting it on the bed. He opened it, revealing a matte black pistol and a pair of clips resting on a foam cushion. He loaded a clip into the gun, notched the hammer, and pulled back the slide, injecting a round into the chamber. He had not fired a gun since his days in the service, but he always kept his in working order just in case.
The knocking resumed, less a heavy rapping than a pounding fist. Kyle peeked out the peephole in the door and saw a kid with a baseball cap, built like a football player and around Cassie's age standing there. He didn't look angry or upset, and Kyle sure as hell had never seen him before, which made why he was pounding on his door in the middle of the night all the more confusing.
Kyle undid the locks and cracked open the door just enough to peer around the corner, keeping the gun out of sight. The kid looked at him but didn't otherwise react.
"What the hell do you want?" Kyle demanded.
The kid continued looking at him, still as a statue for several moments before his face suddenly broke into a wide smile. "Yes, sir, I'm Zach. Cassie's boyfriend. Is she here?" he asked.
Boyfriend? First he's heard of it. "It's the middle of the night," Kyle replied.
Zach simply stood there, smiling at him without blinking. "Yes, it is. Is she here?" he finally asked.
Kyle answered carefully yet forcefully. "Whether she's here or not doesn't matter. It's the middle of the night, kid. Go home before I call the police."
The way Zach stood there, not moving a muscle until he seemed to come to alive as he spoke, struck Kyle as wrong somehow. Like he wasn't quite real. Behind the door, he brought the gun up beside his ear, slipping a finger through the guard.
"I understand," Zach finally replied. "It's just that she asked me to come over. Please. I really need to talk to her. Just for a minute."
"Kid, you've got until the count of three to get off my property before I make you regret it!"
Zach's smile seemed to pull itself downward as if by gravity. "She's not here, is she?"
"One!"
Zach's head turned to the side, as if listening to someone whispering beside him. "No. No, she's not."
"Two!"
A little bit of Zach's smile returned. "But she will be."
Kyle brought his arm down, leveling the gun straight at Zach's head. "Thr-!"
Before he could finish shouting, Zach's leg shot forward into the door, faster than Kyle could follow. Kyle was sent flying backwards as the impact tore a gap through the door like kindling and ripped it completely off its hinges. He slammed hard against the floor, the splintered remains of the door landing on top of him. Dazed, he crawled out from beneath the door and felt around for his gun. He found it, but before his could wrap his hand around the grip, a foot lashed out and kicked it free, sending it skidding into the kitchen and causing Kyle to scream as a cascade of pain shot up his arm.
Zach's hand reached down and grabbed Kyle by the throat, hauling him to his feet with impossible strength. He angled his arm upward, forcing Kyle to balance on his toes to avoid being strangled.
"What the hell do you want with my daughter?" Kyle growled, clutching at Zach's hand and trying to break his grip. It was no use; the fingers were rigid as marble.
Again, Zach's head turned to the side, listening to some unseen advisor. "She is to be my mate," he finally replied, turning back to face him.
"What?" Kyle asked, unable to ask anything further. His head still felt cloudy and he could feel a warm trickle tracing a path down the back of his neck. The edges of his vision were starting to go dim.
"I caught her scent," Zach continued. "She is ripe. She will bear us many fine young. When she returns and finds her father here and in danger, she will submit."
Kyle's vision began to turn red. He didn't know what the hell was going on, what this teenager got here in the middle of the night, or why he was so damn strong. Nothing about this whole thing was natural, but he didn't care.
This son of a bitch wanted to hurt his baby girl. That's all he needed to know.
It had been a long time since his Marine close combat drills, but he could still dredge up the basics. He dropped his left hand down and brought it up in a fist against the back side of Zach's elbow. It landed more solidly than he could have hoped. The elbow bent unnaturally backward and the grip around his neck suddenly ceased. Kyle resisted the urge to collapse to his knees and instead charged forward, pressing the advantage. Zach took a wild swing with his uninjured arm, but Kyle was already inside the arc. The grazing blow caught his shoulder like a lead weight, nearly knocking him away, but he pressed forward. An elbow strike caught Zach right on the nose and shattered it, sending streams of blood flying. Two more solid blows rocked Zach's head from side to side, and an uppercut against the tip of his chin sent him to the ground in a heap. Zach didn't move after that and Kyle finally let himself fall, gasping heavily and rubbing his bruised throat.
Barely moments later, though, Zach rolled his legs toward the air and then kicked them beneath himself, bring him to his feet in a single quick movement like a martial arts master.
"That was foolish," Zach told him, his voice and expression strangely neutral, oblivious to the blood running down his chin.
Kyle's eyed widened as he staggered to his feet. After all that, he should have been eating through straws for the next two months! He came forward again with a fist aimed at Zach's already-shattered nose, but this time he was ready for him. A forearm deflected his hand and Zach spun around, bringing up his leg and snapping it into Kyle's midsection. Kyle could feel the ribs snapping like twigs as he went sailing into the coffee table.
Before he could recover, Zach was on him, pulling him upwards by the hair with one hand. As he came up, though, Kyle had sense enough to drive an elbow backward as hard as he could, sending it straight into Zach's groin.
Zach grunted in what Kyle guessed was pain, but otherwise didn't flinch. However, he swung the arm holding Kyle's head around in a wide arc, sending him spiraling across the floor and ripping large chunks of hair free of his scalp. Kyle tried to pull himself to his feet, but his chest seemed squeezed from the inside. He gasped raggedly, unable to get enough air into his lungs.
Zach was there again, raining blows down on him. Kyle tried to fight back at first, even landing a blow into Zach's sternum that would have sent anyone else to their knees, but Zach barely moved and each fist he landed felt like a baseball bat. Before long all he could do was try and protect himself from the onslaught.
Finally, the pummeling ceased, and Kyle found himself on his knees, looking blearily upward as Zach cocked a fist back, ready to land the one blow he wouldn't survive.
"That's enough!" a voice shouted from the open doorway.
Kyle's head lolled toward the voice. Standing there was a long-haired man dressed in a long velvet jacket and waistcoat, like a wealthy mayor from an old western. But there was nothing western about the device he held in his hands. Large and metal, with sharp angles and speckled with multicolored lights, it didn't look like any gun Kyle had ever seen, but that's the image that came to mind. It looked violent, and the man pointed it directly at Zach's chest and looked ready to use it.
Zach glared at the stranger and sniffed deeply, a look of confusion crossing his features.
"Your scent isn't human," Zach remarked. "Who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor," the man replied. "And I know who you are. You're a Tenkrul reaching the end of its mating cycle. I can help you."
"You know nothing," Zach hissed, and to Kyle's ears there was anger in his voice for the first time.
"I know more than you think. This is a symbiotic deatomizer," he said, nodding toward the weapon in his hand. "I've programmed it to respond to a human genetic pattern. Meaning it will burn away every trace of foreign matter while leaving the human untouched."
"Now you have two choices," the Doctor continued. "You can come with me. I can remove you from the boy's body without killing him and revert you to your larval state. You'll be dormant, but alive. Or I can use this and destroy you completely. But I will not let you harm the boy or anybody else."
"I must breed," Zach said. Not taking his eyes off the Doctor, he hauled Kyle to his feet and positioned him in front of him as a shield. He was barely more than dead weight, but Zach easily held him upright. "It is all we know. I have done so already. But the offspring of this one..." he nodded toward Kyle. "Her scent sings to me. The young born from her will be most worthy."
"I know what you've already done," the Doctor said, stepping forward. "I've seen the results of your predation. I can't reverse the harm you've already done but I can stop it from being compounded."
"What do you mean?" Zach asked.
"The young woman from before. I found her still in that room. The harm had already been done. There wasn't much I could do other than cleanse the memories from her mind and halt her conception."
"You dare?" Zach's eyes narrowed.
"A small injection, nothing serious. A simple tincture designed to prevent pregnancy from taking hold. There will be no young for you from her." The Doctor's voice took a dangerous tone. "She was crying when I found her. She knew what she'd let happen but she didn't know why. Any other being in the universe and we wouldn't be having this conversation. But your species' entire purpose is to breed and propagate, it's in your nature. I can't fault you for that. That's why I'm giving you this one chance. Come with me and no harm will come to you."
Kyle could feel bruises and broken bones across his entire body, but his senses were slowly coming back to him. He coughed up a mass of bloody phlegm, struggling weakly against Zach's grip, but though he was barely half of Kyle's size, the forearm across his chest barely budged.
"Who are you?" Kyle wheezed. "Where's Cassie?"
"I just saw her. She's safe, believe me," the Doctor answered, taking another step forward and keeping his weapon's sight as near to Zach as he could manage.
"You will tell me where she is," Zach said, tightening his grip across Kyle's chest. "Tell me or the human dies."
"Kill him and you won't have time to regret it. Now put him down!"
Something rattled against the sliding glass door against the kitchen. In an instant, all eyes in the room snapped there to find the source.
"What is this, Doctor?" Zach hissed, suddenly agitated. "Some agent of yours? Some new treachery?"
"No one, it's no one. Now listen to me, it's not too late to stop this!"
"Dad?" a small voice echoed from outside. Footsteps dashed forward and an instant later Cassie ran in through the front doorway, eyes darting back and forth between Kyle and the Doctor. "Daddy!"
"Cassie, I told you to stay behind," the Doctor told her, not taking his eyes off the parasite and his hostage.
"Cassie," Zach whispered, closing his eyes and shuddering as if the name were ecstasy on his lips. His arms snapped from Kyle's chest to his throat. "Submit to me or the man dies!"
"Let him go!" Cassie shouted. She moved to step forward, but the Doctor held her back with one hand.
"Don't listen to him, Cass," Kyle rasped. "Run. Get out of here, now."
"I'm not leaving you, daddy!"
"This changes nothing," the Doctor warned Zach. "Your only ways out of here are with me or as a trail of atoms. Your choice."
"Submit or he dies!" Zach repeated, paying the Doctor no heed.
"Let him go!" she shouted.
"Cassie, stay back," the Doctor warned in a low voice.
"His fate lies with you," Zach said. His eyes snapped open. No longer human, they were each a swirling mass of green, laced with black veins leading to featureless black irises.
"You don't have much time left," the Doctor said. "Your host's physiology is starting to break down."
"I will have my young!" Zach replied. His hand tightened around Kyle's throat and he squeezed.
"No!" Cassie screamed.
"Last warning," the Doctor said.
A gunshot rang out. Zach yelled in pain, his hand dropping from Kyle's throat and letting him fall limp to the ground. He clutched his shoulder, a dripping mess of red and green spreading across his shirt beneath his hand. His head snapped to the side toward the source. Sammy was there, standing in the kitchen in front of the open sliding door and holding the pistol Kyle had lost earlier. There were tears in his eyes and his face was white with fear, but his hands were as steady as any veteran infantryman's.
Zach looked from Sammy back to the Doctor, still holding his weapon steady, and then to Cassie, who stood shocked at the unexpected sight of her brother. He must have been sneaking home after a night out with his friends and found the gun lying there. He looked down at his feet toward Kyle, who was clutching his sides in pain, but still managed to look up at him and smile smugly at Zach's own sudden wounds.
Screaming in pain and fury, Zach whirled and dashed at Cassie, arms outstretched. Before he could take two steps, though, the Doctor raised his weapon and fired. A red beam lanced out and caught Zach right in the chest. He stopped and grew rigid, his back arched as if his body were hooked on puppet strings. A red glow spread from the beam across his whole body as the beam continues to flow out of the device. Hundreds of tiny veins became visible even through skin and clothing, seemingly lit from within as if his heart pumped lava rather than blood. He screamed terribly until finally, the beam ceased and his strings were cut. He collapsed to the floor in a heap, wisps of acrid white smoke issuing from his body.
The Doctor set his weapon aside and crouched down beside Zach, putting fingers against his neck and wrist, checking for a pulse. Moments later, he nodded, satisfied.
"He'll be okay," he announced. "He'll wonder if anyone saw the license plate of the truck that hit him, but he should recover nicely." He sighed deeply, a twinge of regret crossing his features. He looked over to Sammy, who was still holding the gun steady at Zach's prone body.
"It's okay," the Doctor reassured him. "It's over."
Sammy hesitated for only a moment before setting the gun aside. He, along with Cassie, hurried over and knelt by their father's side. Kyle lay on his back staring upward, one arm clutching his side. He grimaced in pain every time he breathed, but he managed a weak smile as his children's faces came into view.
"Well," he rasped. "Aren't you two a sight for sore eyes?"
"Are you okay, dad?" Sammy asked, wiping a tear away with the back of his sleeve.
"Never better," Kyle reassured him. "You're grounded, by the way."
"Okay," Sammy replied, laughing and sniffling at the same time.
"I'm sorry, daddy," Cassie blurted. "This is all my fault!"
"How?" Kyle asked.
"I...I..." Cassie trailed off, unsure of how to answer.
Kyle chuckled, wincing as he did so. "That's just like you. Always taking the blame. Listen, sometimes bad things happen. They always will. But blaming yourself won't change anything. You just have to deal with it the best you can and move on." He closed his eyes. "Lord knows I haven't always done a good job of that."
"I've just called for an ambulance. They're on their way," the Doctor called from across the room. He walked over and crouched down next to Cassie, pulling a stethoscope from his jacket and placing it against Kyle's chest, instructing him to breathe deeply.
"Plenty of broken ribs," the Doctor concluded after a brief exam. "It doesn't look like there's any deep tissue damage, though."
"Who are you?" Kyle asked.
"John Smith," the Doctor answered. "I'm a substitute science teacher."
Kyle laughed, but was interrupted by a series of hacking coughs as he tried to speak. "Most...substitutes don't...show up in the middle of the night with lasers."
"I'm special like that," the Doctor replied solemnly. "Now try and relax. Those broken ribs could still do some damage if you strain yourself."
Minutes later, an ambulance pulled up to the house, lights and sirens blazing. The two paramedics quickly assessed Kyle's wounds and loaded both he and Zach into the back and took off. Sammy hopped in with his dad, but Cassie gave the Doctor a quick look before telling him that she'd be along in awhile. Sammy nodded at that before the paramedics packed everything up and drove off.
A police car arrived moments later (why one hadn't shown up until now was probably a symptom of neighbors wanting to ignore the racket, thought the Doctor), wanting to find out what was going on. The Doctor flashed him the same black billfold Cassie saw earlier and introduced himself as 'Special Agent Smith'. He calmly explained that a pair of gang members had broken into the home and savagely beaten Kyle Jacobs, the house's owner, presumably to rob him. Then Zach had arrived, looking for Cassie wanting to talk about their relationship. Seeing Mr. Jacobs in danger, he leaped into action and beat the two men off of him, chasing them out the door, but not before he was shot through the shoulder with Kyle's own gun. Both Cassie and her brother had arrived home just in time to see the two suspects fleeing the scene. The officer then asked Cassie if that was all true, to which she nodded yes, that's what had happened. The officer, who had been taking notes and examining the room all the while, explained that it was possible she and her brother would be called in later to give a statement, but it didn't seem likely given the circumstances. He asked if 'Agent Smith' had gotten a description of the two suspects, and the Doctor smoothly interjected with a dead-to-rights profile of two of the men Cassie saw gathered around their Cadillac every morning. She gave a small grin and didn't say anything when the Doctor surreptitiously turned and winked at her.
The officer finished by taking a few pictures of the broken door and scattered furniture, telling them that a full team would be arriving shortly for a more thorough analysis. Checking in on the radio attached to his belt, he told them that both Kyle and Zach had been checked in to County General and should be available for visitors at any time, adding that it'd probably be a good idea to spend the rest of the night there while the investigation crew did their work. Looking at the splintered plank of the door, he added that they'd likely bring along a temporary ply board replacement until the family got a chance to replace it. With that, he got into his squad car and headed off.
"Now, I thought I told you to stay behind," the Doctor remarked after the policeman had left.
"You said my dad was in danger, and he was. I couldn't just stay back not knowing what was going on," Cassie replied.
"I suppose I can understand that. What about your friend?" the Doctor asked.
"She tried to talk me out of it. But after she saw my mind was made up, she wanted to come with me."
"Sensible girl. Why didn't she?"
Cassie shrugged. "Too busy trying to decide whether to go out without letting her parents know. I didn't want to wait for her. Knowing her, though, she should be here any..." she was cut off by the sound of rushing footsteps coming up the stoop and bursting through the doorway.
"Cassie!" Kendra shouted, looking around the tattered room before seeing her friend and rushing across the room to embrace her. "What happened? Your dad, Sammy, are they-"
"They'll be fine. Dad was hurt, but he and Sammy are at the hospital right now." Cassie went on to explain what had happened. "The Doctor saved us."
"Just glad to be of help," the Doctor replied with a bit too much modesty. "I've already investigated and there aren't any more Tenkrul to be found. I hope you won't be too hard on Zach when he wakes up. I doubt he'll have any memory of the last couple days and he had no control over what he was doing."
"We know," Cassie reassured him. "But still, it'll be kind of weird for awhile."
"I suppose that's understandable. Still, now that every thing's in hand, I probably should be-"
"Wait," Kendra interrupted. "You never did tell us who you are."
"I thought I already did," the Doctor replied, amused. "I'm the Doctor."
"That's a title, though, not a name," Cassie said. "Okay, let's try this. Are you human?"
"No," the Doctor hesitated only a moment before replying. "You don't seem too surprised."
"Well, it's been a weird couple days," Cassie answered.
"Sooo are you a Martian, or...?" Kendra haltingly asked.
The Doctor laughed. "No, the Martians have been extinct for thousands of years," he replied, ignoring the suddenly widened eyes of his audience. "My people are called the Time Lords. We travel through time and space."
"You look human, though," Cassie idly remarked.
"No, you look Time Lord," the Doctor replied. "We were here first."
"So, do you have a time machine?" Kendra asked.
"Of course I do. Can't very well travel through time without one."
"Can we see it?" Kendra smiled up at him coquettishly.
The Doctor shrugged. "I don't see why not."
A few minutes later, a black police van pulled up to the house. A half dozen officers emerged from the back, carrying heavy cases of equipment with which to measure and analyze everything that had happened. After flashing his billfold to the lead investigator, the Doctor guided the two girls onto the sidewalk and down the road.
"What's that piece of paper you have?" Cassie asked as they walked. "Some kind of fake i.d.?"
"Something like that," the Doctor replied. "It's called psychic paper. When I use it, it displays any sort of identification I can think of. To whomever is looking at it, it looks perfectly legitimate and accurate. Here, try it."
He handed the billfold over to Cassie. She closed her eyes with a look of intense concentration before flipping it open. "How's that?"
"Well," the Doctor answered, lips twitching. "It's not bad for a first try."
"'Cassandra Jacobs'", Kendra read off, taking a peek. "'Licensed psychotic.' I didn't know they had those."
"Psychotic?" Cassie exclaimed, flipping the billfold around to see for herself. "It was supposed to say psychiatrist!"
"Like I said, not bad for a first try," the Doctor said, taking back the billfold. "Ah, here we are."
They had only walked a few blocks, Cassie noted, and were looking down a long alleyway. She looked and saw a few dumpsters, a wooden phone booth, some fire escapes crawling up the walls, and other assorted junk; certainly nothing that looked like a time machine.
"I don't see it," Cassie said while Kendra nodded in agreement.
"It's right here," the Doctor told them. "It's under a perception filter at the moment. Think of it as your first test. Don't try to find it. Just relax your eyes a bit and see if it jumps out at you. Off you go," he said, gesturing down the alley.
Cassie and Kendra took a few tentative steps forward. Kendra edged out ahead of her, looking in all directions while Cassie lingered by the entrance. It should be easy, she thought. Just look for the thing that doesn't belong. Well, you find dumpsters in an alley, that's for sure. Phone booths, also, and fire escapes weren't exactly out of place.
She shook her head and tried again, looking at the details. The dumpsters were a drab green, with patches of rust. The fire escapes were in decent shape. There were stacked wooden crates outside the stores' rear entrances, weathered and splintered. She looked back at the Doctor, who nodded and waved at her to keep looking. She didn't see a time machine, but she caught the grin on his face just fine.
Kendra was about twenty feet in front of her, moving forward slowly while her head swiveled back and forth. She was wearing a white goose-down jacket and black jeans, and Cassie smirked at the thought of Kendra managing to look fashionable even when she must have been on a rush out the door. The light from inside the phone booth reflected the booth's bright blue coating onto her jacket, seeming to paint it in pale turquoise. It was a huge phone booth, too, close to four feet across on one side and at least eight feet tall.
Cassie stepped forward as if in a dream, ignoring the insistent thoughts in her head that she was wrong, to look somewhere else. She tried again to look for details. A phone booth should have phone lines, but there weren't any coming down from above, nor from the building it stood next to. It was lit from the inside, as were the letters along the top, spelling out 'Police Box' on all four sides, but again there were no wires to power it. Finally, she stood in front of the doors and raised her hand, holding it there for several seconds before swinging it forward, hesitantly, as if the phone booth would vanish in a cloud of smoke if she disturbed it. But her palm smacked against the door and it felt comfortingly real. It was warm against her hand, and she looked back at the Doctor and smiled, knowing she had gotten it right.
"Very good," the Doctor congratulated her, coming up beside her along with Kendra, who looked slightly disappointed that she wasn't the first to catch it.
"Why does it look like a phone booth?" Kendra asked.
"Why, don't you like it?" the Doctor replied.
"No, no, it's fine," Kendra reassured him. "It's just...well, it looks like a phone booth."
"It's part of the chameleon circuitry," the Doctor explained. "It lets it blend in to the surroundings. Now, how about a look inside?"
"It's kind of small, isn't it?" Kendra remarked dubiously. Cassie slapped her in the side.
"Well, as they say, size isn't everything." The Doctor grinned. "And I make very good use of what I have."
The Doctor eased open the door and gestured for them to step inside. Cassie looked past the threshold and her eyes widened. It was enormous! She could see an entire spacious room crammed inside. She stepped back, trying to get a better perspective, almost certain that it had to be some kind of optical illusion. She took a few steps from side to side while peering through the doorway, but the view changed accordingly. As she did so, Kendra made a complete circuit around the booth, as if the room inside it were somehow hiding behind a curtain.
"It's...it's bigger on the inside," Cassie said, amazed.
"It gets even better once you take a look around," the Doctor told her, stepping inside and gesturing for them to follow.
Slowly, carefully, Cassie stood at the door and raised her leg, easing it across the threshold before setting it down and scampering inside. She looked behind her and saw Kendra closing her eyes and taking a little hop through the door as if jumping into a swimming pool. They were standing at the head of a short flight of stairs, which they slowly descended as they began to look around.
The room was even larger than it appeared at first glance. It had the look of a castle or cathedral, with stone walls and scattered candles resting on iron stands. The wooden floors were a rich, deep red, polished and waxed to a mirror sheen. In the middle of the room, a step led to an elevated circular platform, upon which sat a large metal console. It was formed in the shape of a hexagon, with each of the panels covered in dozens of switches, buttons, levers, and other controls. A polished wood veneer, combined with the metal fixtures and a scattering of multicolored lights made it a beautiful sight. Jutting from the center of the console was a large hollow glass cylinder that stretched several feet into the air. As Cassie looked closer, she could see two arrays of posts and slots inside the cylinder and seemed as though they'd fit together in an intricate pattern.
The platform the console rested on was bordered by four metal pillars, formed with intricate latticework, that stretched from floor to ceiling. Just a few feet away, she saw a large overstuffed leather chair and footrest upon a large Persian rug. There was a small table beside the chair, stacked with a handful of books and an empty teacup and saucer, the whole setup resting in front of a massive stone fireplace, already lit with a large fire that crackled and snapped comfortingly. As she looked further, she saw other furniture in the room, all beautifully crafted and probably more expensive than anything she'd ever owned: A large table cluttered with binoculars and other random objects, including an old-fashioned record player. A large desk stood far against the corner, complete with a crystal inkwell and an honest-to-god quill pen. And a small stand with a slightly oversized chess board and matching pieces, all made of polished wood and inlaid with gold leaf and small gems to accent certain features.
All around the room, tall bookshelves lined the walls. Some were in English, but many others were in other languages she did not know or had never seen before. Almost all of them seemed old, with thick leather covers and inlaid titles on the spine, the kind of books she would expect to be kept behind a glass case on display somewhere. But Cassie could see the wear on many of them, proof that they had been read and examined many times before. Assorted small statues, glass-and-crystal figures, and other trinkets also lined the shelves. In between and above the bookshelves were several large oil paintings, mostly landscapes but there were also a small number of portraits.
Back behind her, near the door where she entered, was an enormous grandfather clock, nearly eight feet tall, made of dark wood so well polished it almost seemed obsidian, and built with brass and gold fittings and a frosted glass panel. Off to the side, a large stone staircase led downward to a set of heavy oak doors, and at the far end of the room was another open door leading to a long hallway.
"It's called the TARDIS," the Doctor explained as the girls continued to explore. "It stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It lets me travel to any time and any place. Anywhere and any when."
"What do you do, though?" Cassie asked. "Is it part of your job?"
"My people aren't the most outgoing civilization. Every so often they'll travel to some distant planet or time period to study events but it's all very stodgy and academic to them. Treating people as if they weren't quite real." The Doctor shrugged. "I like to be a bit more hands on, you could say. I get to go where I want and help out when I can."
The more Cassie looked around, the more comfortable the whole place seemed. What was at first an overwhelming cathedral now seemed almost intimate. She could see how the Doctor would be at home in a place like this. A place that, like himself, seemed to blend science and history together.
"So where would you like to go first?" the Doctor asked suddenly.
"Wait, what do you mean?" Kendra asked.
"I mean by way of an apology. I know you've both been through a difficult time the past couple of days and I'd like to make it up to you," he replied, walking around the console and dialing at the controls. "Just a quick sightseeing tour. Is there anything you've ever wanted to see but never thought you could? Now's your chance."
"I don't know if we should," Kendra said. "I mean, I just wanted to look around. I didn't plan on actually going anywhere."
"That's a bit like climbing up to a diving board and not jumping, isn't it?" the Doctor teased. "Just one trip that I promise will change your life."
"I dunno. I think I should be getting home. I'm probably grounded for life as it is," Kendra protested, the excuse sounding weak even to her own ears.
"We're in a time machine," Cassie chided her. "We can get home five minutes ago. Right, Doctor?"
"Absolutely. With a little effort, I can get you back before you even left," the Doctor confirmed.
"Okay," Kendra finally relented. "I guess one trip'll be okay."
"Splendid!" the Doctor exclaimed. "So, any thoughts on where you'd like to go?"
He looked back and forth at the two girls, who both shook their heads mutely, too overwhelmed at the sheer amount of possibilities to begin narrowing it down.
The Doctor thought for a moment before snapping his fingers.
"Perfect," he said. "I know just the place."
Smiling excitedly at them, he threw back a lever. A mechanical groaning and wheezing sound filled the air as the ground lurched violently beneath their feet.