Chapter 28 – Aliens!
The Doctor limped out of the TARDIS on a crutch, straight into a crowd of Judoon pointing guns at him. Rose came up behind him, making sure the TARDIS door was firmly closed before she subtly took his hand, squeezing it.
"Doctor!" a voice suddenly said, and the woman they had come to see only in their nightmares stepped forward, gazing at the Doctor in confusion. "I didn't expect to see you here again."
The Doctor squeezed Rose's hand in return, then let go and moved forward. "No, neither did I," he replied strongly. "But I'm afraid we have a problem."
"And what might that be?"
"Earth, it needs to be downgraded back to a level five."
She scoffed at that. "I'm afraid the legislations we have in place do not permit the downgrading of planets..."
"Well, then make one," the Doctor replied calmly, but Rose could hear the rising edge of anger in his voice. She could feel him through the bond. He was so angry... "Your little illegal direct contact stint last year and your upgrading of the planet has had a catastrophic effect on the humans, who are now scared of aliens and treating them with hostility. It's horrendous there. I'm about to go back and rescue a load of aliens who have fallen into the trap."
"It is not possible."
"Do you want more blood on your hands?" the Doctor grated. "The humans are interrogating and executing innocent life-forms, shooting down service ships and intercepting military transports to find them. This needs to stop, and it needs to stop now."
"Well, Doctor, I'm sure if you prepared a paper and presented it to the court then we could consider..."
"I'm not spending one minute more in here than I have to. Downgrade it."
"Doctor, we are truly sorry for any inconvenience caused from your arrest last year..."
"Inconvenience?" the Doctor spat, moving forward so he was inches away from her, spitting in her face. The barrels of the Judoon guns followed him. "You call an illegal arrest, illegal captivity, the abuse of basic rights, two months of high level torture, the testing of a minor, the illegal acceleration of offspring in natural incubation and the attempted execution of two innocent people an inconvenience?"
The woman cleared her throat, looking at the floor, uncomfortable. "We regret the..."
"I don't even want to hear it!" the Doctor yelled at her, so angrily one of the Judoon made to grab his arm but he wrenched it away, glaring at the Judoon with his eyes so on fire Rose thought the Judoon would turn to ash where he stood. "Don't touch me!"
"I am sorry, Doctor, but we simply cannot consider..."
"I know why you did it," the Doctor suddenly interrupted in a low voice, so low Rose was struggling to hear. "I know why you're terrified of my children, and the future can go one of two ways, as far as I can see."
"Are you blackmailing me?" she asked incredulously.
"No!" the Doctor shouted in a rude tone that implied she was the biggest idiot he had ever talked to in his life. "I'm saying that you are in a very difficult position, Mrs. Proclamation. I have no intention of seeing that future happen and I know you don't either. So maybe you should start doing what I say and perhaps I'll be able to save your scrawny lives and your little corrupt organisation."
The woman stood there motionless for a moment, staring at him.
"Besides," the Doctor continued. "If you don't lower it again, I will find a way to lower it myself." His voice suddenly dropped even lower, staring into her eyes unblinkingly as he spat the next sentence out of his mouth, punctuating every syllable as though he were hammering a nail into her head. "What-ev-er it-takes."
He gazed at her, waiting for a reply.
"... We will downgrade Earth to level five," she muttered.
"Thank you," the Doctor replied, then simply turned, took Rose's hand again and went back into the TARDIS.
Rose breathed out a sigh of relief as she closed the door behind her, the TARDIS churning into life at her bonded partner's touch. "God, you're scary when you want to be."
"I'm not God," he replied, a grin spreading onto his face.
"Well, you're pretty close," she pointed out.
His grin widened even more at that, before the TARDIS landed with a thunk.
"Let's go save a few lives and then have dinner," the Doctor said, smiling at her.
"Sounds like a plan," she told him. "Chinese?"
He shrugged, indifferent. "I'll have what you're having."
She beamed, linking her arm in his and he limped to the door, pulling it open to look out.
They emerged outside a warehouse, the area around them dark and silent. They edged out, the both of them regarding the warehouse looming over them, menacing in the night.
Rose closed the TARDIS door behind them, and they began to walk slowly towards the giant doors. The Doctor brought out the sonic and buzzed it over the control panel, the device beeping politely and turning green. There was a loud clunk, the hiss of hydraulics, and the doors began to open.
The Doctor and Rose's jaws simultaneously dropped.
The warehouse was partitioned off into several sections of prison cells. All of them were absolutely packed to the brim with aliens standing in absolute silence, staring at the Doctor and Rose with slight trepidation. There had to be at least 500 of them...
Then suddenly a voice yelled, "Doctor! Oh, I totally knew you'd come!"
The Doctor blinked in surprise, limping in and looking around the cells for the source of the voice.
"'Scuse! 'Scuse! 'Scuse!" the voice yelled, pushing past people until they finally got to the front of the cell, and the Doctor turned his head to see Yash standing there, his face gleeful and pressed up against the bars.
"Yash?" the Doctor gaped. "What are you doing here... No, wait, not time. Everyone out!"
He reached up and buzzed the lock with the sonic screwdriver. It sprang open instantly and he pulled back the door.
"Okay, everyone, please follow Rose and she'll take you into the TARDIS, then once we're all in I'll drop you home," he instructed carefully to them.
"Yessir!" Yash exclaimed excitedly.
"Quietly!" the Doctor said quickly.
They began to file out of the cell as quietly as they could, moving to Rose who nodded at the Doctor before turning and leading them back to the TARDIS. Yash darted out of the line to join the Doctor, hopping excitedly from foot to foot.
"Thanks for coming when I called!" he told the Doctor happily as they moved to the next cell.
The Doctor blinked. He'd called? "Umm... sure. Why are you on Earth?" he asked the young alien seriously, buzzing the door and pulling it open, though held up a hand to stop the people from filing out just yet, watching the other line.
"I, like, heard Earth was a level six now I thought, 'hey I'm totally going there!' so I just packed up and caught the flight!" Yash told the Doctor excitedly. "What is this place, anyway? I was sitting in this café, like, totally minding my own business and suddenly this random woman started screaming and next thing I knew I was here! Is this what humans call a 'hotel'? Cos I think it is!"
"Err, no, Yash," the Doctor replied shortly, and gestured for the crowd to start moving and join the back of the other line before moving to the next cell. "There's a political Earth group who are anti-alien, the Earth has been downgraded back to a level five now so once I drop you back home can you spread the word that no one should come to..." He trailed off, pausing in unlocking the next cell at Yash's expression. "What?"
"Umm, I can't really go back," Yash admitted ruefully.
"What? Why?"
"Well, I didn't just pack up and leave, you know? I packed up, told Mum everything I thought about her, got a taxipod to the space-port and ran without paying, dodged the security and hid in the cargo deck to the Sol galaxy station, then security got me so I outsmarted them like you would and pegged it to the Earth flight dock, slid under the door when it was closing and hid in the toilet all flight. I'm kinda on a wanted list! Funny, huh?" Yash said, smiling smally.
"Oh, Yash," the Doctor sighed, letting out the next cell of people.
"But it's okay!" Yash said, enthused. "Cos I'm staying here! I've got some Earth money, I can get a house, I'll stay indoors or something!"
The Doctor looked at Yash, and he let out the final cell of people. "How much earth money do you have?"
"I have..." he dug into his pocket and drew out some coins, handing them to the Doctor. "This!"
The Doctor gazed at the three 10 krona coins in his hand, totalling 30 krona. He frowned a little, and Yash caught this.
"That's... not good?" Yash asked quietly, his face dropping slightly.
The Doctor looked up at him again. "Yash... this is Swedish currency, and you're in England. This is about 2.80 in pound sterling."
"... How much is a house?" Yash wondered.
The Doctor paused, pursing his lips for a moment. "... Quite a lot more."
"Oh," Yash muttered, and suddenly the Doctor saw Yash do something Yash had never done before. He looked sad.
"Hey," the Doctor said quickly, hand on his shoulder. "As I see it, you've got two options. Either I take you home or you stay here, what's it gonna be?"
"I wanna stay here," Yash said smally.
"Then you're staying," the Doctor told him.
"But I don't have any money or anything and I'm an alien," Yash said sadly.
"What's money? It's nothing. I can get you a house. I can get you a rechargeable morphic box too, we just need to find you a job... What are you good at?"
"Umm..." Yash said, suddenly perking up again. "Err..."
"Wait," the Doctor said quickly. "Those drawings of me in your room. Did you do those?"
Yash nodded. "Why?"
"Why not be an artist? Or a cartoonist?"
"... People have jobs about drawing on Earth?" Yash asked, utterly dumbfounded.
"Yep," the Doctor replied.
"I love this planet!" Yash enthused, and launched forward to hug the Doctor tightly. The Doctor stumbled slightly in surprise, before finally hugging Yash in return.
"Now, come on, help me get these people back to their rightful planets and then I can sort you out," the Doctor said with a grin, letting go of Yash and following the last of the 500-strong crowd out of the door. It was going to be a long afternoon.
They were just getting the last of the aliens into the TARDIS, when suddenly there was a shout from outside the warehouse gates. The Doctor looked up to find several people armed with guns yelling and beckoning others.
"Everyone get in!" the Doctor urged, pushing the last of them inside the TARDIS doors and making to follow, but suddenly there was a gunshot and a bullet ricocheted off of the TARDIS exterior.
He yelped and stumbled away, putting his arm in the air as suddenly him and the TARDIS were surrounded by men with guns. "Please don't shoot my TARDIS," he said seriously.
"Your what? Boss!" one of the guards yelled, and a man in a black suit stepped through the crowd to regard the Doctor. The Doctor frowned slightly... he recognised that face. This was Alex Grimshaw, the party leader of anti-alien political group.
To his completely surprise, Alex Grimshaw seemed to be frowning at him too.
"You're that crazy Scottish man, aren't you?" Grimshaw asked.
"You're Alex Grimshaw," the Doctor said simply. "You shot down Friz and Rix?"
"What and what?" Grimshaw asked seriously, stepping forward slightly towards the Doctor, closing to a two metre gap between them.
"The two living sentient beings that were only here on a pest control job before their utterly defenceless and weaponless ship was shot down... by you," the Doctor grated.
"You took my aliens from me!" Grimshaw realised, suddenly very angry.
"Your aliens?" the Doctor said, gaping in disbelief.
"I shot them down, they belong to me, where are they?"
"Belong to you?" the Doctor couldn't believe he was hearing this. "Nobody owns them!"
"Where are they?" Grimshaw spat.
"I took them back to their home planet," the Doctor replied shortly.
Grimshaw stared at him for a moment, considering the bony tall man standing in front of him, one hand in the air and the other leaning on a crutch. "You look human," he muttered.
"Funny, that," the Doctor replied, nonchalant.
"You're an alien."
"We catch on fast, don't we?"
Grimshaw turned back to his guards, and gestured to the Doctor. "Take this alien and this..." His eyes moved to the TARDIS, and he frowned a little. "... 1960's police box to confinement!"
"Doctor?" a voice suddenly came from the TARDIS doorway, interrupting any move the guards may have made.
"Another one!" Grimshaw scoffed, staring at Rose with utter malice.
"Rose, get back inside," the Doctor told her sternly.
Of course she wasn't going to. "Another what?" she wondered, looking at Grimshaw. "... Oh! You're that xenophobe racist politics guy."
"I'm afraid I don't take notice of cheap insults from aliens," Grimshaw drawled.
"Alien?" Rose asked, scoffing with laughter. "I was born on this planet to a very human mum and dad, thanks very much."
Grimshaw blinked slightly, surprised. He looked between her and the alien, standing there close together...
Rose looked at his face, and laughed a little more. "My god, you just can't get that concept can you? Me and this alien here," she said, gesturing to the Doctor who was staring at her with a slight sense of trepidation. "Me and him, we're married in his planet's law, and we're engaged and going to marry in three weeks here on Earth."
"You're married to it?" Grimshaw gasped, not quite sure how to process this.
"We've got two children, too," she continued, smiling broadly. The Doctor could see she was quite clearly enjoying this. "Leah, she's 4, and... oh, our seven-month-old, Alex. That's your name, isn't it?"
"... You've had sex with it?" Grimshaw practically shrieked.
"That's usually how you get babies, isn't it?" she replied, slightly sarcastically.
"This... This is disgusting!" Grimshaw gasped, eyes wide in horror. "This is interbreeding!"
"This is your future," the Doctor told him seriously. "The future of your planet. I wouldn't try to fight it. In roughly seventy years the first legal multi-species wedding will take place in Westminster Abbey. Because it'll be the King wedding a nice young Linian woman called Girkila. Linians have shimmering skin that changes with their mood. It's quite pretty, really."
"What?"
"I am a time-travelling alien, Mr Grimshaw," the Doctor said politely.
"You're lying," Grimshaw said quickly, his eyes still as wide as dinner plates.
"Well, if you don't want to believe me, that's your loss. I'm going to give you a little peek at the future here, which technically I shouldn't really be doing, Laws of Time and all that," he said with a shrug, arm still in the air. "But I'll dare say a few aliens have met a few humans already. You'll start seeing the children of that in about ten years. Then of course, that starts an uproar about interspecies pregnancies and the legal rights of the children who technically don't legally exist, so an entirely new law book has to be written. Then there's a bit of a trying time with back house abortions, segregation and illegal marriages with Gretna Green making a roaring comeback, but eventually all the alien child rights groups start up their charity concerts and they get equal rights. Everything gets signed in the year 2085 and three minutes later the King, and Girkila, the Linian, get married.
"Then everything changes, Mr Grimshaw. By the year 2400 planet Earth has intergalactic transport connections to all the major space-ports and the humans have spread out right across the stars, interbreeding with many, many other species. There are so many interspecies and half-species and eighths of species of children running around that racism becomes pretty much impossible. Imagine that, Mr Grimshaw. A world without racism. Without prejudice. Where the human race actually treat each other as humans. And you know what else? Your descendants will look on you as an inferior, stupid race only found in the history books, such as you might look on yours. That is all there is to it. I've seen the future, Mr Grimshaw. And you're not in it."
Grimshaw looked very pale indeed.
"If you still want to kill me, then go ahead. Or maybe you'll want to devote your time to something a little less on the murderous sycophantic xenophobic side of things," the Doctor suggested casually.
There was a very long pause.
"Sir..." a guard suddenly said from the side, a little nervous. Grimshaw didn't even him, so the guard just placed his gun on the floor. "I... I resign."
"Me too," another one said, putting down his gun also. Then suddenly they were all putting their guns to the floor, stepping back away from Grimshaw.
Grimshaw didn't even looked at them, just staring at the Doctor. "... What should I do?" he asked anxiously. "How can I be in the future?"
"You want to be in the future?" the Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow. "What you do, is you get rid of your anti-alien party. Then you do everything you can to help the cross-breeders, campaigning for change for your entire life. And maybe, if you're good, it might all happen a bit quicker."
Grimshaw gazed at him for a moment longer, then nodded eagerly. "Yes... I will."
The Doctor nodded courteously, finally lowering his hand and taking Rose's. "Good luck, Mr Grimshaw," he said, and turned back to the TARDIS door.
"Wait!" Grimshaw said quickly, and the Doctor turned back. "What's your name?"
"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said. "I am a Time Lord Gallifreyan from the constellation of Kasterborous."
Grimshaw nodded, and for the first time the Doctor saw him smile. Then he turned, and ran back towards the gate.
"Alex Grimshaw, thought I recognised the name," the Doctor admitted as he reached out to rest a hand on the TARDIS door handle. "Key campaigner for the alien rights movement. Really changes the course of history, everything speeds up by about 40 years. Oh, and I'm in his legendary 'I have a dream' speech of 2043..."
Rose giggled at that. "But he seemed to change when he thought he wasn't gonna be famous in the future. Does he do it for the glory or the reward?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Who knows? But all that matters is that he does it. Plus there's no one to fuel the fire of scaremongering the human race anymore. Everything will happen as it will happen and there's no one to prevent that future now." He looked at the TARDIS door he was still resting his hand on, and sighed. "Time to taxi 500 people," he muttered, completely unexcited at the prospect.
She giggled. "Hey, it's the last one. Then we'll go get chinese."
He grinned in return, pushed the door inwards, and they stepped inside.