A/N: This adventure is from the BBC New Adventures book, Apollo 23, by Justin Richards. Lines of dialogue and description have been copied out just as they are in the book for authenticity's sake, but I took liberties with some descriptive parts and 'he said, she said' parts. I do not own Apollo 23 by Justin Richards.
Alex's outfit for this chapter can be found on my Tumblr, under the name 'darksideofparis'.
The Doctor poked his head out the TARDIS doors, looking around in interest at the parked cars in the parking lot they had landed in. Overhead, the sky was gray and the air was cold. He blinked some of the oncoming drizzle out of one eye before flicking his head to get his damp hair out of the other. He then straightened his bowtie and pulled his crumpled tweed jacket into a semblance of order. Piloting the TARDIS was serious work. Too bad his clothes often got wrecked while doing it.
"Great," Amy groaned as she stepped out behind him. The cool breeze ruffled around her hair as she said, "The Planet Car-Park, one of the most glamorous locations in the Asphalt Galaxy."
The Doctor nodded in agreement. "Though actually, it could be Earth. Britain at an expert guess."
"You got that from the car number plates," Amy accused.
"No, from the weather," the Doctor corrected. He held out his hand to allow the light rain to moisten it. "Look at that."
"I do recognize rain," Amy told him. "I'm Scottish, remember?"
"What?!" a distinct Southern-accented voice cried out. A second later, Alex came scrambling out. She groaned. "Oh man!" She immediately reached for the pink knit sweater tied around her waist. "Why couldn't you land us somewhere warm?" she glared at the Doctor as she tugged the sweater on over her purple tank-top.
Amy laughed. "You cold, Alex?"
Alex only glared at her. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to wear a tank top and white shorts today. She had paired the revealing outfit with brown mid-calf boots, hoop earrings, and a studded owl necklace. "It's not my fault you Brits have such limiting weather! When's the last time we had a sunny day here?"
Amy ignored her. Alex had complained many times about the weather in the past and it was nothing new to her. Instead, she fished around in her skirt pocket. "Got any money?" she asked the Doctor.
"Tons."
"I mean money money," Amy clarified as Alex snorted beside her. "Like change. For the machine." The Doctor only stared at her. Amy sighed and dug even deeper into her pocket. "Never mind," she said, producing a pound coin and a few ten pence pieces.
The Doctor watched with interest as she fed them into a ticket machine next to them and then pressed a big green button. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"Ticket," Alex answered for Amy. At that moment, the ticket in question printed out and dropped into a little slot at the bottom of the machine.
"It's pay and display," Amy added.
The Doctor frowned. "Display what?"
"The ticket." Amy grabbed the ticket before ducking back inside the TARDIS and sticking it inside the bottom of one of the windows in the door. Alex giggled a little at the thought of the TARDIS, a futuristic time machine, needing a parking ticket.
"We're staying then?" the Doctor asked as she came back out and shut the doors.
"Only for a couple of hours," Amy answered. "That's all I could afford."
"And what are we doing?"
Amy grabbed Alex, sticking her arm through the crook of Alex's. The two led the way towards a large building at the end of the parking lot that seemed to have been thrown together from glass and concrete. "Shopping," they smiled together.
The Doctor groaned and wrinkled his nose. Nevertheless, he followed along after them. "The whole universe," he bemoaned as they entered the mall. "All of time and space. From the creation of Bandrazzle Maxima to the heat-death of Far-Begone."
"Sounds painful," Alex lowly quipped to Amy, who snickered as the Doctor went on, oblivious.
". . .from the tip of Edgewaze to the Bakov Beyonned . . . and you two want to go shopping."
A little old lady with a walking stick went past them, pausing to turn and look at the Doctor suspiciously. The Doctor merely grinned at her and said, "Hello." She quickly moved on.
"Nothing wrong with a bit of shop," Amy called back, not seeing the exchange. "It's got to be done. Besides, Alex got to go shopping."
The Doctor groaned, remembering Alex's shopping trip a few days ago when they were staying at Craig's. "So that's it, isn't it?" he realized.
Amy rolled her eyes. She knew Alex was the Doctor's favorite companion and that was fine with her. She just wanted some equal treatment now and then. Alex, not wanting to get into a discussion on how she was doted on more than Amy, quickly intervened. "If it makes you feel any better, we can have lunch too." She pointed up to a clock mounted on a wall nearby.
"Lunch?" The Doctor sucked in his cheeks and stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. "Well, that's alright then. I haven't had lunch for centuries."
~Living the Life of Ally~
A few minutes later, they were in a small Italian restaurant on the first floor, completely decorated with red and green accents. Amy chose a table close to the large window overlooking a small park with a bandstand in the center. The table also allowed the three to look down to the ground floor below where people were queuing for burgers and other fast food.
The Doctor inspected the plastic menu that had been propped up between the salt and pepper shakers. He pretended to study the daily specials, but was really more aware of Alex, sitting in the chair on his left, leaning over to look at it, too. Her hair was tickling his jacket and her arm was touching his. He longed to separate the distance his clothing provided from his skin touching hers.
He mentally shook his head. No! He couldn't think things like that! In an attempt to break the silence, he wondered aloud, "Do they come to us or do we have to go to them? I can't see milk mentioned."
"They must have it for the coffee," Amy mused, studying the other side of the menu. "Unless they use those little pots."
"I bet they use those little pots." The Doctor leaned back in his chair, tilting it back the way Alex had always been told not to, his fingers lacing together behind his head. "Do they come to us or do we go to them?" he asked loudly. "To order, I mean?"
It took the girls a second to realize he wasn't talking to them, but actually to the man at the table behind him. Alex turned around in her seat to study him. The man, wearing a dark, crumpled suit, appeared to be about fifty years old with graying hair.
Getting no answer, the Doctor somehow managed to turn the chair, pivoting it on one leg so he was sitting facing the man across his table. Alex had the suspicion he'd done something like that before.
"Oh, sorry," the man said, noticing him. "Yes, they come to you. Well, they came to me. But maybe I'm special."
"Everyone's special," the Doctor told him. "Look at Amy and Alex, they're really special." However, since he was looking at Alex as he said this, everyone felt that the statement had really been geared towards her. The Doctor stuck his hand out. "And I'm the Doctor."
The man politely half-stood as they shook hands. "Me too."
The Doctor's brow creased into a slight frown. "Small universe." He then nodded at the man's plate of pasta. "You're not eating much. Is the food here rubbish, then?"
"No, no. It's very good." The man poked at the food with his fork. "But I do find death rather spoils my appetite."
The Doctor sighed in agreement. "I know the feeling. Mind you, I haven't died for months. Quite hungry afterwards, I find." He swung the chair back to face the girls. "Probably means he's a vegetarian or something. Bit of a weird way of saying it."
Alex frowned. That had not been what the man meant at all. She quickly stood, swinging around the table to sit in the spare chair at the man's table. Amy followed a beat later, standing behind her. "You said 'me too'," Alex observed. "Do you mean you're a doctor?"
"Yes," the man confirmed. "Well, pathologist, actually. Gyles Winterbourne."
The Doctor spun back again. "Ah, hence the death," he realized.
Dr. Winterbourne turned to face the large window beside them. "This probably wasn't the best place to sit," he admitted. "The poor chap died down there, in the park."
"Accident?" Amy asked. She glanced down to see several policemen standing around along with a small group of curious onlookers.
"Natural causes," Dr. Winterbourne explained. However, he paused a moment before adding, "I think."
"You're not sure?" Alex asked.
"Need to do a post mortem. Something else to put you off your food." Dr. Winterbourne stabbed at a tube of pasta, lifted it to his mouth, then changed his mind and put the loaded fork back into the bowl. He turned to the Doctor. "You're a doctor. You ever seen a case of heart failure with all the symptoms of asphyxiation?"
The Doctor blew out a long breath as he considered this question. "Well, I'm not actually a medical doctor," he admitted.
"Student?" Dr. Winterbourne guessed.
Amy stifled a smile while Alex started snickering, but quickly disguised it with a bunch of coughing when she caught sight of the Doctor's glare. "I've seen more death than you've avoided hot dinners," he retorted.
"And then there's the dust," Dr. Winterbourne went on, not really hearing him. "Gets everywhere – look, there's still some on my sleeve." He turned his cuff to show a pale gray splattering of dry dust. Some spilled to the tabletop and Alex ran her finger through it. She'd never seen that type of dust before.
The Doctor's frown deepened. He suddenly grabbed Dr. Winterbourne's hand and pulled it across the table, nearly causing the man to land face-down in his bowl of pasta. Then, just as abruptly, he let go again.
"Sorry," Alex apologized, sending the Doctor a sharp knock-it-off look.
Dr. Winterbourne smiled weakly at her. "There's loads of it down by the burger place. If dust is your thing."
Not mine, but it is for the Doctor, Alex thought. Right on cue, the Doctor said, "The burger place?"
"Downstairs," Dr. Winterbourne directed. "You know, where the spaceman is."
"Figures," the Doctor said dismissively, not really registering Dr. Winterbourne's words. "After all, it is moon dust."
Alex rolled her eyes and began mentally counting off the seconds. One, two, three, four. . .
Just as she reached 'four', the Doctor dropped the menu he had been fingering and jumped to his feet. "Hang on, hang on. Moon dust – in a shopping center? And a spaceman?"
"Well, an astronaut. Publicity stunt, or so someone said." Dr. Winterbourne craned his head and pointed to the ground floor. "Look, there he is now, with those men in suits."
The Doctor's chair clattered to the floor with a crash. Startled, Dr. Winterbourne turned to Amy and Alex. But they were gone as well.
The girls followed the Doctor rapidly across the restaurant. Amy reached him last, Alex already standing beside him. The two were leaning over the railing dangerously, looking down at the array of fast-food restaurants below.
"Astronaut," Amy said. "He'll be the one in the spacesuit, I bet." The astronaut in question was walking stiffly across the shopping center, carrying his helmet under one arm. "It's a good costume."
"It's not a costume," the Doctor and Alex said together.
"You two really need to stop doing that." Amy leaned over the railing and pointed to three men in dark suits with sunglasses and really short haircuts, all of them walking half a step behind the astronaut. "And those aren't American Secret Service agents either."
"Amy Pond," the Doctor sighed.
"Sorry."
"They're with the CIA," Alex corrected.
The three watched as the men in suits led the astronaut out of the mall. Just mere moments later, a large black car with tinted windows drove past the park.
"So, what have we got here, Doc?" Alex questioned. She had to admit, investigating what an American astronaut was doing in a British shopping mall was far more interesting than any amount of shopping she and Amy could be doing right now. "'Cause it's bound to be something crazier than an astronaut stopping off for a burger."
The Doctor nodded in agreement. "Moon dust . . . astronaut. . ." he mused. Suddenly, he pushed himself away from the railing and grabbed Alex's hand. "And asphyxiation! The dead man had dust on him! Come on!"
Amy had to run to keep up with the Doctor and Alex, who were now hurrying to the nearest escalator. "Where are we going?" she questioned.
"TARDIS, I bet," Alex said, earning an approving nod from the Doctor.
"She's right. Back to the TARDIS. If I'm right. . ." He paused suddenly, causing Alex to nearly stumble and fall down but he barely noticed. Instead, he pulled out the sonic screwdriver and examined it. "I'm right," he confirmed. "Quantum displacement." And then he was off, pulling Alex along as she scampered to keep up with him.
"And what is quantum displacement, when it's at home?" Amy asked on the escalator. Truthfully, she was asking either one of them. Alex knew a lot that the Doctor knew and was nearly on the same level as him.
"Serious," the Doctor answered while Alex listened attentively. "And it isn't at home – that's the point. It's been displaced. Like the astronaut and the dead man."
Once they reached the bottom of the escalator, the Doctor and Alex jumped off, Amy doing the same a second later. As they ran across the ground floor to the doors, Alex ignored all the stares they were getting as she tried to work out what, exactly, quantum displacement was. It sounded like something that would fit in with physics and possibly involved the act of moving something. Whatever it was, she was sure she would find out soon.
The trio raced across the parking lot towards the TARDIS, only to see the parking warden standing beside it, checking the ticket in the window and then making notes on his clipboard.
The time-travelers slowed their pace and Amy stepped forward to address him. "Problem?" she asked brightly.
The warden sniffed. "Problem," he confirmed.
"We're well within the time," Amy pointed out.
"We are," the Doctor agreed, leaning over to see what the warden was writing. "I'm an expert. I know all about time."
"Time's not an issue."
"Well, you say that," the Doctor replied. "But actually—"
"What exactly is the problem?" Alex said quickly before the Doctor could start on one of his confusing rants that even she couldn't follow.
The warden pointed to the ticket in the TARDIS window. Then he pointed at the ground where the police box stood. "One ticket. Two spaces."
Alex looked down. Sure enough, the TARDIS was straddling two parking spaces. She could understand the warden's reasoning but it didn't seem that Amy could, for the redhead narrowed her eyes. "You're not serious."
"He looks serious," the Doctor argued, noticing the man's flat expression.
"You have to park within the spaces," the warden told them.
"But we're too big!" the Doctor explained. "Look – narrow space, wide box. It won't fit."
"Then you need two tickets. One for each space. If you want to dump some antique like that in a car park, you have to pay for the spaces. Sooner you get it towed away again, the better."
"So you're going to give us a fine?" Alex guessed.
"Not me. The council will give you the fine. I just issue the bill. Fifty quid."
"Fifty?" the Doctor asked as he reached inside his jacket pocket.
Amy glared at the warden. "We're not paying fifty quid."
The warden shrugged, as if he wasn't surprised by this. "Then it'll be a hundred. If you don't pay within twenty-four hours, that is."
The Doctor removed his hand from his jacket, now clutching the wallet Alex knew contained the psychic paper. "Wait, wait, wait," he ordered. "I can settle this."
"Put the money in the machine," the warden said. "Send the ticket it gives you to the council and they'll accept that as payment."
"Like we have fifty pounds in our pockets!" Amy retorted.
The Doctor flipped open the wallet, revealing the blank sheet of psychic paper. "Two for one voucher," he announced, dangling it in the warden's face. "Look, here you go. That should sort it out. The bearer has the right to one free car-park ticket for every ticket purchased at full price. Second ticket need not be displayed. See, it says so right here. Authorized by the district council."
The warden frowned. "Let me see that," he said, taking the psychic paper. After examining it, he glumly muttered, "Yes, well, that seems to be in order." Alex figured the only joy in his life came from giving people tickets.
The Doctor grinned at the girls as the warden added, "You should have shown me this straight away. Would have saved a lot of bother."
"Yeah, sorry. Can I have it back now?" the Doctor requested, holding out his hand.
"In a moment." The warden licked the end of his pen, making Alex grimace – she could never understand why people did that – before teasing the sheet of paper out from its protective plastic window. "Just need to sign this to authorize it."
The Doctor's eyes widened. This had never happened before! Just as he was about to reach out to stop him, the warden signed his name across the paper. He slid it back in the wallet, closed it, and handed it back.
"There you go, sir," he said, tipping his cap, not noticing the Doctor's look of outrage. "Ladies. Mind how you go."
"He signed it," the Doctor hissed once the warden had left. "He signed it! He signed my psychic paper!" He quickly flipped the wallet open to examine the paper. "'Albert Smoth', is that? I can't even read it. He's ruined my psychic paper!" He held it out to the girls. "Look!"
Alex shrugged. "Can't see anything, remember? Doesn't work on me."
"You can see the signature clear as day!"
"Well, yes," Alex admitted. "But not anything else." Truthfully, she was kind of enjoying this.
"And get over it, will you?" Amy added. "Saved us fifty quid, didn't it? Give it here." She took the wallet and slid out the paper before turning it over and sliding the blank, unsigned side into the plastic window.
The Doctor took the wallet back. "Yeah, okay. That'll work," he admitted. "Probably."
~Living the Life of Ally~
"That was quick," Amy observed a few minutes later.
"No time at all!" The Doctor pushed a lever down on the TARDIS console. "Really, no time at all. I just removed the safeties, drifted a bit to the west in the fourth dimension, and let the TARDIS fall through the quantum displacement. It's closed up now, of course, so she had to jig back in time a bit, then edge forwards again to compensate."
Alex shook her head. She was convinced the Doctor made up stuff half the time just to annoy her and Amy. "So where are we?"
The Doctor opened the doors and they all turned to look out.
Amy gasped. "It's amazing. So desolate, but so beautiful." Truly, it was. They were on the dark side of the moon, an expanse of gray stretched out before them. Above them, stars twinkled in the deep black never-ending abyss.
Alex grinned. "You should've taken us here sooner," she told the Doctor.
The Doctor smiled back at her and wrapped an arm around her waist. "Don't go out," he warned Amy when he saw her starting towards the doors out of the corner of his eye. "There's just a force membrane keeping the air inside the TARDIS. Pass through it and you'll suffocate in seconds. Like the man Dr. Winterbourne was telling us about."
"Is that what happened?" Alex questioned. "He got displaced by that quantum thing?"
The Doctor nodded and walked slowly down to join Amy, Alex carted along since his arm was still around her waist. "He was in the park, and he was also here. The two places are joined by the displacement process, so you can walk from one into the other."
"Like a bridge," Alex realized.
"Exactly, Ally. Except the overlap, or bridge, is unstable. Something's gone wrong. For a while, maybe just a minute or two, he was here."
"And the astronaut?" Amy asked.
"Same thing, only the other way around," Alex figured.
"But more permanent," the Doctor picked up. "He walked from here into the shopping center. If the displacement had stayed open, he could have turned round and walked back again."
"From Earth to the moon," Amy murmured. "Talk about a giant step for mankind."
~Living the Life of Ally~
The look of surprise on the man's face made this whole thing worth it. Amy didn't like the spacesuit. It was tight in all the wrong places and the helmet was claustrophobic, like someone had stuck a fish bowl over her head. She could also hear her own breathing and the whole thing wasn't quite her shade of red.
She'd have much rather had Alex's sleek black spacesuit. When the Doctor had presented it to her, Alex just narrowed her eyes. "Is that a joke because I like black?" she questioned.
"Not at all," the Doctor replied, but Amy saw a gleam of mischievousness in his eyes. "But if you're unhappy with it, I think there's a nice bright pink in here."
Alex's eyes had widened and she'd immediately snatched the spacesuit from his hands. "Never mind," she'd grumbled as she went down the hall to her room to tug the thing on.
Well, in short, Amy was stuck with this red one and all of its problems. In addition to color and size, the Doctor's voice was blasting in her ears and she couldn't figure out how to turn the volume down. Either the suit volume or the volume of the Doctor's excitement as he bounced happily across the lunar surface.
But it was all worth it when she was standing beside the Doctor and Alex at the edge of a crater, behind a man in a bulky white suit.
The Doctor reached out and tapped the man on the shoulder. He turned slowly, clumsily, in little hopping movements. His eyes were wide and anxious through the faceplate. When he saw the Doctor, Alex, and Amy standing there, the man took a step backwards and nearly toppled into the crater. His eyebrows shot up as his jaw dropped in the opposite direction.
"Whoa! Where did you come from?" an American voice gasped into their ears. He sounded a lot like Alex, but male and without the Southern twang.
The Doctor gestured vaguely over his shoulder. Amy grinned while Alex rolled her eyes.
"Is there another base?" the man asked, but he then shook his head as if to answer his own question. "No, no way. We'd know."
"Just visiting," the Doctor told him. Alex noticed that the man seemed shocked, evidently able to hear him. The Doctor must have opened their radio link to include him. "I gather you're having a problem with your quantum displacement."
"You're from Hibiscus?"
"Well, we're from TARDIS actually. But we can sort that out inside."
"So what are you up to?" Amy asked, as much to prove she could speak as anything. "Just getting some air?"
"Recovery team."
"Recovery," the Doctor repeated. "You been ill? Some sort of therapy?"
"We recover stuff from outside, from here on the surface. Equipment, monitoring systems, solar panels that need replacing. Sometimes just rocks for Jackson's people to examine."
"And today?" Alex piped up, not liking that she hadn't said anything thus far.
"Today, we're recovering the body."
The group crested a shallow rise in the ground, the lip of another large crater. Ahead of them, the ground sloped away again, this time towards a cluster of low, rectangular buildings connected by even lower, rectangular corridor sections. Alex thought it looked like it had been made out of enormous egg boxes for a child's school project.
A short way ahead of them were several more astronauts in identical bulky white suits. Two of them were carrying a stretcher. Alex couldn't quite make out what was on it – just a splash of bright red, deeply contrasting against the gray of the ground.
"Who was she?" the Doctor asked. Time Lord eyesight, Alex thought.
"Don't know yet," the astronaut replied. "Some poor woman and her dog. They walked right through the displacement field and wound up here. Dead. Suffocated in moments."
"Like that man in the park," Alex realized.
"The field must have dissipated round him," the Doctor said thoughtfully. "That poor woman walked right into it. A walk in the park becomes a moonwalk."
"And we lost Marty Garrett," the astronaut added.
"Guessing he was the guy who walked off the moon into the burger bar," Amy said.
"Seems likely," the Doctor and Alex agreed.
They walked on in silence for several minutes. As they got closer to the buildings, Alex saw that the moonbase was much larger than she had originally thought. The boxes rose high above them like office blocks in New York City.
"It's so big," Amy stated, summing these thoughts up.
"Most of it will be storage," the Doctor informed her. "Water, air, food, that sort of thing."
"Thank goodness," the astronaut said. "They were talking a couple of years ago about just piping water and air in direct from Base Hibiscus and not storing anything locally. If they'd done that, we'd be working out whether we die of thirst before oxygen starvation, now the quantum link's gone down."
"The thing that lets you walk from Earth to the moon," Amy said.
"Or pipe water and air through," the astronaut said. "Luckily, the tanks have been kept full through the quantum link and the underground reservoir. We should be okay for three months. You'll have it fixed by then, right?"
He sounded like he was joking. The Doctor didn't answer.
"So where's the Earth?" Amy asked, deciding it was time to change the subject. "Shouldn't we be able to see it?"
"This is the dark side of the moon," Alex told her, looking around.
"But it isn't dark," Amy argued.
"It's called the dark side," the Doctor jumped in. "That's not because it's actually dark, well, not unless it's night time."
"It's because it faces away from Earth," Alex finished.
"Dark as in unknown," the Doctor added. "Like the dark continent."
"Or dark chocolate?" Amy asked.
"Exactly . . . what?"
"Kidding!" she told him.
The astronaut led them to a doorway. It was made of thick metal with a locking wheel on the outside. A red light glowed above the wheel. Through a small window set in the door, Alex could see the other astronauts carrying the stretcher through a similar door, closing it behind them.
A green light replaced the red one above the locking wheel. The astronaut spun it and then pulled the heavy door open. As he turned to allow the time-travelers inside, Alex saw his shoulder had a U.S. flag emblazoned on it, the name REEVE printed beneath it.
Inside the sealed airlock, there was a hiss as the sealed room pressurized. Once they were through the interior door, the astronaut reached up and twisted his helmet before removing it. Beneath it, he was wearing a white balaclava, which he also tugged off, revealing short, black hair. He had eyes that were as gray as the lunar surface and his face was rugged, but handsome.
Not as handsome as the Doctor though, Alex thought in spite of herself.
At the moment, the object of Alex's eye was helping Amy remove her helmet. Alex saw the astronaut's eyes widen as Amy's long red hair fell over her shoulders, but that was nothing compared to when the Doctor lifted Alex's own helmet.
Amy laughed a little as she saw the astronaut take in Alex's long brown-blonde hair and sparkling copper eyes. "Don't you have girls in space?" Amy asked.
The astronaut smiled while the Doctor removed his own helmet and stepped closer to Alex. "We got a few. I'm Reeve, by the way. Captain Jim Reeve."
He put his helmet on a shelf next to several other identical helmets. They were in a large locker room with shelves and cupboards where spacesuits and equipment were stored. The Doctor struggled out of his suit. He still wore his tweed jacket underneath it, though it was now significantly crumpled.
"Neat suits," Reeve complimented. "They must be quite new."
"Newer than you think," the Doctor said as he glanced at Alex. A familiar burn of jealousy was running through his system as his mind replayed the awestruck look Reeve had given Alex. He made a mental note not to stray away from her side while they were here.
"No idents, I notice," Reeve commented, tapping the name badge on his shoulder. "I'll need to see some ID before I break the news to Colonel Devenish that we've got company."
"I'd have thought he'd be glad of some help," Amy said.
"You'd think that, yeah." From the tone of voice, Alex figured that this expectation wasn't likely to be filled.
"Well, I'm Amy – Amy Pond."
"And I'm Alex Locke," Alex smiled. "And this is the Doctor."
"And you're here to fix the quantum displacement?"
"Absolutely," the Doctor agreed.
"Only, since it's failed big time – how exactly did you get here?"
"Oh, we have our own portable system," the Doctor told him. "Keep it in a box."
"A box?" Reeve questioned.
"The box is blue," the Doctor added.
"Yeah, we got a signal about that," Reeve nodded. "Going to bring it into the base. So that's something else that's got smaller then. We keep our quantum displacement system in a whole module. Rooms of equipment. No idea what it does."
No wonder it's broken, then, Alex thought, but she knew better than to say this out loud.
"Oh, the theory's easy enough," the Doctor assured him. "It's like quantum entanglement. Only different. Instead of tying atoms and molecules together so they exhibit the same behavior, you tie the whole different locations together so they become the same place."
"Oh, yeah, easy," Amy said sarcastically.
"You have to admit, that's hardly explaining it easy, Doc," Alex said kindly.
Reeve laughed at her words. "All I know is, I can walk from here along a predefined path and end up in the Texan desert just outside Base Hibiscus, and the Hibiscus folks can walk through the desert to get to the moon. So long as it works, that's all I'm interested in."
"Except, it doesn't work," the Doctor said flatly.
"And people are winding up dead," Alex finished. "Like that woman and her dog."
"Yes," the Doctor agreed. "Which all suggests a sudden failure, then the system corrected itself – so that the man in the park ended up back in the park. And now you say it's bust again."
"Totally," Reeve confirmed.
"Do you have a lead?" Alex asked as she began to struggle out of her spacesuit. She kept one hand on the Doctor's shoulder for balance as she thrust herself out of it.
"None at all," Reeve said, glancing down at her long legs before quickly looking back up when the Doctor clutched Alex closer to him. "Oh, Jackson and the scientists are working on it, but. . ." He trailed off as he saw the Doctor's expression switch from jealousy to amusement.
"What about the dog?" he asked. "Was the dog on a lead? That's what she meant."
"No, it's not," Alex argued, but she did like that the Doctor was concerned about the dog.
Reeve blinked at the strange question. "I guess so. I don't know. Is it important?"
"No idea," the Doctor admitted. "But it would prove the woman and the dog are an item. As it were. Rather than random dog and accidental woman."
"Oh, we got ID through from Base Hibiscus, if that's what you mean."
"So you know who she is?" Amy asked.
"And the dog?" the Doctor checked.
"Yeah. It's just you guys I'm not sure about. Have you got any ID before I go tell the Colonel that the cavalry's arrived?"
"Think we might have strayed in too?" Amy guessed.
"It happens," Reeve admitted. "Wildlife strays in occasionally. Not a lot of it from the desert and the dispersal link is only open at scheduled times. Had an eagle fly right through the gateway once. Dropped dead, of course. I admit, accidents like that don't normally wear spacesuits. But you turn up out of nowhere claiming to know all about a secret U.S. project and, with the exception of Miss Locke here, you guys don't sound very American."
The Doctor, hardly bothered by this, flipped open the psychic paper wallet. "We've come to help. Here you go." He waved it under Reeve's nose. "Our Access All Areas pass from Base Hibiscus. Allows us to go anywhere, see anything, talk to anyone."
Captain Reeve nodded as he examined the paper. "It does that. Just one thing though – why is it printed back to front?"
The Doctor frowned. "I told you that would never work!" he hissed at Amy. "He ruined it, didn't I say so? Signed his name on it! Ruined it!" He angrily stuffed the wallet back inside his jacket pocket.
Alex sighed. "It's a security thing," she told Reeve. "Just makes it harder to forge. And, getting back to business, can we see Colonel Devenish now, please?"
~Living the Life of Ally~
Colonel Cliff Devenish was giving a briefing when Captain Reeve brought in the new arrivals. To say it was disruptive would be an understatement.
"So, let me get this straight," Devenish was saying to Professor Jackson. "You have no idea what's gone wrong, or how to fix it, or even if it can be fixed?"
At that moment, the door of the briefing room opened and Reeve walked in. Behind him came a young man with what looked like an out-of-control comb-over, except he wasn't going bald, and a young woman with fiery red hair wearing a skirt far shorter than regulation length. The last one to enter the room was another young woman, this one positively gorgeous, with long light brown hair with blonde streaked through it, wearing a pink knit sweater, white shorts, brown mid-calf boots, and large hoop earrings.
"Sir," Reeve began to explain as the twenty people in the room openly gaped.
"Oh hi, don't mind us," the comb-over guy said. "Just carry on. Pretend we're not here. We'll behave. We'll take our milk and sit at the back." Devenish noticed that the brunette behind him shook her head in an exasperated manner.
"Quiet as a mouse," the redhead added. "Three mice, in fact."
The man looked around the room, apparently perplexed. "Spare seats?" he wondered. "Three together for preference. We're a trio. I mean, there's three of us."
"Friends," the redhead said. "Colleagues. Um, sorry, are we interrupting?"
"Obviously," the brunette muttered, casually leaning against the wall and removing her sweater to reveal a purple tank-top.
"We didn't mean to interrupt," the man said. He had somehow gotten to where he was standing at the front of the briefing room next to Colonel Devenish. "But, can I just ask, any unusual activity through the quantum displacement recently? I mean, anything come through that shouldn't? Anything you've sent or received that was a first. Could be anything, a strange-looking moon rock, a hamburger, a flock of seagulls, a rickshaw, anything."
"You thinking something might have thrown off the quantum lock?" Jackson asked.
"If it had the right resonance. Well, the wrong resonance actually. Quartz embedded in rock, hot onion in a hamburger, the atmospheric fluctuation caused by a multitude of birds' wings. And who knows what might be carried by a rickshaw. That would be at the other end, of course. Wouldn't get any atmospheric fluctuation up here, would you." The man's mouth cracked open into a huge grin and he flicked some hair out of his eyes.
"Doctor," the brunette said quietly as she tied her sweater around her waist. She was now leaning against the wall next to the redhead, who had found two empty chairs.
"Sorry, Ally, but I thought that was funny."
"No, I mean you're hijacking the meeting," she explained. She crooked her finger and made a come-here gesture.
"Right. Sorry. Carry on – don't mind us."
The man went and sat down next to the redhead. He stuck his legs out as far as they would go and mimed zipping his mouth shut. He made some indistinct sounds, but didn't open his mouth. It sounded like he was saying in your own time. He then reached behind him and pulled the brunette over to him, pulling her down to sit in his lap. The brunette seemed perfectly content with this and curled back into him.
"It's all right," the redhead said in a stage whisper, seeing Devenish's darkening expression. She pointed to the man and brunette, then to herself. "The cavalry's arrived."
The brunette rolled her eyes again. "You know, you're as bad as he is?" she hissed, nodding to the man behind her, who still had a self-confident smile on his face.
~Living the Life of Ally~
Alex wasn't really that surprised that the meeting ended shortly after they arrived. By now, she knew the effect the Doctor had on people and how he presented himself, like he was above them all and contained an air of mystery that you couldn't help but try to solve. She also knew that Colonel Devenish was probably concerned about the fact that three strangers, two of them with different British accents, gate-crashed his secret briefing about secret problems with secret equipment on his secret American moonbase.
The Colonel seemed slightly mollified by Reeve's explanations, such as they were. Alex could tell that Reeve was the Colonel's right-hand man, but he was outranked by Major Carlisle.
Only a handful of people stayed behind after the meeting broke up. Reeve was one and Major Andrea Carlisle was another. She was a severe-looking blonde in her thirties. Her hair was cut above the collar and her nose was thin and prominent, giving her a slightly haughty look. Alex thought she would be pretty if her looks and manner weren't so contemptuous.
Needless to say, Alex could easily see why Devenish got along better with the more easy-going and slightly younger Captain Reeve.
"We should verify these people's authenticity with Base Hibiscus," Major Carlisle said now. Her New York accent was as clipped and sharp as her tone.
"I've checked their papers," Reeve told her. "They're on the level, so far as I can tell. Hell, how could they be here if they weren't?"
"We've got a dead woman and stiff dog who shouldn't be here, but they are," Carlisle pointed out.
"That's a good point actually," the Doctor called from where he was still sitting in the front row of seats, Alex still perched in his lap. "Though we did dress more formally, and sensibly, than the poor deceased."
Alex didn't miss the look Carlisle gave her shorts and tank-top. Deciding not to be deterred by her, she merely smiled at her.
"And he knows more about quantum displacement than I'll ever understand," Reeve argued.
"Not hard!" Carlisle snapped.
"Children," the Doctor admonished.
"Hey, you can talk," Carlisle retorted. "You don't look old enough to hold a doctorate. What are you a doctor of, anyway? Wit and sarcasm?"
The Doctor frowned as though he were trying to remember. "Er, no," he admitted. "I don't think so. I did get a degree in rhetoric and oratory from the University of Ursa Beta, but that was purely honorary. I asked if I had to make an acceptance speech, but they said there was no need. Seemed to defeat the object really, so I never mention it. . ." He nudged Alex off his lap and leapt to his feet. "But it doesn't matter, does it? All that matters is whether you want your quantum displacement system fixed. If not, then we'll be going."
"And if we do?" Colonel Devenish prompted.
"We'll be staying. But I'll need to know all about this Base Diana. What it's for, how long it's been here, where the canteen is, everything."
"You don't know?" Carlisle scoffed.
"Never needed to know, not till now," Amy told her.
"And everything around here is need-to-know, right?" Alex added, crossing her arms and staring the Major down. "So now we do need to know."
"Professor Jackson?" Devenish said.
Alex had only caught a brief glimpse of the other man in the room and that was as they came in. He was sitting in the back row of seats. He stood, allowing her to get a better look at him. He was a thin, wiry man with close-cut gray hair and eyes to match with dark brown skin.
"Well, I'm not proud. I'll take help from wherever I can get it. Professor Charles Jackson," he introduced himself, walking briskly to the front of the room. "I'm in charge of the scientific side of things here, so maybe I'm the best person to give you a tour and explain the set-up. I'm also the only one here who has any idea how the quantum displacement system is supposed to work." He paused for a moment before reluctantly adding, "And my knowledge is patchy, at best."
~Living the Life of Ally~
Jackson seemed happy to show the Doctor, Amy, and Alex around the base. He was friendly and helpful. "Sorry about the military," he apologized as soon as he was alone with the trio. "They like everything regimented and ordered, not surprisingly. If it doesn't fit into one of their boxes, they get rather worked up about it."
"Whereas you have a more open mind?" the Doctor asked.
"I'm a scientist. New and strange ideas are my business. Same as you, I guess?"
The Doctor nodded. "I'm a scientist. Amongst other things. And Amy and Alex certainly have open minds."
"You must have," Jackson said to the girls, "if you accept quantum displacement."
"I've seen weirder things," Amy told him.
"Ditto," Alex supplied.
Jackson raised an eyebrow, but didn't ask what they meant. "How about I give you a quick tour of Base Diana? Then we can go to my office and talk about how you intend to proceed."
"Sounds good to me," the Doctor agreed, already snaking an arm around Alex's waist. "Sound good to you?" he asked the girls.
"Delightful," they quickly replied.
Just as it looked from the outside, the base was constructed from large modules connected by rectangular corridors. What could not be seen from outside was that the base also extended downwards, into more of the modules buried in the ground. Most of the base was taken up with living accommodation for the dozen soldiers, their three officers – Reeve, Carlisle, and Devenish – and the few scientists that worked for Jackson. The majority of what was left was storage. Huge metal tanks held oxygen and hydrogen. Dried food was kept in large plastic drums and cartons. There was a cafeteria and a large kitchen, where the soldiers took it in turns to play chef.
"Someone had the foresight to keep you well stocked with food and water and oxygen," the Doctor remarked. "Rather than just relying on the quantum link for supplies."
"I think it's habit," Jackson confessed. "Base Diana was first set up in the mid-1970s. The quantum displacement link was just a theory then, so they relied on moonshots to deliver supplies, though we have ready access to water. No one knew how long they could carry on before someone found out and called a halt."
"Found out?" Amy questioned. "But everyone knew, didn't they? I mean, I know about Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong. One small step for man and all that."
"I'm guessing there's stuff the public didn't know," Alex said. She then grinned. "Oh, I look forward to the day when the government let's all this get declassified!"
"Hell, there's stuff the President doesn't know!" Jackson said in reply to her first statement. "Officially, the moon missions stopped with Apollo 17. Too expensive, everyone said. Shows how much they know."
"You mean it wasn't expensive?" Alex asked.
"Oh, sure it was." Jackson paused to open a bulkhead door, typing a number into a keyboard alongside it. "But for every dollar spent on Apollo, the U.S. earned fourteen dollars back from the technology, from related exports, from patents and expertise. Pretty good investment, really. But people forget that."
"So it all stopped," the Doctor said.
"Officially," Jackson emphasized. He gestured for the Doctor, Amy, and Alex to go through the door.
They found themselves in a large, narrow, curving room. One side was almost entirely taken up with a huge window that looked into the inside of the curve. It was broken by more of the bulkhead doors, stretching out of sight. Beside each was a numeric keypad. Outside the window, a low, narrow corridor extended from each door to a central, circular hub. It was strange to see the elegant curves of the inner building after the straight lines that formed the entire construction of the rest of the base.
"And unofficially?" the Doctor was prompting as he went through the door.
"Unofficially, here we are. Base Diana. Apollo 18 brought the first module. Flat-packed, tiny, weighed almost nothing. A breeze would have blown it away, so we're lucky there's no atmosphere."
"How many unofficial Apollo missions have there been?" Alex inquired.
"The last was Apollo 22, in June 1980. It brought the final components for the quantum displacement link. After that, we could just walk from Diana across the lunar surface, and into the Texan desert close to Base Hibiscus. And all this – the current base – came back the same way."
"Just sent it in on trucks?" Amy marveled.
"Something like that."
Amy nodded at the huge expanse of thick glass. "And is that your laboratory? Where do you do research into whatever it is you do research into?"
"I do research into the human mind," Jackson explained. "Into what makes one man good and another bad. What makes someone so fanatical, they can main and kill without troubling their conscience."
That certainly wasn't what the girls had expected. "And you do it in there?" Amy asked.
"No," the Doctor said quietly. Alex looked over to see that his expression had darkened considerably. "That's another storage facility, isn't it?" He stared at the man, his eyes hard as flint, making Alex shudder a little.
"That's right, Doctor," Jackson said, not seeming to notice the change in the Doctor's demeanor. "That's where we keep the prisoners."
A/N: So that's the first part of 'Apollo 23'! Not a lot of Dalex fluff in here, but there will be some moments and then the fluff will kick into overdrive with the Pandorica episodes. :)
Notes on reviews. . .
SopherGopher'sAwesomeSister - Oh, good for you! Nope, never heard of the Alphas. I know, not much fluff in the last chapter, and not very much in this one either. :( But it'll get better in the Pandorica episodes, promise. :)
SopherGopherroxursox - 'Apollo 23' is a book from the Doctor Who line of books. I have a few of the books and plan on converting them into adventures in this series and future series. :) Yep, poor Alex in that part. Figures it would happen then! :)
jesterlover - Yes, she should have a cat! :)
Lazyandloveit - I can say you're right! Amy will wonder if the engagement ring is for her or not. . . :) Thank you!
TheGirlWhoWaited - Hope you liked the first part of 'Apollo 23'! And thanks! :)
ShadowTeir - Thanks! :)
ElysiumPhoenix - No, the perception filter was the only reason Alex had the headaches, from where her mind was trying to bypass the filter. Good guess though. :) Yes, she should've gotten the cat! And no, 'Apollo 23' isn't really an original adventure, but there is another coming up after the Pandorica episodes! :)
Gwilwillith - Thanks! And I'm glad you're looking forward to my future plans with Alex! :)
dream lighting - Everyone hates that she didn't get the cat. Darn Doctor! :(
rycbar15 - Alex will be with him in 'A Town Called Mercy'. And can I say, I LOVE that episode! :) But, since a lot of time has passed for the Doctor in that episode, you have to wonder how Alex will be effected or if she'll be effected at all. :) Glad you liked the chapter!
