INT. RECEPTION – ZIRA CLINIC
While standing in front of the reception desk, armed Tonades officers release Golden Monkey, Silver Humanoid, and Bronze Cyberman from their restraints. Some commotion coming from the vicinity of the elevators draws their attention.
GOLDEN MONKEY
Oh no.
BRONZE CYBERMAN
What is it?
His chest puffed out, chin held high, Lieutenant Valor steps out of the freight service elevator. Behind him, surrounded by Tonades officers, is the Doctor. His feet and ankles are bound together, but loose enough that he can walk. He follows Valor out of the elevator after one of the officers pushes him.
The Preservers hurry to intercept Valor on his way to leading the Doctor outside. Valor stops to allow his officers to stand in their way.
GOLDEN MONKEY
Doctor, what happened? Where are...
She stops herself before revealing too much information.
Meanwhile, the Doctor looks her over, confused, as if he's never seen her before... because he hasn't.
VALOR
Ah, the Golden Monkey. I was hoping I'd get to see you and your friends again before you went on your merry way. On behalf of the Tonades Police Force, I want to extend to you my sincere gratitude for your cooperation, which has directly led to the rescue of several hundred innocent people and put an end to one of the greatest injustices in the known universe. You were also instrumental in the apprehension of the villain known as the Doctor.
GOLDEN MONKEY
Let him go.
VALOR
You know, I don't recall that being part of our arrangement. You received three pardons, and only three.
SILVER HUMANOID
He can have mine. Take me instead.
VALOR
A noble gesture if ever there was one, but it is your name on the document, Silver Humanoid, or your "nom de guerre", anyway.
Valor notices Golden Monkey's demeanor.
VALOR
You should be pleased. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to start a fresh new life. Try to see the light in the eye. I know I'm happy.
KALE (O.S.)
Lieutenant Valor!
Valor looks in the direction of the shout. It's Sergeant Kale. He limps towards them while dragging an oxygen tank at his side. The edges of his uniform are slightly singed from exposure to the hempozine gas.
KALE
Lieutenant Valor, sir, we have a problem.
Valor forces his own smile a little wider, pretending like he didn't hear Kale.
VALOR
No, we don't.
Kale takes a breath of oxygen.
KALE
Y-y-yes. We do.
Valor waves his finger at Kale, insistent.
VALOR
No, we don't. See? We have the Doctor. I'm happy. No more problems. It's been a very up and down day. Don't bring me down, Kale.
KALE
It's the humans, sir. They're dying.
The Doctor looks up.
DOCTOR
Humans?
GOLDEN MONKEY
(to the Doctor)
They didn't get away?
Valor's smile disappears. He points at the Preservers.
VALOR
Get them out of here.
BRONZE CYBERMAN
This is a nightmare.
Tonades officers grab the Preservers and drag them towards the exit.
SILVER HUMANOID
We sold them out for nothing?
GOLDEN MONKEY
Doctor, what happened? You said you could get them out. You promised you could get them out!
The Tonades throw the Preservers out and lock the door.
DOCTOR
(to Valor)
What humans? There's more than one? Is Rose one of them?
VALOR
(to the Doctor)
The prisoner will speak when spoken to.
KALE
During the struggle, the humans were exposed to the hempozine gas. Their bodies are more fragile than ours. It burned their skin. It burned their insides when they breathed it in.
VALOR
Tell the clinic physicians that saving those humans is their highest priority. Pull whatever resources they require. I need to know what they know and where they came from.
KALE
I told them that, but none of the doctors are familiar with human anatomy.
VALOR
How is that even possible?
KALE
They tell me there are three doctors employed by the clinic with experience treating humans. One of them is Doctor Heeya. We can't find her ever since she fled when you tried to have her arrested. The other two were found unconscious in the vault. Someone shot them with tranquilizer darts.
VALOR
Well, wake them up.
KALE
We're trying.
VALOR
Can't the other doctors, I don't know, improvise? They must frequently encounter species they've never treated before.
DOCTOR
Valor, hempozine gas is extremely toxic and pyrogenic to humans. If they've been exposed, their liver, kidneys, and lungs are all in the process of being eaten from the inside.
KALE
You would know. You were the one who deployed the gas.
Kale takes a breath of oxygen.
DOCTOR
(appalled)
I would never-
KALE
I was there! I breathed it in myself!
The Doctor remembers his double.
DOCTOR
You know what? Another time! I have extensive experience treating and caring for humans. I can help.
VALOR
I would have to be out of my mind to let you try.
DOCTOR
You can't extract intel from a corpse! You don't have time for the doctors on staff to do the research they would need to do to get themselves up to speed on human anatomy. You don't have time to wait for the doctors in the vault to wake up and then for their heads to clear. You don't have time to find Heeya. And most important of all, they don't have time for you to figure that out! Every second you waste, they're another second closer to death.
The Doctor places his shackled hands in front of Valor.
DOCTOR
I am a doctor. Let me save those people.
Valor hesitates.
INT. EMERGENCY ROOM – ZIRA CLINIC
Overwhelmed surgeons and nurses tend to the four human patients at opposite corners of the room; the Honcho, Raylene, Derron, and Zachariah.
Over Derron...
CANINE NURSE 1
He's not breathing!
She starts chest compressions on Derron.
CANINE SURGEON 1
Begin ventilations, one every ten. Where's that dialysis machine?
A nurse cuts open the Honcho's clothes. He's black and blue all over his body.
CANINE NURSE 2
Heart rate tachycardic. Signs of blunt force trauma to the face, abdomen, thoracic cavity...
CANINE SURGEON 2
Someone beat the hell out of this guy.
Zachariah coughs up blood. One nurse turns his head so the blood and bile has somewhere to go. Another readies a trachea tube.
CANINE SURGEON 3
Twenty cc's morpho-drip. Thirty cc's neuvoplasine. We've got to stop the tissue degradation.
Another nurse scans Raylene's abdominal area with a device that transmits an image of her insides to a local monitor.
CANINE NURSE 4
Fetal life signs erratic.
CANINE SURGEON 4
Let's ready an Aron incubator.
Another nurse wheels over an egg-shaped incubator.
The doors to the ER swing open and the Doctor enters, already wearing surgery scrubs. Valor and his men wait just outside the door.
CANINE SURGEON 4
(to the Doctor)
Who the hell are you?
DOCTOR
I'm the Doctor. Did you just say that woman is pregnant?
The Doctor walks over, sees the woman isn't Rose.
DOCTOR
You're not Rose. Good, I was nervous I'd been violated in my sleep.
RAYLENE
My name is Raylene. Is my baby going to be okay?
He touches her forehead and brushes her hair back softly.
DOCTOR
Raylene, I'm going to do everything I can to save you and your baby.
She smiles, still nervous, but reassured by the warm tone in his voice.
DOCTOR
But seriously, how should I know? I just got here.
The Doctor walks into the middle of the room.
DOCTOR
Listen up, I need an organ cloner on this side of the room and a blood multiplier on that side of the room. If we're lucky, one of these people is a universal donor or they're all universal receivers. Either way, we should all play the lottery later if we're that lucky. Let's also try and get four of those cryogenic chambers from the vault up here.
CANINE SURGEON 4
You've worked with humans before?
DOCTOR
I have, which is how I know your admirable attempts to save their organs are going to wind up being entirely futile. Each of these patients is going to need a new heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, and clean blood. Yeah, that'll be a pretty nice start.
Nurses and surgeons alike turn momentarily from what they're doing to look at him like he's crazy.
CANINE SURGEON 4
We've... never done that before.
DOCTOR
Then, you've probably also never performed four of them at the same time, either. Boy, this would be terrifying for you if you had the luxury of time to think. Now, move!
Canine Surgeon 4 scurries away to work on the Doctor's requests.
The Doctor makes eye contact with Raylene. She heard everything and looks terrified.
DOCTOR
Will someone please put that poor girl under? Her face is making me all heebie-jeebie.
Canine Nurse 4 presses a hypodermic injector to Raylene's arm. A second later, Raylene's head drops, as she falls unconscious.
INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE ER – ZIRA CLINIC
Lieutenant Valor observes the Doctor at work from outside the emergency room. He watches intently by the door, never moving as time passes in chunks.
INT. EMERGENCY ROOM – ZIRA CLINIC
BEGIN MONTAGE - TIME LAPSE
The Doctor, nurses, and a surgeon stabilize Derron's vitals.
VALOR (V.O.)
I waited outside the emergency room while the Doctor operated. His concern for the humans seemed genuine, but I wasn't about to let him use the opportunity to slip through my fingers.
The Doctor removes one of Zachariah's lungs.
VALOR (V.O.)
I saw my share of blood during the war. I'm no stranger to the carnage of triage hospitals. I even once saw a man cut off his own foot with a shard of glenn to escape an extermination squad. But what I witnessed over that next forty-two hours was unlike anything I had ever seen before.
The Doctor folds over Zachariah's chest skin. It is pink and raw, pieced together by bits of synthetic flesh. Under the Doctor's direction, several nurses lift him into one of the cryogenic stasis chambers. The Doctor then quickly changes scrubs with the help of a nurse and gets to work on the Honcho.
VALOR (V.O.)
He literally took those people apart and then pieced them back together as if they were children's dolls, or a puzzle. I don't know if he left them with any of their original parts other than their skin and their heads. He was like a mechanic.
The Dachshund doctors from the vault enter the emergency room and scrub up. They take direction from the Doctor.
VALOR (V.O.)
Even when the other doctors had recovered from being tranquilized, the ones with experience treating human patients, there was never any doubt who remained in charge. And he never got tired. If he did, he never once showed it. His eyelids never sagged, he never leaned on any equipment or the side of a bed to hold himself up, and he never hesitated or stumbled over his words.
The Doctor motions to one of the nurses while elbows deep inside the Honcho's chest cavity.
DOCTOR
More suction. What's the blood flow to the brain?
CANINE NURSE 2
Reading two over three, nominal.
DOCTOR
Good, let's keep it right there, and keep an eye out for clots.
VALOR (V.O.)
He refused to allow the others to panic or fail. Whenever it looked like one of them was getting tired or nervous, he reassigned them, or gave them something he knew they could do to build them back up. He kept every one of them on point.
Valor watches from the hall. He looks tired, worn out from standing guard. But he stands while his men either lean against the wall or sit on the floor.
The Doctor performs a Cesarian on Raylene. He holds the tiny weeks old baby in his hands and carefully places her in the Aron incubator. Nurses care for the child as the Doctor works to save the mother.
VALOR (V.O.)
He even saved the child. It was just this tiny little thing, hardly even recognizable as a life. It couldn't even breathe on its own yet, but he commanded it to live, and so it did. I have served in the military and police forces all my life. I have been commanded by great men and commanded men myself. But I have never seen a man in command like that before. Every person in that room became an extension of his will. Even nature itself. That was when I realized that "the Doctor" isn't simply an alias he uses to hide his identity. It is his identity. He's the Doctor.
END MONTAGE - TIME LAPSE
Raylene is placed in the last empty stasis chamber. Two nurses are asleep in the corner. A surgeon tries pulling off his scrubs, but hasn't the strength to lift his arms high enough.
The Doctor, finally appearing tired, removes his scrubs and throws them into a laundry bin by the door. He walks out into...
INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE ER – ZIRA CLINIC
Lieutenant Valor raises his weapon and backs away from the door as the Doctor steps into the hall.
DOCTOR
They're going to need some time in the chambers to heal.
VALOR
They will be taken into custody, tried for their crimes, and executed. You knew that, but you saved them anyway. You could have let them die.
DOCTOR
And you could let them go.
Valor lowers his weapon. The Doctor smiles.
VALOR
You're under arrest.
The Doctor shakes his head. Too tired to argue, he holds out his hands and allows Valor's men to shackle him again. Too tired to resist, the Doctor let's them.
VALOR
The charges are aiding and abetting human fugitives, assault on Tonades police officers, unlawfully fleeing from criminal custody, trespassing in a protected area, cooperating with terrorists, and treason against all civilized worlds and races.
Valor and his men lead the Doctor away.
INT. COURTROOM - FULTON
The Doctor is seen sitting in the center of an ivory auditorium. He is dressed in black on a white throne surrounded by a column of pale pink light that doubles as a force field.
The courtroom is predominantly a sterile ivory color, with six screens that wrap around the circumference. Each screen is five feet tall and separated by a gap from the screen above and below. The image on each screen is that of an eyeball, stretched to fit on the entire screen, so that it looks like a colored line on a white background. Each eyeball is a different color; red, blue, green, grey, brown, and black from top to bottom. They blink at random intervals.
Between the eyeball-screen gaps sit JUDGES, ten to a row, dressed in ornamental robes of a color to match the eyeball below them. The judges are of all different species, though some species are represented twice. None of them are human or Tonades. A GRAND JUDGE, presides over the rest from the third row. Hers is the only multi-colored robe. Beneath the robe, she is a muscle-bound woman of seven feet tall with rigid features and a deep booming voice. Her head is bald, but gray hair grows from the back of her shoulders, which she keeps tied in thin braids and wears almost like a pashmina.
From a raised platform directly across from the Doctor, Lieutenant Valor stands facing the Grand Judge. Behind him, we see two rectangular desks sunken into the floor. One desk is manned by the Doctor's defense team, led by lawyer RAT THE MIC, a man who actually looks nothing like a rat and instead more closely resembles a blue crab. The other desk is manned by the prosecution team, led by K'RENN, a hyper-intelligent charmer with tiny tan bristles all over his magnificent body.
K'RENN
And you say the defendant refused to answer any questions for the duration of his time in your custody?
VALOR
We used various techniques in order to elicit further confession.
CUT TO:
INT. JAIL CELL - TONADES PRECINCT
Kale beats the Doctor with brass knuckle while Valor watches.
INT. COURTROOM - FULTON
VALOR
But, to my knowledge, the Doctor has not said another word since our encounter in the hall of the Zira Clinic outside the emergency room, when I took him back into custody.
RAT THE MIC
In fact, you beat him, Lieutenant. Did you not?
VALOR
The defendant received treatment within the confines of the law.
CUT TO:
INT. JAIL CELL - TONADES PRECINCT
Kale breaks the Doctor's arm while Valor watches.
INT. COURTROOM - FULTON
Rat the Mic waves his hand and throws into the air a holographic, three-dimensional, projection of the Doctor beaten to a pulp. The projection floats in the air and circles the room for all the judges to see.
RAT THE MIC
Your honors, I submit "Defense Holo-1" for your approval. Let the record show that my client was beaten and tortured during his interrogation.
GRAND JUDGE
Does the prosecution wish to dispute?
K'RENN
Your honors, as you know, due to the heinous nature of the charges, the Tonades were well within their rights to use extreme measures to interrogate the accused. As such, we do not dispute "Defense Holo-1", and in fact applaud the Tonades, and Lieutenant Valor, for using every technique at their disposal in their attempt to extract information in the best interests of the free state.
All six of the eye-screens vibrate. An audible applause accompanies the vibrations.
GRAND JUDGE
The court hereby accepts "Defense Holo-1".
K'RENN
The prosecution is satisfied with the Lieutenant's account. We reserve the right to question further.
RAT THE MIC
The defense is also satisfied with the Lieutenant's account and reserves the right to question further.
GRAND JUDGE
The court accepts Lieutenant Valor's account as statement of fact in the best interests of the free state. The witness is excused, but advised to remain on world and available.
VALOR
Thank you, your honors.
Lieutenant Valor steps down from the raised platform. On his way out, he and the Doctor make eye contact. Valor winks and leaves.
The Doctor smiles.
-To be Continued...-