9: Bunting

Donna Noble had been travelling with the Doctor for a while, and trusted him a great deal, but this so-called 'alien planet' looked no different from the English country fields her mum had forced her into visiting every summer holiday. The same green grass rolled over the same hills she remembered from her youth. Some of the trees even looked like the ones she used to climb, to her mother's displeasure. Donna chuckled as she remembered her mum's chastises. The Doctor turned a raised eyebrow on his companion.

"Did I miss something?"

In truth, Donna had almost forgotten about her Timelord friend walking three paces ahead of her, but she used this moment to interrogate him. "This looks exactly like England. Are you having me on again, Spaceman?"

His face crinkled in mock offense. "Of course not. And what do you mean 'again'?"

"Pompeii. You said we were in Rome, remember?"

He tilted his and put his hands in his pockets. "Well, that was a mistake. But this is honestly Helspoon Seven, though strictly between us, they do take a lot of influence from primitive human times."

"Primitive?"

He grit his teeth slightly. "Sorry, to space-travelling humans of the twenty-fourth century, your lot sort of is primitive."

Donna smirked. "Aren't I a space traveller?"

The Doctor gave his friend a long, warm smile. "That's right...now, futuristic, ultra complex human Donna Noble...I give you the mixed human-alien race of Helspoon Seven!"

They came to the top of the highest hill in the valley and Donna's jaw dropped. Below them was a beautiful array of smaller hills, which looked almost like gumdrops, and beyond them was an enormous city. Skyscrapers taller than those in New York City stretched into the clouds, and cars flew through the air in perfect lines going this way and that. Even from this distance, Donna could read the large screen on the side of one of the buildings. In red print it said "First Human-Helspoon President Elected in History". The Doctor looked to his companion and grinned ear to ear.

"Not a bad future, is it?"

"I thought we'd all, I don't know, kill ourselves with missiles or carbon dioxide or something. But this…"

"You lot. You're always so pessimistic; thinking your days are numbered. But look at you! Meeting other species, making friends, making more-than-friends." The Doctor winked and Donna laughed. "And some of you move past hatred and division and war and you-"

"Watch out!"

The Doctor and Donna were tackled to the ground just before a small but incredibly loud explosion went off just a few meters away. Donna picked her head up quickly and darted her eyes around her. "Doctor, what's all the bunting for?"

The Doctor slowly sat up and turned up to whoever had tackled him. His eyes met a young man, who wore a hard black vest and a gray helmet. The Timelord frowned. "What are the flags for?"

The boyish soldier fiddled with his dirty helmet and glanced over to a fellow soldier, a woman a few years older who was still getting to her feet after tackling Donna. The woman answered the Doctor.

"Don't tell anyone in the citadel. They can't know."

The Doctor got to his feet quickly, not taking his eyes off the woman. "We're not from the city. But what are you doing that's so secret?"

The woman bit her lip and glanced to the younger man beside her. Something in his eyes seemed to strengthen her resolve. "We come out here sometimes...us and the Helspoonians. The pure Helspoonians, that is. We...we settle our differences."

The Doctor's happy-go-lucky expression was dropping every second. Donna knew that fire dancing in his eyes and was almost afraid for the soldiers. When the Timelord spoke, it was with venom in the back of his throat, ready to poison them if he so chose. "And what does that mean: settle your differences?"

The woman's voice turned just as sure as the Doctor's. "We don't hurt anyone. Not permanently, at least. But when there are tensions between the humans and the Helspoonians...we let off some steam out here."

Before the Doctor could respond, the younger man cut in. "It's just a game, really. King of the Hill, we call it, after the traditional Earth game. We don't make anyone fight who doesn't want to and we heal anyone who gets hurt before we go back into the city."

The Doctor looked from one young adult to the other, his eyebrows low and skeptical. Donna stepped forward, nodding pointedly at the hole in the ground the explosion had gone off in. "Do you always use bombs in your little game?"

The younger woman shifted her weight from foot to foot before answering. "The game's been getting a bit more intense lately. Both sides have some new tech. But it's still just a game. It's no big deal. Everyone here is 25 and under, holds no official position, and everyone is sworn to secrecy. None of the people in charge know about it."

The Doctor started down the hill towards the city. "You don't think they can see you out here? They're advanced enough to have flying cars, I think they can see a bunch of kids running around two meters outside the city limits."

The boy straightened up at this, smirking almost proudly. "That's the genius of it, though. We set up a perception filter around the whole field."

The Doctor cocked his head. "Perception field isn't invisibility."

The boy's smile faded as the Doctor sniffed, putting his hands back into his pockets. "This isn't going to last long. Sorry; don't mean to be a spoil sport, but-"

"Oi! You've got adults over here?"

The Helspoonian who had cast the accusation was a boy about the same age as the young woman. He was wearing a similar uniform, but instead of a red patch on his helmet, his was instead blue. Beneath his goggles, his skin was a vivid blue, and his eyes were a beautiful icy color. In his hands was a gun that the Doctor hoped was only filled with paintballs.

The red teamed boy shook his head at the Helspoonian. "Of course not; these two just showed up. Walked right into our camp. You know how it is."

The Helspoonian seemed unsatisfied with this answer, turning his weapon slightly upwards to aim generally at Donna. The Doctor grabbed the tip of it with his finger and pushed it towards the ground. The Helspoonian eyed him curiously for a second, then shook it off. "You know the rules. These two are coming with me."

The Helspoonian brought his gun up to Donna again, an action the redhead did not take kindly to. "Oi! Don't point that thing at me, mister."

"Mister Avey."

The red team girl grunted. "Do you see how annoying they are? She wasn't asking your name, Avey."

Avey turned on the girl, and the Doctor pulled Donna towards himself. "She probably likes me more than you, Cindy. She probably doesn't even know your name."

The boy beside Cindy laughed heartily, turning Avey's fury over to him. Before anyone could see it happen, the young Helspoonian had fired a spray of yellow paintballs at both Cindy and her teammate and was making a dash for the red flags mounted on the hill top. The Doctor and Donna watched in shock as Avey made a great dash back toward his own hill, zig-zagging so as to avoid the hundreds of paintballs that rained down on him from every angle.

Cindy sat up quickly and threw off her helmet. "That...blue menace!"

Her friend sat up slowly, groaning. "Ow. One of those really hurt my arm. It'll be hard hiding that bruise tonight."

Against his better judgement, the Doctor went over to the young man. He was shoved away instantly. "You got us into this mess! If I hadn't lowered my guard to explain why you were here, that blue creature wouldn't have stolen our flag!"

Donna came to stand over the boy. "You call him a creature just because he's different from you?"

Cindy chuckled. "We call him a creature because he acts like one. Didn't you see the way he took a cheap shot at us? Helspoonians aren't civilized. It's why this whole city was a bad idea. Humans shouldn't have to interact with them."

Donna started towards the girl, hair seeming to actually burn. "Do you hear yourself?"

The Doctor didn't even try to hold back his friend. Instead, he came to her side. "This ends today. You're all bullying and separating and judging each other. These are the things that lead to war."

The boy got to his feet. "You haven't been here twenty minutes and you're telling us how it is?"

"I've seen this happen enough to know the signs."

Cindy laughed, incredulous. "It's just a game! It's a friendly competition and some smack talk. Traditional Earthlings did it all the time!"

The Doctor leaned in close, watching the kids with unblinking eyes. "And do you know how many wars they had? Do you know how much blood was spilt? How many people killed? How many lives were destroyed because that smack talk and friendly competition got out of hand?"

The boy looked away from the Doctor, rubbing his arm unconsciously. "It's not that big of a deal."

The Doctor put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Yes. Yes, it is. Because this is where it starts. It doesn't start with the big man in the high castle. It doesn't start with laws and treaties and soldiers. It starts with kids, making fun of each other. Ordinary people putting each other in boxes and labelling them."

The Doctor stepped away for a second, taking a deep breath. Donna looked from him to the kids and approached them slowly and carefully. "Hey, look at me."

The two dejected young adults eyed her with both curiosity and skepticism, but her voice remained calm and kind. "You're setting up your future right now, you know that? It's not your mum or your dad. It's not anyone else. It's you. So what do you want that future to look like, eh? Do you want to make Avey feel bad? Do you want people insulting each other in sport?"

The boy kicked the grass as Cindy answered softly, "No."

Donna smiled at them both, and then joined the Doctor on the other side of the hill. He was looking over the fields with wide eyes. She knew his mind wasn't on these specific hills, or these specific kids. It was on Earth. Gallifrey. Anywhere war had been. Anywhere he'd seen the horrors it caused. She rubbed his upper arm warmly. "You alright, Spaceman I think these kids'll work it out. They're good people somewhere deep down, I think."

"They always are."

He stared at the horizon for a moment. After a deep breath, he continued.

"That's the worst part, I think. Ninety nine percent of any civilization that's ever existed has been good people. Very few are ever actually evil. But for some reason, millions upon millions get sucked into the warfare and the fighting and the offensive. They become monsters and let it consume them. Nobody starts out hating anyone, especially not for so trivial a reason as skin color or species or religion or any other reason people start wars. But society makes them that way."

Donna took his hand in hers. "It's not your job to solve all the universe's problems or stop every war from happening. No one could do that."

"But what if I could? What if I could figure out what happens to society to make it so divisive? What if I could stop every stereotype and hurtful comment from taking hold?"

Donna chuckled slightly. "Good luck with that. I think humans, at least, are too complicated to find an easy solution for, though."

"You're probably right."

Cindy cleared her throat softly behind them. "Ugh, we...we took your advice. We called off the game. It's gotten out of hand."

She and her teammate went off down the hill, followed by many other young people. When they were out of earshot, Donna stated, "It actually looked like it was painful for her to admit you were right."

The Doctor grinned. "It's improvement, at least. I think that's all we can hope for. A little bit of pausing and thinking goes a long way."

Donna turned to her Timelord companion with a smile. "Back to the TARDIS? I've got mud all over my blouse. I don't know how these kids keep this from their parents with the dirt they must've tracked through the house."

"Ah, Helspoonians have showers at the entrance of all buildings. Washes and dries everything in seconds."

Donna's jaw dropped. "You're joking me!"

The Doctor laughed. "Of course I am. This is the 24th century, not the age of miracles. Nah, those kids probably just tell mum they were playing football or something, that works every time."

"Did you have football on Gallifrey?"

The Doctor tugged at his earlobe. "Well, we had something like it. Doesn't have a word in your language, but it's basically the same rules only everyone wears a big hat and nobody has shoes on."

"Injuries were fairly common, then?"

"We went through our fair share of regenerations while we played."

Donna furrowed her eyebrows. "Joking again?"

"Of course."