Hey dudes, dudettes, and dud-ex. This doesn't have much directly to do with the story, but did you know that according to the "Reign of Terror" novelization, Time Lords have an average internal body temperature of 60F or 15.5C? I thought that was interesting.
Anyway, if you go to my tumblr (lunammoon) there's a page on there now that collects all the stuff related to this fic. It's pretty easy to spot. This includes a high res drawing the cover of my story and, when I finish it, a reference sheet for how Marion looks. I'll let you guys know here when I post it, but, I only post updates to the story once a week so if I end up finishing it on a Friday, you may find out about it 6 days later then people who are following me. You can also drop me an ask about the story if you want. You can also get a general spam of Doctor Who posts and stuff that I think is funny. Enough about that though, let's get to the acknowledgments, shall we.
Thanks to the following person for favoriting this story: silly60
Thanks to the following person for favoriting and following: arrvark
Thanks to the following people for reviewing: lautaro94, Spazzy13, and arrvark.
But enough about me. Let's see where Marion ended up yes?
Oh yeah, and a review from lautaro94 is what helped me to decide to do Robots of Death.
'One of these days' Marion thought, feeling her face slam into the floor, 'I've gotta fall in a way that's more dignified.' She got to her feet, leaned a hand against the wall, and rubbed her nose with the other hand. The gentle hum under her fingertips told her that she was, at the very least, on the TARDIS, but for once not directly in the console room. The TARDIS was a large place, and she didn't want to wander around in it forever, and so, unlike a suburban dad in a minivan, she chose to ask for directions. She placed her hand on the wall and felt the hum getting a bit stronger.
"Hi Honey," she said softly, "could you please show me where the Doctor is. I don't know my way around and I'd hate to get lost."
She felt the hum move slightly, and she followed it with her hand until she came to an open hallway that turned right at the end of it. On the side of the wall, was the door with an M. She decided that she should stop into her room real quick to see if there was anything she needed to grab from the "M" drawer. She didn't want to take too long, so she didn't examine the room for differences. (If she had, she would have noticed no real changes except for what was on the bulletin board). Surprisingly, there wasn't a note in the drawer this time; just a large roll of ace bandages, a couple of door stoppers, a silver-colored pry bar, and some kind weird flash drive-like object with what looked like a magnet in it. Not wanting it anywhere near her phone, she put it in one of her pants pockets. Not seeing anything else in the drawer, she closed it again and left the room, closing the door behind her. She followed and turned the hallway once more until she could see the console room.
"Thanks, Honey," she said to the TARDIS before walking closer to get a better look.
'Oh!' she thought, 'I do go far back in his timeline', recognizing the TARDIS interior as from the Fourth's era.
Instead of a large brown dome dotted with round bits with coral structures and brown grating or a dark blue room lit by blue hexagons and orange crystals, this was a smaller wood-paneled room that, if Marion was honest, looked less like a spaceship and more the waiting room of a chiropractor or the place where you sit in a crowded restaurant while you wait for a table to be available.
The console was smaller too, barely ¼ of the size of the consoles she had been at previously. It didn't have the temporal column or whatever it was called in the center of it, and it looked a bit like a hexagon-shaped end table. To be fair, although, it was the secondary console room, so it made sense that it would be a little bit smaller than the main one.
The control panel for the TARDIS stood atop a small raised platform with thin, copper guardrails along the edge of it, just close enough for a person to hypothetically put their weight on it while still being able to reach the controls.
Marion obviously wasn't along in the control room. The Doctor, the fourth one, leaned over the controls to TARDIS; clearly having to lean slightly due to the shorter height of the console and his large height. Closer to the entrance to the hallway, stood Leela, determinedly making a yoyo go up and down. When Marion walked into the console room proper, the Doctor looked up from what he was doing and gave her a wide smile.
"Hello, Marion! Where'd you run off to? You just said you were going to grab something. You've been gone for a bit. You didn't get lost did you?"
"Sorry Doctor," she said, "that was the Associate. I believe that she jumped away. I've no idea where she went."
"Oh," he said going back to what he had been doing, "where'd you just come from then?"
"Way, way, way, off in your future. I haven't met this version of you yet," she pushed herself up on one of the curved metal guardrails and held onto it with her left hand to keep from falling over "This is the earliest I've been. And also, the third time I've met you, so please, no spoilers!," Marion wagged her finger at him before turning to Leela.
"You can stop yoyoing now if you'd like,"
Leela continued yoyoing, "And I won't die if I let it hit the ground?"
Marion could almost hear a record scratch, 'What one earth is she..,' Marion remembered the metaphor that the Doctor had used when she met his tenth (or eleventh if you could the War Doctor and chose not to think about the Timeless Child), the one with the yoyo.
"Oh...oh no. I think you misunderstood the Associate's metaphor, your life isn't tied to a yoyo dear. A yoyo is just that, a yoyo. A toy."
Leela dropped the toy and it hit the floor with a clatter. "He said, I had to keep it going up and down. And you," she pointed at Marion, "said that when the yoyo hits the ground, you die. I thought it was some kind of magic."
"Magic Leela," the Doctor said his eyes wide, "Magic"
"I know, I know, there's no such thing as magic." Leela sighed as if she'd been told this 100 times already.
"Magic is just a simple way of saying, that you know the what and maybe the how, but there's no way to find the why." Marion said.
"So," Leela said looking at Marion, "explain to me why this TARDIS is able to be larger on the inside than the out."
"The Doctor promised the laws of physics 30 bucks if they would agree to look the other way for a second, and then once he stuffed the interior inside of the exterior, he left before they could change their minds," Marion responded quickly.
"Really?"
"No. You'd have to ask the Doctor how he's able to do this. He's the one who knows how any of this works."
"Doctor?" Leela said, looking at the man.
"Hmm? Oh. I'll show you." He walked to the cabinet just behind the console. "It's because insides and outsides are not in the same dimension."
The Doctor held up two shiny black boxes.
"Which one is larger?"
Leela pointed to the one in the Doctor's left hand.
The Doctor walked towards the two of them placing the larger cube down in the middle of the console as he made his way over. He held up the smaller cube in front of him so that Leela and Marion could see it.
"Now, which is larger."
Leela pointed to the one still on the console. "That one."
"But it looks smaller."
"Well, that's because it's further away," Leela said.
"Exactly. If you could keep that exactly that distance away and have it here, the large one would fit inside the small one."
"That's silly," Leela said.
"That's transdimensional engineering, a key Time Lord discovery."
"Probably discovered by the person who realized that the laws of physics were bribable." Marion joked.
"Hush you," the Doctor said, poking her.
Marion yelped.
Just then, they heard the groaning sound of the TARDIS landing. The Doctor looked up for a moment before rushing to the center console and setting down the cube.
"This is the exciting bit!" he said quickly, fidgeting for the TARDIS controls.
"What's exciting?" Leela asked
"He gets to find out what's outside," Marion answered as the Doctor turned on the monitor. The monitor in this console room looked less like a small tv screen or a scanner, and more like a window into the outdoors. Marion supposed that this was built to look more like a window than the normal tiny tv set. Window or not, the monitor revealed nothing but metal walls.
"I don't...it's metal. We've landed inside something metal." the Doctor said in disbelief. He started to move around the TARDIS, looking at the atmospheric sensors and the like.
"But how can we? How can the TARDIS be inside something metal?" Leela asked, clearly confused.
"The TARDIS just disappears and reappears. When you can do that walls and ceiling aren't even close to being a concern," Marion said.
"Just a box in another box," the Doctor said, walking around the other side of the console to check on something, "I just explained it to you."
"It wasn't very clear,"
"Well, it's a rather dull subject anyway. I wonder where we are?" the Doctor asked, "Marion, where'd we land this time." he said, tugging on his coat.
"You were the one piloting this machine. Are you unable to control it?" Leela asked with a laugh.
"Of course, I can control it," the Doctor said defensively. Marion looked at him and raised an eyebrow, "most of the time anyway."
Marion shrugged and figured there wasn't any harm in telling him. "We're on a desert planet rich in some kind of mineral or metal or something. We landed in a mining rig."
Leela picked up the Tesh weapon.
"You won't need that," the Doctor said quickly, heading towards the door.
"How do you know?" Leela asked, lowering the weapon.
"I never carry weapons. If people see you mean them no harm, they never hurt you."
Leela put the gun on the ground.
"Nine times out of ten." the Doctor said under his breath.
"You really won't need that gun Leela," Marion got real close and pushed herself up slightly to whisper in Leela's ear "definitely keep the knife with you though,"
Marion and Leela followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS.
Right outside the metal walls, the TARDIS could see from the doorway, was a tunnel made of grey stone. The Doctor, Marion, and Leela traveled along down it. At the end of it, not too far from the TARDIS was a metal wall with a rounded square-shaped hole in it, a bit off the floor.
The Doctor was able to step up to the hole with minimal difficulty due to his long legs, but Leela and Marion more or less had to climb slightly. He put his hand against one of the walls and told the two of them that whatever it was, it must store something that comes under some incredible pressure due to how it was scored.
Marion heard the sound of moving sand and a noise that meant that the TARDIS was probably being taken by the large claw.
"Doctor," Leela whispered
"This is all very interesting don't you think?" the Doctor said, seemingly ignoring what she had said.
"Back there I heard something."
'That would be the sound of the TARDIS getting stolen Dear.' Marion thought but didn't say.
At the very end of the hall, were a set of shutters. Through them, they could see the endless expanse of orange sand. Suddenly it hit Marion all at once.
"I'm on an alien planet!" she said, looking out at the sand with her eyes wide.
The Doctor looked at her confused for a moment, "Of course you are Marion. I thought you said that you traveled with me before."
"Yes. But both those times were on Earth not even in the distant past or future or anything. Just normal 21st century earth. I've never been on an actual alien planet. Honestly, I've barely left the US except for in the Summer of '18."
"What is that out there then?" Leela asked. Marion could see a smile on her face as she looked out into the sandy sea. Marion didn't know what appealed to Leela about the desert seeing as Marion herself preferred the coasts and pretty forest of her youth. (She did know that Leela had a very nice smile but that wasn't the point.)
"It's a dessert. A lot of sun mixed a lack of moisture. Scorching during the day and freezing during the night."
"Where are all the trees?" Leela asked.
"There's no water, so nothing grows. Nothing at all, by the look of it." the Doctor explained looking out into the orange expanse.
"It's beautiful," Leela said with a sigh.
"Bit garish for my taste."
"I'm glad that at least you like it. What I don't like is that sandstorm over the horizon," Marion said pointing through the shuttle.
The Doctor squinted to look where Marion was pointing and then paled,
"Come on, let's get out of here. Come on! This is a sand miner. We're in one of the scoops."
"What does that mean?" Leela asked.
"The storm could be traveling at a thousand miles an hour. The sand will cut us to pieces unless we get back to the TARDIS. Come on!" the Doctor shouting, turning away from the shutters and heading back down the way they came.
"Good News and Bad News, the Bad News is that the TARDIS has been stolen," Marion called finished her statement just as the Doctor made it back to the hopper where he had parked.
The Doctor looked around in confusion, "You're right! It's gone,"
"I told you that I heard something!" Leela said.
"Marion! Why didn't you say something! If there isn't a manual control on the shutter then we'll be killed." the Doctor raced back towards the shutters and looked all over it for a switch or a lever, or a button of some kind.
"That's the good news. Watch,"
Right as Marion said this, the shutters closed shut keeping the sand from flying into the tunnel and ripping them to shreds. If she was being honest, a small part of her had been terrified that she would be wrong. That for some reason, the shutters would stay open and they'd all die. If she was being less honest, she'd say "Told ya!" and smile as if she hadn't been scratching her head for reasons other than the sand.
"Told ya!" Marion said to the Doctor and Leela, "the people running this rig figured out something was in the scooper and closed the shutters."
Leela ran back to the hopper that they had come from followed by the Doctor and Marion who followed slowly behind them. Marion could hear the sound of the sandstorm outside roaring and it made it hard for her to make out what Leela was saying.
"-RDIS is, Marion?"
"What?"
Marion got closer.
"Sorry, could you repeat that Doctor?"
"Do you know where the TARDIS is Marion?"
"I'm not 100% sure and I don't want to send us on a wild goose chase. We'll find it though!"
Leela must have noticed something out of the corner of her eye because she quickly turned around.
"Watch it!" she called to them.
From the tunnel they had just come from, came two figures. They were about an inch or so shorter than the Doctor and much, much taller than Marion. They were a very, very desaturated green color and looked like their design reminded Marion of a higher budget animatronic at a science museum. The kind that was expensive, looked pretty cool and was in an almost constant state of being surrounded by a white curtain labeled "Out of Order. Under Repair,". V17 and D84 were written on their chests in white letters. The robots got closer and closer to them until one of them, D84, was chest to chest with the Doctor.
'Oh right.' Marion thought 'These episodes had green killer robots in them.' Then she blinked,
'These episodes had green killer robots.'
"You will come with us," V9 said in a way that wasn't a question at all.
"Okay."
The two robots led the group into a corridor leading to a crew cabin with V9 leading the way and D84 keeping up the rear; likely to make sure that the three of them didn't try something funny like making a break for it.
"How do you know they're not hostile?" Leela asked.
"Because robots are programmed to help people, not hurt them." the Doctor said stepping up into the room they'd been led to. "You won't hurt us, will you?" the Doctor asked V9.
V9 ignored the question, "Please wait here." he said before walking out the door. The door slid closed behind them.
"And even if, say, hypothetically they were, in fact, hostile robots. It would be a bad idea to let them know that we know that they are hostile robots." Marion said, plopping down on a couch that looked like it was made of layers and layers of rolled bread dough and speaking in a very soft voice knowing that V9 was listening from behind the door.
The Doctor crouched down so that he was eye level with her on the couch, "And, is that in fact, a hypothetical?" he whispered.
"Hypothetically? No." she whispered back.
Leela had been drawn towards a table covered in different odds and ends.
"It's for mineral extraction. It's like when you sift a bucket through the sand looking for seashells 'cept, instead of seashells, they're looking for some kind of valuable mineral. Like I- nevermind,"
At first, Marion was about to say, "Like I said on the TARDIS" but then she remembered that V9 was behind the door listening in.
"But those creepy mechanical men…" Leela began.
"I don't think they're that creepy. Whoever designed them did well to ensure they looked human enough to be familiar, but not so human that they were hard to look at."
"I've seen a similar sort of thing on Korlano Beta," the Doctor said walking away from the door. "The mine passes over the surface searching for useful ores. Naturally, the heavier elements tend to sink into the substratas, so a really good sandstorm is a bonus. It stirs things up a bit."
"Sometimes you talk like a Tesh." Leela said from where she had joined Marion on the couch.
"Thank you."
"It was not well-meant. Are the mechanical men friendly?"
"Robots don't have feelings. It's the people they serve we must hope are friendly," the Doctor examined the table for clues and the like
"I wouldn't say robots don't have feelings, Doctor. You might turn out to be wrong and offend one."
"Is that a spoiler, Marion?" the Doctor asked, tilting his head slightly.
"Maybe, maybe not."
"Maybe there are no people here," Leela said in a low voice.
"What? Robots don't need chairs, and certainly not padded ones."
"Because they have no feelings?" Leela said with a smile.
Just then, the door to the room that they were in opened and a robot walked into. This one looked just like the others only instead of being green, this one was silver. It made Marion wonder if perhaps they were made of some kind of copper adjacent metal that tarnishes easily and that this one was new. She also wondered if this robot was the real robot or the one that was a dude in a robot suit.
"Please identify yourselves." the robot said in an even voice.
"I'm the Doctor," said the Doctor, "and that's Marion," Marion did a little wave, "and Leela. I wonder if it's possible for us to speak to the person in charge? I'd like to thank him for saving our lives."
"I command."
"Well, thank you for saving our lives."
"What are you doing here?"
"Oh, well, the other mechanical man told us to wait," Leela said.
"What were you doing in the scoop?"
"Trying to get out of the scoop and leave," Marion responded.
Marion could now see the robot's name as he moved closer to the exit,
"Please wait here," the robot, SV-7 said and then he left.
"Talkative," Leela commented. The Doctor waited until the doors were properly closed before getting to his feet and heading towards the door. Marion followed after him.
"No. He said we must wait here." Leela said, attempting to stop them.
The Doctor sonicked open the door and then he and Marion looked left and right down the corridor.
"First we find the TARDIS, then we have a little scout round, and we'll be back before they know." the Doctor whispered and began to walk away, looking around to see if anyone was nearby.
"It's best that for the time being, we stick together, Leela," Marion said with a shrug and followed after him.
"Doctor! Marion!" Leela said. She hesitated, and then followed after them, holding a knife in one hand.
They walked down a corridor covered in what were either thick pipes or support columns (although based on their presence on the ceiling and walls, they were probably both). The floor was some kind of off-white linoleum like material and the walls were mostly a tan color except for dark grey horizontal stripes. Marion wondered how the hell she was going to be able to save some of these people. 'They already are going to think that we're murderers and if I come around warning that people are going to die and knowing things that, as far as they know, only a killer would...well that's going to make things a little sticky. '
At a certain point, Marion glanced behind her to find that Leela turning around to look through a door. Marion decided to follow her.
'The Doctor'll be fine without me.' she thought. "He's got that metal straw and I don't think I've done anything that could make the Robots more hostile than usual. They'll get him out of the hopper just fine. I want to go with Leela,"
She turned around and walked through the blue doorway into the storage room after her. The storage room was mostly full of blue industrial shelves with crates and plastic jugs that were just translucent enough for Marion to tell that they contained something, but not enough that she had any idea what was inside of it. Marion waved to let Leela know she was there. The two of them crept silently through the room until Leela brushed against a mint green sheet of fabric while trying to examine something on the shelves which made it make a crinkling noise. Leela gestured towards herself, the plastic, the room as a whole, and at Marion.
Marion's highschool might've gone back on its promise to teach ASL for all four years, but that didn't mean that she didn't know what was being told to her. Leela was going to check out the plastic sheet and she wanted Marion to keep watch. Simple enough.
Marion kept her eyes out for approaching robots. The great thing about this task was that it made it so Marion did NOT have to look at a dead body. In Marion's humble opinion, any plan that made it so she had to spend as little time looking at a corpse as possible was in fact, a good plan. An ideal one in fact. Any good "Plan A", she thought, would allow her to look at 0 cadavers. (This is why Marion despite her love for Forensic science and good grades in the class in high school, she had not even considered any kind of job where those skills would have use.)
Marion heard the sound of the plastic moving and knew that Leela must be now seeing the body.
'If my timing is right, the robots should be coming back in about 60 or so seconds.'
"Leela, would you mind covering the poor man up again, the robots are about to come to pick him up and I don't think that him being exposed will go unnoticed," she whispered.
Leela covered the man back up and the two of them hid behind shelves. It would have been very easy to find them if the robots had been properly looking for the two of them. Fortunately, the Robots were more concerned with moving the man's body elsewhere, and so it was quite easy for the two women to hide unnoticed.
When the Robots left the room, the two of them stood up and out of their hiding place.
'I think I must've stood up a bit too fast.' thought to herself. She blinked for a bit, waiting for her vision to return to normal. After a moment, it did and she and Leela snuck out of the room to see where the robots were going. The robots continued down the hall and turned a corner. Leela put her back against the wall and leaned to look down the corridor still holding a knife. She grabbed Marion's hand and the two of them continued down the hall.
They lost track of the robots, and so they made their way back to the room where they were supposed to be the whole time. Leela let go of Marion's hand and walked slowly into the room.
"Doctor!" she called out.
"He's not here. He's fine though." Marion said. She wasn't 100 how she knew this fact or why she was so confident in it. All she really knew was that it was a fact and that she was sure that he was okay. Well, about as okay a person could be in the current situation.
Marion and Leela saw the curtains rustle from what Marion knew was another dead crewmember. She tried to wrack her brain to see if there was anything she could have done that would have helped him, but try as she might, she couldn't think of anything.
'Best to spend more time fretting over what you could've done then what you couldn't've I suppose.' she thought to herself.
"You were right about them being hostile Marion. You saw the robots move the bodies to a different place. Yes."
'And there's another body in here.' she thought. She didn't say it aloud because she wasn't sure of how close D84 was. Leela pulled back the curtain and recoiled. The man, Cass, if Marion was remembering right, had been propped up behind the curtain, and slumped over like a child's doll.
They heard the door open and both turned away from the body and towards the large, green, robot now standing in the middle of the room.
'Christ, I was listening for him and didn't even see him approach.'
For a couple of seconds, none of them moved or said anything. Leela brought out her knife and held her hand out as if to push it away if it got too close. Marion, knowing that the robot was unlikely to hurt them, took a breath in hopes of maintaining a calm composure as it walked slowly over to them.
Leela attempted to lunge at the robot. It grabbed her knife arm and held it out away from her while putting a hand over her mouth. Marion took a step backward and held up in hands in a way that she hoped suggested, "I am not a threat. Don't hurt me."
"Please do not cry out. It is important that I am not found here." D84 said.
"Obviously," Leela said, her voice muffled.
"You're holding my friend hostage at the moment and if you wanted to kill us you'd've done it already, so we'll be quiet." Marion quickly said. As far as she knew D84 was a pretty chill robot, and she didn't feel the need to call attention to him.
"Your friend is correct," the robot said, "if I had killed that man, would I not have killed the two of you as well?" He moved his hand away from Leela's mouth.
Marion held out her hand to the robot. "Well, since you're apparently not going to kill us. It's ever so nice to meet you. I'm Marion."
D84 looked down at her, and then at her outstretched hand, and shook it.
"Enough introductions Marion." Leela turned to look at the robot, "Explain what you're doing here"
"You have not explained what you were doing here."
"Oh, well I was looking for the Doc-" she stopped herself, "I don't have to explain anything to you. You're just a mechanical man. You're not real."
"That's a bit rude Leela," Marion said, "we didn't mean to be here, we just got rather lost."
"That doesn't explain how you got on this Sandminer,"
"Like I said, very lost,"
"You were found in the scoop deck of a Sandminer an otherwise uninhabited planet"
"Very, very lost."
Marion was pretty sure that if the robot had been given the capability to do so, it would have blinked slowly at her in confusion.
Instead, it reached down and grabbed the hand of Cass's body. The ones with the red marker on it.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked.
'Yes'
"No"
"No, not at all."
D84 moved from the higher deck near the corpse.
"I must ask. I must ask that you tell no one about me," he said walking closer towards them.
'Ohhh. He's asking because if he was found to be able to talk, they'd probably put one of those markers on him wouldn't they,' Marion realized.
"I won't tell," Marion said.
"Is there anyone left alive to tell?" Leela asked.
Suddenly, hearing the Captain approach the room, D84 grabbed both of their arms and if possible, his posture and mannerisms went from human people with minimal visible emotion to actual machines.
"Oh," the Captain, Uvanov said slowly, "we caught two of them."
'Wow!' Marion thought seeing him walk into the room, 'it's like someone looked at traditional Gallifreyan robes and thought "how can I make this worse?".'
(Next Chapter: Does This Look Like The Face Of A Killer?)
The Doctor: The Doctor rushes out.
Marion: I follow.
Leela: Leela's good out here.
Hey folks. We're dipping our toes into Classic Who as promised. With this chapter, all three Doctors promised in the character tags are present and accounted for. Yippee.