IA#13 - Red October - Chapter 2

[Rebecca K. Dowgiert]

Doctor Who: The Internet Adventures - #13
RED OCTOBER
Chapter Two - 'Songs of Angry Men'
By Susannah Tiller

Author's Note: Thanks to David Evans for the historical info.
Historical inaccuracies and atrocious puns are mine, all mine!
Bwahahaha!

Angela's navigational locator lit up, and she brought herself out
of her daze. A quick glance at the dial informed her that she was
in Moscow (Russia), Earth, 1917. She stowed the indicator in
one of her coat's voluminous pockets.
The date didn't mean anything much to her -- she'd never been
any good at history. Of course, that could have had something to
do with the fact that her education had been a little, erm, unconventional.
Then again, Angela Ferris was an unconventional person in quite a
lot of ways. What education she'd had was on the job, often interrupted
by more important things -- like surviving.
Of course she'd heard of Russia -- or her time's equivalent. The
Soviet Sector was still one of the major power blocks, even in Angela's
time. She'd killed at least three of their agents one night in a bar brawl.
Strictly business, of course.
She kept walking down the alley, noticing that it seemed to be getting
more and more narrow. Great slums of houses rose up on either side,
like walls trapping her in a cage. Angela shuddered. She didn't like being
in enclosed spaces. It always made her feel that she was about to be
attacked, or worse, arrested.
As if on cue, there were harsh voices in the distance, people yelling
something. Instinctively, Angela moved back into the shadows of the
building, her hands itching for a weapon, anything she could use. As
adrenaline started pounding through her body, she grabbed a half-rotten
paling from the icy ground, and eased round the corner.

*****

'I am Fyodor Doctoyevsky,' the Doctor announced theatrically. 'But
mostly, I'm known as the Doctor.' Vladimir Lenin frowned suspiciously.
The circle of men surrounding the TARDIS began to move closer to the
Doctor and Wil, shifting their weapons from one hand to another. Wil
felt his stomach begin to sink.
'How do you know who I am?' Lenin asked, his voice icier than the
frozen air surrounding them.
The Doctor smiled. 'I have studied your political theories, and their
applications,' he said. For a second, he turned away, and stared into the
distance, muttering something under his breath. Wil leaned in to listen.
' " Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed
or hunger; a brotherhood of man",' the Doctor said softly. 'Oops, wrong
Lenin. My mistake.' He turned back to Lenin with a beaming smile. 'Of
course, now I remember you. Vladimir Lenin, the world famous--'
Lenin raised a modest hand. '--Chess grand master,' the Doctor finished
triumphantly. He moved to shake Lenin's out-stretched hand. One of the
guards took two quick steps forward, and clubbed the Doctor with his rifle.
The Doctor gave a little half-moan, and sank into the snow. Wil gave the
guard a filthy look, and knelt down beside the Time Lord.
'Doctor?' he whispered. 'Are you okay?'
'No thank you, Brigadier,' the Doctor whispered. 'I prefer my marmadukes
on toast.' With that, his eyes closed, and he fell back.
Lenin had been watching the proceedings with interest. Now, as several
guards stepped forward to finish off the job, he snapped out a quick command,
and they stepped back into line.
'Your friend is a lunatic?' Lenin asked.
Too right, Wil thought to himself, then thought better of it. 'No, he's-
uh- he's British,' he said hastily.
'Foreign agents!' one of the guards spat. 'The British send their dogs to
keep eyes on out movements. Let us kill them quickly.'
Uh-oh, Wil though.

*****

It was just a bunch of kids, Angela realised, and dropped the plank in disgust.
A bunch of kids throwing rocks and sticks at a bundle of rags that someone
had left in the middle of this dingy alley.
Wait a minute -- those rags were moving. Angela had never been fond of
animals, but she wasn't going to stand there and let them kill the cat, or dog,
or whatever it was. She charged round the corner.
'What the hell d'you think you're doing?' she bellowed at the nearest kid,
a boy of about fourteen.
'Uhh -' he stammered. One of his friends giggled, and he instantly recovered
his nerve.
'What's it to you?' he swaggered, full of false bravado. Angela calmly
grabbed the filthy collar of his shirt, and lifted him up until they were eye-level.
'Don't mess with me,' she said, in a voice that had frozen Dalek killers with
twenty kills under their belts. The kid stopped wriggling. 'Ok, lady, whatever
you say,' he managed.
She dropped him, and he ran off with his friends. Angela took a couple
of steps closer to the bundle, and realised. It was a child, a blonde girl aged
about seven. A cut over one eye was dripping blood onto her clothes, and
her thin arms and legs were covered in bruises. She looked up at Angela,
and Angela saw the terror in her eyes.
For a split second, Angela was almost as terrified as the kid. I don't know
anything about children, she thought, before dropping to her knees in front
of the little girl.
'I'm Angela,' she said. 'And I'm not going to hurt you.' She spread her
arms out, so the girl could see that she wasn't armed.
'Tatiana,' the little girl said. 'Now please, can I go home?'

*****

As he wandered out of the plaza and into the streets beyond, Jadi Morok,
Bounty Hunter to the Stars (heck, BH to anyone who paid him) found
himself thinking of home. Which was strange, because he before he'd
joined the TARDIS, he hadn't really had much of a home. He'd lived a
restless kind of life, wandering around the spaceways and markets, tracking
down a fugitive or three.
But those months on boards the TARDIS had given him something of a
new perspective. He'd been living in the same place (more or less) for quite
a while now, and he was beginning to think that stability wasn't just something
that kept you up after a hard night on the Gargle Blasters.
Angela -- now, she was a complication. Thankfully, his indicator bleeped,
diverting him from that particular train of thought. He glanced down at it,
barely registering the date and time, and then slipped it back into his pouch.
Time to be getting back to the TARDIS. He turned around, and began to
make his way back through the maze of alleys and side streets.
Within minutes, he was hopelessly lost.

*****

Tatiana trotted down the alley alongside, taking three steps to every one of
Angela's. The little girl was munching some chocolate that Angela had found
in the pockets of the coat. There'd been a slight twinge of guilt, wondering
what the Doctor would say about the anachronism -- whoever heard of
TwinkyWinky Bars in the twentieth century? --but one look at the girl's
emaciated figure had overcome her reservations.
They were getting deeper and deeper into the slums now, and there was
an overpowering smell of decay and human waste, and sickness. Finally,
Tatiana stopped outside one of the dingiest looking buildings that Angela
had ever seen.
'This is my house,' she said, almost proudly. The door opened, and a
tall man burst out.
'Tatiana, my child,' he said. 'We have been so worried about you.' He
swooped her up in his arms, tut-tutting over the cut that Ferris has cleaned
and bathed as best she could. Angela felt awkward, wondering whether she
should just slip away. Then the man caught her arm.
'You brought her home?' As Angela nodded, his warmth was directed to
her. 'Than my wife and I have much to thank you for. Please, come inside.'
For a second she was tempted to refuse. But the look in his eye said he
would be offended if she didn't, so Angela took a deep breath, and stepped
inside.
Surprisingly the little house was impeccably neat. She stood on the threshold
for a few minutes, looking at the once-elegant furniture. The man caught
her gaze, and stroked his moustache sadly.
'I know what you are thinking,' he said. 'I am Mikhail Staheyeff, and
only a few short months ago I was guard to the Czar, God bless him. Then
he was forced to abdicate, and now my family and I are set upon in the streets
like animals.'
Family? Angela glanced around. Tatiana was being attended to by a tiny
woman, obviously her mother. Two more children sat in the corner of the
room, crying. And in the back room, she could hear someone coughing
uncontrollably.
Again, Mikhail seemed to read her thoughts. 'Our son, Alexei. He is
dying of the tuberculosis,' he said bluntly.
Angela swallowed. In her time, things like that were just distant memories.
'I'm sorry,' she said. Mikhail shrugged. 'Perhaps it is better than he lies
dying. My family and I are already a target for those discontented. And with
this talk of revolution, I fear our persecution is about to become much worse.'

*****

Jadi swore to himself. He'd been sure that the TARDIS was just around the
corner, just a few feet away. But it hadn't been, of course. With the crukking
cold, he was starting to get disoriented and dizzy. He stumbled around another
corner -- nope, no TARDIS.
Normally he was a dab hand at navigation, expert at finding his way from
point A to point B, even if you'd blindfolded him. But this time he'd let
himself get distracted by thoughts of Ferris, and hadn't bothered to take
notice of any of the landmarks. Stupid, Morok, he scolded himself. One of
these days mistakes like that could cost you your life.
He stumbled again. This time, someone caught him. Someone young, female,
and almost attractive, if it weren't for the hollows in her cheeks, and the painful
thinness of her arms.
'Are you all right, my brother?' she asked.
Jadi pulled himself upright. 'Listen, I'm not your brother--' he began quickly.
This sort of thing could get very messy, very easily.
The woman laughed. 'I meant it as a figure of speech. All Russia's
downtrodden poor are like brothers and sisters. And now we will rise up
against our oppressors.'
'You, and whose army?' Jadi countered. He still suspected that she was
a few roundels short of a TARDIS.
'Comrade Lenin,' she said proudly. 'He and the Bolsheviks have promised
to free us. And my friends and I are ready to die, when the Revolution comes!'
Oh dear, thought Jadi. But he smiled at her. 'Uhh, that's really nice, and
all, but I've got to be going--' And he almost tripped over again, and found
himself clutching at the girl for support.
'You're tired,' she said. 'Come with me, to our safe house, and you can
recover from your weariness.'
He was too tired to argue with her. 'By the way,' he said, as they slowly
made their way through the streets. 'My name is Jadi.'
'Lana,' the woman said.

*****

Wil had faced death quite a few times now. After the first time, he'd
supposed that it would get easier. He'd supposed that you'd gradually
become accustomed to that icy hand that clutched at your stomach and
turned your insides to water.
He'd been wrong.
For a few minutes back there, he'd thought that his life would end some
thousand years before it had begun, shot on a wintry street in Russia. One
of the guards had had his rifle poised, about to deliver a couple of quick
shots. Then Lenin's hand had smashed across the guard's face, sending
him to the ground.
'Fool -- do you want our purpose to be discovered before we have
even begun?'
Shamefaced, the guard had picked himself up off the ground, and
shuffled back into line.
Lenin faced the troop, iron faced. 'My word is absolute,' he said. 'And
we have wasted enough time on these... these incompetents. I shall question
them later.' For a split second, it seemed he was smiling. 'Perhaps I can even
indulge the Doctor in a game of chess. Bring them to our headquarters.'
A group of guards stepped forward. One of them produced some rope from
his pockets, and tightly bound Wil's hands. Then they heaved the Doctor to his
feet. He slumped against Wil, his eyes glassy and unfocussed. He muttered
something incomprehensible, then was silent.
The guards bound his hands, too. Then the rest of the group had circled them,
keeping them tightly in their midst as the little group moved out of the square.

*****

Jadi and Lana rounded a corner, and turned into a little street with shops
running down either side. There was a queue of doleful looking men, women
and children in front of one of the shops, looking as if they'd been waiting
for an eternity.
'What are they doing?' he whispered to Lana.
'They are waiting for bread,' she whispered back. 'Since the government
insists on keeping us in the Great War, our troops are fed at the expense of
the poor back home.'
As they passed the queue, a little man appeared at the front of the shop,
and raised his hands pacifyingly. 'I am very sorry,' he said. 'But there
will be no bread today.'
There was a collective groan from the crowd, and one or two of the women
turned away. Near the head of the queue, a elderly man spat at the baker.
'That is what I think of you,' he said. 'And this is what I think of the
government.' He swung his cane through the glass of the window.
In a second, there was chaos. Glass sprayed everywhere, and people turned
to run. A grocer's cart was overturned, and half-rotten vegetables spilled across
the street. Women dropped to their feet, and began scrabbling for the food.
Jadi had seen plenty of messy riots before, and was in no mood to see another.
'Let's get out of here,' he whispered to Lana.
'Don't you see?' she said. 'The workers are revolting at last!' And she
launched herself into the fray.
'You little idiot,' Jadi hissed, and threw himself in after her, wading through
the sea of people. The riot seemed to be gathering momentum now, as more
and more people joined in the fray. The crowd were angry, and were venting
their frustrations on anything and everything. He spotted Lana, only a couple
of metres away, kicking in a shop window. 'Lana,' he called, and thrust out a
hand. Then the crowd surged again, and he was knocked over by the tide.
'Help me!' he called, but no one seemed to be listening. Then a boot crashed
down onto his face, and everything went black.

TO BE CONTINUED...
--

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