[TTR] Traces of Possession, part three, by S. Daniel Wilson
Odeon
enough, part four may end up being late. Oh well, such is the internet.
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--
This Time 'Round: Traces of Possession
copyright 1999 by S. Daniel Wilson
All Rights Reserved
Doctor Who is a copyright of BBC Enterprises
--
Part Three
"...So I suggested that, for extra comic
material, he ought to pen something about a
jester's cap still dangling from poor Yorrick's
skull when Hamlet lifts it from the soil." The
fourth Doctor smiled mischeviously.
"Unfortunately old William's sense of humor
tended to come and go with the tides, and he
didn't think that the cap was so funny. Still, I
did manage to convince him to have the Queen
poisoned at the end. Tragic, but terribly
effective, I thought."
The blonde Time Lady across the table from him
nodded with indifferene, sure that he was lying
(or at the very least, wildly exaggerating)
through his teeth and curls. "So exactly how
much influence did you have in the great literary
works of Earth, Doctor?"
He thought for a moment. "Oh, quite a lot, I
should thing. Except for _The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy_, that was totally Doug's idea. I
say," he raised his voice a notch and looked at
the Ogron who was tending bar, "might I get a
nice cup of tea?"
The Ogron brought his tea, for which the Doctor
tipped him with a large wad of bills. The Ogron
smiled as best an Ogron can and returned to his
duties.
"There was also the time I showed up at Bram
Stoker's loft in a black cape and long, plastic
fangs in my mouth. Scared the poor chap to death,
nearly. Then he went and wrote a book about it. Sold
millions, inspired countless movies--"
"Doctor?" Romana was pointing toward the door of
the tavern.
Not paying attentin to her, he kept rambling on.
"And, of course, there was James Herriot's _All
Creatures Unevolved and Primordial_, three
chapters of which were ghost written by myself
while poor old James was in the hostpital with
a fractured skull suffered in a pogo-stick accident.
Sadly, the manuscript was never published--"
Romana gently kicked his shin under the table and
pointed at the door again. "Doctor, look!"
"Mmm?" He turned and boggled. "Oh."
Through the open door walked (rolled? floated?)
something that looked like a two-and-a-half meters
tall pile of discarded roofing shingles. It
glowed bright red and made a powerful thrumming
sound that permeated the floorboards and
furniture throughout the pub. Pausing, it looked
around for a moment, and finally settled down in
a dark corner.
"What is it?" Romana asked.
The Doctor turned back around and stared down at
the table. "A Krarg," he muttered, his voice at a
stage whisper. "How very intesting..."
* * * * *
Turlough was unconscious, propped more-or-less
upright in an old Victorian armchair onboard the
eighth Doctor's TARDIS in its vast control
chamber.
"I must say, I rather like what you've done with
the place," the third Doctor commented admiringly
to the eighth.
The seventh Doctor scoffed. "It was my idea, you
know."
"How long has he been like this?" the owner of
the TARDIS asked as he held Turlough's limp hand,
investigating the wrist for pulse and blood
pressure.
"Apparently only a day or so, according to
Jamie," the third Doctor told him. "From what I
understand, he broke a glass in his hands
yesterday after having a hallucinatory episode of
some sort. What I've gathered from talking with
Miss Jovanka is that he was shouting something
about a 'Dark Guardian.'"
Both elder Doctors exchanged knowing and worried
looks.
The third cocked an eyebrow. "Am I missing
something?"
"Do you remember when Turlough was under the
posession of the Black Guardian, when he was
trying to kill us?" the seventh Doctor asked,
only realizing too late that he'd not thought
about what he'd really just asked.
"Well of course I don't remember! That was a few
centuries beyond me!" The old-young man was
flustered with such a blantantly stupid
question, but his tone changed as he realized
what was going on. "Black Guardian, now that's
something I _am_ familiar with. What's this
'Dark' Guardian then, do you suppose? Are they
one and the same?"
"We need to talk with Tegan," the little man with
the brolly said, in a casual and breezy tone that
generally indicated he had some bundle of deep
thought stewing on the brain. "And our fifth."
The eighth Doctor nodded in accord. "Right. Here,
you take this." He pulled from his coat pocket a
ring with a large, blueish jewel centered upon
it, and handed it to the third Doctor. "We need
to look into his mind. You always were best at
this."
The third Doctor took the ring smugly. "I was
wondering where that had gotten off to. I could
have sworn I put this in my TARDIS."
"I stole it," the other man said, a bit
sheepishly. "One of the PMEB was stalking me a
few months ago. I forgot to return it when I was
finished with it."
"Yes, I'm _sure_ you forgot. Either I've become
more forgetful with each regeneration, or more
dishonest." He slipped the ring on. "You two had
better get on with whatever it is you have up
your sleeves. I do this better alone."
The seventh Doctor sniggered. "We always _did_
think that, didn't we?"
"Well it's worlds more productive than fannying
about the cosmos with a TARDIS full of cowardly
young girls who scream and faint at the first
sign of moderate danger and have to be rescued
upwards of ten times per week."
"Oh, yes. You're absolutely right, you know." The
eighth Doctor winked and smiled. He and his
predecessor left the TARDIS.
* * * * *
SPAM moved silently through the night, slowly and
carefully, onward toward their destination: the
front entrance of This Time 'Round. They were
still skirting the perimeter of the parking lot--
'parking crater,' Betty had joked earlier--when
their leader saw two of the Doctors emerging from
one of the many TARDISes and walking toward the
tavern.
Bev stopped dead in her tracks, bent over in an
almost predatory hunch, hoping she and the girls
hadn't been spotted. Malorie didn't notice that
her leader had stopped until it was too late, and
smacked right into her bum.
"You fat ninny!" Bev hissed, taking a quick
moment to calm herself, quiet herself, and not
smash the idiot behind her in the face with the
flashlight. Cari and Betty giggled somewhere in
the back.
"Quiet, you!" The Doctors were suddenly laughing
raucously at something, their cackling echoing
across the parking lot.
Betty was still smacking her bubble gum. "Like,
move it, okay? I wanna see Mel!"
"Blessed be thy name," Cari finished. It was a
sort of religious tradition when the name of the
Pure and Angelic was uttered, much like crossing
oneself at the sight of a crucifix.
"SHUT UP!" Bev snarled. She motioned with her
hand for all to move foreward.
"Say," Malorie thought aloud as she trudged
onward with the group, "I wonder if they've got a
security system out here, like motion detectors
and stuff."
"Then when the Adric Defense Force comes out,
guns blazing, I'll use your cellulite-laden ass
as a human shield while I jump over the fence,"
Bev retorted.
Betty and Cari tried to stifle their giggles.
Malorie gulped; she was sure that Beverly meant
what she said.
* * * * *
The taller of the two Doctors kicked smallish
pebbles out of the way as they walked across the
parking lot toward the tavern. Movement and dark
shadows in the distance caught his attention. The
other Doctor noticed it too. "I say, that's not
the PMEB over there, is it?"
"No. They're usually a bit more direct in their
approach." He narrowed his eyes, trying to get a
better look at the small, huddled group. There
appeared to be four of them, women from the looks
of it. One of them was hissing something at the
others. He tried to make out what it was, but the
sound was barely audible from his vantage point.
"Probably another pathetic, militant fan group.
Perhaps our sixth has finally procured a groupie
harem?"
There was a pause, and then both Doctors laughed
uncontrollably.
* * * * *
The fourth Doctor and Romana were just heading
out the door when the seventh and eighth walked
in.
"Ah, the bohemian," the eighth Doctor said
amiably. His fourth persona had always been his
favorite. "Just leaving?"
The Doctor smiled deviously and continued
wrapping his scarf around himself so that it
looked like a freak techinicolor accident of a
boa constrictor was trying to crush him to death.
"Well, you know... places to go, people to look
up... I've just got to pop off for a bit. Won't
be long. Keep the fire going for me. K-9?"
The three K-9's were engaged in a deep game of
Magic: the Gathering, against Doug and Diana of
the ADF. K-9 mark three had just tapped out his
mana and brought a Vesuvian Doppleganger into
play. Doug was groaning, his hand over his eyes.
All three dogs turned in unison at the Doctor's
voice. "Yes, master?" they chimed.
The Doctor pointed at them. "Eenie meenie miney--
you, in the middle, you're coming with me."
K-9 mark two left the game table and buzzed along
past the Doctor and Romana. "Affirmitive,
master." The Time Lord and Lady followed him out.
The two Doctor's who'd just come in scanned the
tavern until they found Tegan and their fifth
self sitting at a booth, enjoying idle
conversation.
"...but before I could stop her, she bolted off
after Adric, screaming at him. I think she may
have had a weapon. She's getting worse, you
know."
Tegan nodded. "I just wish I knew what was wrong
with her. It's lucky for Adric that he's able to
regenerate the way he does."
The Doctor was about to reply when he noticed his
seventh and eighth selves approaching the table.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he greeted, and he and
Tegan both scooted over to make room for the new
arrivals. The Doctors sat down.
Tegan frowned; listening to a conversation being
kept by multiple Doctors could be quite boring at
times, downright confusing at others. She was
surprised when the seventh Doctor turned to speak
to her. "I--we, that is--need to know exactly
what happened with Turlough yesterday."
"He hasn't done anything, has he?" the fifth
Doctor asked worredly.
The eighth Doctor said, "He had another...
something... today. I'm assuming he was
hallucinating. He's unconscious, in my TARDIS
now, with the third."
"What I'm most interested in," the seventh
continued, "is this business about a 'Dark'
Guardian."
The fifth shook his head. "I can't be sure yet,
not without knowing more about what's going on
with Turlough. But... I have a theory."
The eighth smiled. "As I suspected. Do go on."
"I've always wondered just how powerful the Black
Guardian's hold on Turlough really was. Did it
end when he resisted the Guardian's temptation to
kill us and recieve Enlightenment through the
deed?"
Eyes gazing up at the ceiling, the seventh
stroked his chin. "Perhaps traces of the
possession still remain, like a dormant virus,
you mean."
"Right. And now, somebody's exploiting that
virus."
Tegan jumped in. "So the Black Guardian is trying
to use him again?"
"Apparently," the eigtht Doctor replied. "I
wonder if this 'Dark' Guardian he speaks of is a
servant or minion of the more powerful one."
"But Turlough defeated the Black Guardian's
influence before," Tegan stated. "Why would he
try again?"
"Simple," the seventh Doctor sighed. "To kill us,
of course."
* * * * *
Outside, SPAM lurked through the shadows at the
pace of a mentally retarded snail. Bev paused
every few seconds to mutter curses under her
breath. She rather enjoyed directing her
hostilities at the less-than-coordinated troops
taking up the rear.
"Are we there yet?" Malorie whined.
"I'll tell you when we get there, Mal," Cari
consoled her.
"Shut the bloody hell up!" Bev growled. "Next
idiot that says another word isn't going to be
allowed within a hundred feet of Mel!"
"Blessed be thy name," Malorie blurted out
automatically, before she realized what she'd
just done. Bev grinned sadistically. "Looks like
Malorie's our winner, girls. Guess who gets to
wait outside while we kiss the hand of the Most
Lovely?"
The other girls said nothing. Malorie felt tears
welling up.
* * * * *
Further away, beyond the parking lot, deep in the
shadows of the evening, a _real_ military
presence hid and waited, closely monitoring the
movements of SPAM via high-tech electronic
surveilance equipment.
Quaid sat quietly at the computer console in the
back of the armored van, listening to the
bickering of SPAM out near the parking lot
through a headset, and watching them on
sophisticated nightvision monitors. He was a
hard-lived man with classic paramilitary looks--
square jaw, beady eyes, short hair, three days
worth of stubble shadowing his chin, and a body
built like a bear built like a tank. He was the
type of man whom women might accuse of being an
overbearing macho pig, but they never did,
because he was just too damned cute.
A smoldering cigarette hung cooly from his dry,
cracked lips as he listened to Bev verbally abuse
her following. The smoke swirled and eddied and
drifted up into his nose, where it burned his
sinuses, but he didn't flinch or sneeze or
anything. He was too cool for that.
After listening in on the current barrage of
Beverly's insults toward Malorie, he slipped the
headset off and laid it on the workstation next
to him. He activated the coded two-way radio and
grabbed a tranciever from the desk. "Foxhole One
to ANTI-SPAM Unimatrix," he said in a gravely,
deep voice who's accent pointed undeniably in the
direction of Russian upbringing (He'd once
dislocated a man's shoulder for joking that he
sounded exactly like the 'Boris' character from
'The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.'). "Foxhole One
to ANTI-SPAM Unimatrix, please come in."
There was a pause, then a burst of static, and finally
a pleasant, yet authoritative, femal voice.
"Foxhole One, this is ANTI-SPAM Unimatrix. Go
ahead."
He took a long drag off his cigarette and let the
smoke find its way out as he spoke. "SPAM agents
are now within twenty-five meters of tavern
door."
"Are they _really_ that pathetically slow?" the
other voice asked.
"Apparently, yes. Current rate of travel equals
three meters every five minutes. They stop to
argue quite a lot."
"How terribly pathetic. You know what to do when-
-if--they reach the intolerance zone?"
Quaid smiled and nodded. "When they reach the
fifteen meter mark, I send up the fireworks."
"Contact us with any new developements. ANTI-SPAM
Unimatrix out."
Quaid put the microphone down and picked up his
baby--a shiny, black AK-47 with his name lovingly
chiselled into the stock. He ran his fingertips
up and down the barrel in a way that could almost
be described as sexual.
"God damn, I love my job," he breathed.
* * * * *
Part Four coming soon...
--
THE ODEON
"Say hello to the sofa of reasonable comfort."
Doctor Who fiction by S. Daniel Wilson
http://members.xoom.com/doctorwho
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