Subject: [OTL]: Dr WHO (1/1)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 01:41:44 -0800
From: David Wheatley <dewheatley@yahoo.com>

Disclaimer: The Doctor, TARDIS and realted images are copyright of the BBC,
WHO and related characters are copyright of Marvel, except for Sapphire
Steel, who is mine. As is the murderer. God knows I am not making any money
off this and He will back me up as a character witness..

*******************************************************

Dr WHO

*******************************************************

For Angela, who said she wanted a story....

*******************************************************

The old man looked in the mirror and sighed, running his hands through his
long white hair. If it wasn't for the different face he wore he could have
sworn he looked like this before.  It had been a long time since he'd had
the chance to get this old and he sighed again, once out of satisfaction
that the universe was a much safer place, but also out of the knowledge that
maybe there was no place for someone such as him.

For years and years he had wandered through time and space, seeing what
there was in its infinite grasp and though he had fought injustice, solved
problems and resolved other mysteries as well as occasionally saving the
universe. The final of those had become less and less. Fewer and fewer
people had threatened that which he sought to protect. Even those who sought
to manipulate time itself had seemingly stopped.

He knew it to be a good thing, but there was a sense of boredom creeping in.
Perhaps it was because he had reached a distinguished old age, not dying in
such a relatively younger form. Being a Time Lord meant he had lived several
lives already and now he was approaching another landmark, he realised that
being older and being old were two different things. He'd been old before
and he was remembering for the first time why he'd been so cranky and
cantankerous.

It was because being older didn't suit him. The older, more experienced part
of him, the first of the quiet voices in the back of his mind may have
looked upon his younger selves with derision at first, but as time went by
he saw that they were vital parts of him. It was one of the advantages of
being taken outside of time and meeting what would be his future.

He looked back thinking that the times he had regenerated before had been
worth something, that he had changed as part of a bigger picture. This time
he knew it was not an enemy that would cause it to happen, but an old
friend. Time itself had caught up with him and he knew that soon he would be
gone, and a newer aspect would emerge, and he wondered what he would be
like.

His first self - my word that had been long ago - had lived a full life. He
had been respected on Gallifrey; he'd had a family, position and
grandchildren. He had obtained a position that few knew or those that did
never spoke of, and after all that he had done, to simply settle down and
use the abilities they had gained in such a dour way, it was not what he had
wanted. The life he had worked for had become too dull, too placid.

The Time Lords were too eager to use their powers to watch, but not
interfere. They had an enormous potential for the good they could do and
they wasted it by not using it. He had a sense of direction and
responsibility that his peers did not share, so he stole a TARDIS, this
TARDIS, and fled from their society, becoming a renegade but finally doing
something to help the universe instead of simply watching.

By doing so, he didn't feel old anymore. Then came the time of his
regeneration. His first regeneration. He remembered the anxiety he felt
before the moment? Would it work, what he be like, and more questions ran
through his mind as he felt his physical structure take shape, his brain
altering to fit his new head which would match his new face, yet somehow
retaining all that it held within.

His newfound youth was not as young as some might have anticipated, but the
success of it made him smile, and his humour became a trademark, often
masking the power in his mind, the speed of his brain. Wisdom dictated that
people often underestimated a fool, because who would believe a fool capable
of such deeds? It was that cunning, that guile, that perfect disguise which
allowed him free reign of time and space. No longer was he too old to do
what he wanted, what he felt inside was right and more me had the knowledge
about how to keep himself hidden from the Time Lords who hunted him.

Until there was no other choice but to surrender to them, to the meddling of
another renegade Time Lord, who did not share his altruistic nature. He had
no other way of fixing the damage done with this Time Lord's games but to
contact the other Time Lord's to stop him. He was not capable of fixing
damage on such a scale. He ran, but they found him now that they were so
close and they exiled him to Earth, disabled his TARDIS and removed his
knowledge of how to fix it. They gave him a new face as well, but although
he was dismayed at the unfairness of it all, the wisdom of his first self
told him that whilst it was wrong, he had put right a terrible deed and that
in those terms the ending was worth the cost.

His third life was younger than his second and gave him a recklessness that
saw him do daring and foolish things. His scientific brilliance dazzled his
allies, for he was far in advance of them and in a way his showing off in
the physical aspect echoed his showing off in the sciences. He was more of a
fighter than his previous incarnations. He was prepared to fight for what he
believed in, born of an injustice for what the Time Lords had done to him.
He dealt with his life trapped on Earth by dealing trying to sort every
problem that came his way.

His freedom was granted when he and his first two selves were forced to join
forces by a threat to the Time Lords, whom the three of them subsequently
defeated and he threw himself back out in to the galaxy. However his
recklessness stayed with him, having become a part of him for so long and
eventually his taste for dangers on planets for worse than Earth had
eventually caused his demise. He had been saving the planet at the time,
having inadvertently created a threat to Earth and once more he lost his
third life doing what he knew was right, fixing the mistake he had made.

His fourth self was a younger fellow, a lot more like his post Academy days
on Gallifrey. He felt the rebelliousness that he had in those days redoubled
with age, wisdom and hindsight. He was his own man, and though many tried to
use him he was always one step ahead of the game. He'd liked that version of
himself, but towards the end of that regeneration he had become more
brooding about things. He had cut himself off from his roots somewhat and
there was a sense of isolation creeping in. In the end he had saved the
universe, but sustained injuries that forced him to regenerate. He had known
it was coming as a shade of the future foretold it, and helped him to
regenerate; otherwise the injuries could have been too severe.

His fifth incarnation had been younger still, a lot like himself when he was
at the Academy. Younger, yet wiser and more cunning, he sought compromise to
situations, looking for the best in all things. However he was rather
impatient with his companions, but looking after them was what he would do.
The best way he could describe that phase of his life was nice. It had been
a trait that at times people had used against him more than at any other
time, but his quick thinking had allowed him to escape, though not always
unharmed. It had been a long time since he had lost a companion, and it was
a loss he was unprepared for in this incarnation. It was the desire not to
see it happen again that caused his next regeneration, using the last of the
antidote for the poisoning on his companion.

His sixth self was different to the rest. He was not as young as he had been
in his fifth self, but this was coming up to the half way point of his
regenerations, as there were 12 in all giving him 13 chances to live. In
this form he was prone to moods of melancholy, but like excess, giving in to
most of the pleasures he had denied himself. Food, travel and he had a finer
sense of justice, tempered towards retribution. He was more proactive than
he had been, blustering his way through with a pompous arrogance that
disarmed many as the whimsy had done in his second life. He had a fondness
for that era that he could never quite shake, and he suspected it was the
ideal that it was a combination between the man he wanted to be, and the
Time Lord that he was.

It was unfortunate, he mused, that it was cut so short. His sixth
regeneration to his seventh persona had been through no fault of his own.
The TARDIS had been buffeted by temporal distortions that had triggered his
regeneration. This version of himself was a fairly middle aged version, but
he had the hindsight to know that he was - with luck - over halfway through
his life. He used all the skills he had learnt, the wisdom, the cunning, the
arrogance, the comic, the inventive, the rebelliousness to tie loose ends
that he had left in the first half of his life, clearing old debts and
resolving things he had left undone. He set traps, made manoeuvres and
played his cards close to the chest, having anticipated almost everything
and having a contingency plan for the things he had not. There was an almost
cruel streak in him with the way he used events, yet there was also a deep
sadness within him, as he remembered. Half his life was over, and there was
so much that he had left behind. He had no family any more, in the sense he
had not seen them in centuries.

Then when he had achieved all he had set out to do, he had done some
remodelling of one of the TARDIS control rooms, putting all his home
comforts in to one place and lived a life alone, travelling time and space.
Until He fell in to a trap set by an old enemy, a trap he hadn't seen
coming, which was rather uncharacteristic for him. It had been a sign that a
change was needed and unlike before it was no heroic sacrifice that stopped
him but a hail of bullets and some human surgical skills on an alien
physiology. He had nearly not regenerated but he had and another loose end
was tied up. Now he was in his eighth life, his body younger than it had
been since when he really was young and thanks to his seventh he could do
whatever he wanted to. It had been a long one, he thought as the image in
the mirror stared back at him, and for a second he almost didn't recognise
himself, so caught up in his memories of the past was he.

He gave a little cough and he new that the time was coming when this body
finally wore out, and he wondered if he wanted to regenerate again. He'd
done so much so wasn't it time someone else had a go? He wasn't a young man
anymore, even if regeneration occurred. He smiled, and ran his frail fingers
through his thinning hair and turned to the console in the middle of the
room, and then the same frail fingers moved with a speed and familiarity
over the controls, setting the co-ordinates for somewhere he hadn't been for
a long time. He'd regenerated there three times already and it was an old
home for him. He hoped it would also give him the answers to his questions
that floated through his still sharp mind.

It was time to return to Earth.

***

Alistaire Stuart sat in his office at the Weird Happenings Organisation,
known more informally by the acronym of WHO. The desk was clear of
paperwork, the desk empty except for three items - a glass, a bottle of
Napoleon Brandy and a photograph in a small wooden frame.

"Here's to you, Sandy," he said as he gulped down a shot of the liquid and
poured himself another. Brigadier Alysdane Stuart was Alistaire's twin
sister and had been the driving force behind WHO, before Jamie Braddock
killed her. Then everything she had worked for had been torn down by various
agencies and it had taken Alistaire a long time to get WHO back.

He'd been doing this for about a year now and he was happy enough. He was
more of a scientist than a leader, but he'd settled in to the role, vowing
to do his sister justice. He sighed as he looked at liquid in the glass, a
musty yellow and he wondered what she was doing, what she was thinking.
Especially today, as it was his, and her, birthday, though that explained
why he was drinking and had been most of the night.

As a scientist he'd been taught that when you were dead, you were dead. Game
over, end of the line and so forth. However being with WHO and tagging along
with Excalibur he'd seen and done so much, and he knew that death wasn't the
end and that were things beyond. It was things like that, which kept him
happy, because for a long time he hadn't been.

"Ah, Sandy," he said to the photograph, then looked out of the window,
seeing the sun start to raise over the cityscape of London. The WHO
headquarters were house in the Tower of London, in a reputedly haunted
tower, nicknamed the House. It wasn't haunted, in the conventional sense,
but the ghosts of the past, the history of the Tower and the people who had
been detained within haunted it. Alistaire's office looked down on to the
Thames and he could see the sun reflected in its waters. He looked up to see
the redness of the sky and the look of the Millennium Wheel, known as the
'London Eye' and smiled in spite of the mood he was in.

No matter what he'd seen and where, London was home. He felt happier here
than he did in Dunoon, Scotland where he had grown up. The hustle and bustle
of the metropolis where he now was gave him more opportunities than a small
village. That said, there was still a soft spot for Celtic and not Arsenal,
not that he got chance to catch a soccer game these days.

"I can see you now, by the light of the dawn and the sun is rising slow," he
murmured half singing the line from a song he knew, and then took another
drink from the glass. Soon the city would wake up and people would go about
their lives none the wiser for everything that was happening, everything
that could happen. It may have been a Sunday morning, but it was still a
city, nonetheless. A peep-peep from his watch alerted him to the time and
then Big Ben began to chime, announcing to the world that it was six a.m. in
London and that the world still turned.

Alistaire put the glass down on the windowsill and put his hands in his
pockets as he quietly walked over to the small radio that stood on a cabinet
by his door.

"Let's see what's happening in the world today," he said switching it on,
wanting to hear the news. There was no finer news service on radio
throughout the world than the BBC. Radio 4 in particular provided him with
the feeling of Britishness and stiff upper lip that made him proud to be who
he was and what he was.

The broadcaster gave the brief headlines, but then it went on to a religious
thing and Alistaire remembered that the longer morning programme was
weekdays only. He'd had quite a bit to drink, so he blamed the memory lapse
on that.

"I miss you, you know," he said without looking at the photograph. "I know
that this isn't how we intended things to be, God knows I never considered
myself to be the person in charge, though I did see a few worlds like that
with Excalibur, that time, but..." Alistaire trailed off again as the sun
got a little higher and started to shine in his eyes. "I guess all I'm
trying to say, Sandy, is happy birthday. I love you." With that he switched
the radio off as a choir began to sing 'I Vow To Thee My Country', and he
walked over to the window and pulled the wire to close the blind, shutting
out the light.

He gave a yawn and decided he was tired and that he could do with a kip, so
he settled down in to the comfy leather chair, pushed back with his heels so
the chair moved closer to the wall and then he rested his feet on the desk.
Nothing ever happens on a Sunday he thought as he began to drift out of
consciousness. Maybe he'd have it written in to the rules, he mused and then
he was away, lightly snoring and to all intents and purposes dead to the
world.

***

Sapphire Steel stopped running, placed her hands on her thighs and waited to
get her breath back. She'd be up and training since five, unable to sleep
and seriously needing to burn off some energy. The good thing about the
Weird Happenings Organisation was that they did have some top-notch
facilities in the Tower. It wasn't as if her powers were active like claws
or eye-blasts or stuff. She could absorb information quickly and use it
analytically. It meant she needed to be in top shape physically, which was
why she pushed herself so hard.

So far she'd run ten miles, cycled five, rowed five then run another ten,
and now her muscles were screaming at the pressure she'd put them under.
There was no doubt about it; her current desk job was certainly costing her
in the fitness stakes.

Oh, for the good old days she thought as she wandered over to the showers
when she could do the same amount of work in the same time, in the same time
and only be breaking a sweat instead of being winded. Then again, if it
weren't for the fact she'd been blessed with a metabolism above a normal
human, she'd have probably killed herself. There were some fringe benefits
to being a mutant, when you weren't being hunted down by your ignorant and
less noble peers, who either wanted you dead or locked up.

Which was why she'd joined the services doing a few years with the United
Nations and now her current role at WHO. She sighed, as she took a drink
from the litre bottle of water, replenishing lost fluids. Once she'd taken a
good drink, and wiped the excess from her lips she smiled again, and headed
for the showers.

She switched on her hot water and it rushed out, and a after a few moments
the room began to fill with the steam that was being generated. As she stood
mist that crept around the area she began to remove her t-shirt which was
clinging to her from the sweat of her workout, thinking how nice it would be
if Alistaire came in now and offered to help her. As bent her arm back to
undo the small hook on her bra, she knew it was forlorn hope and she swiftly
removed the rest of her clothing and stepped in to the hot water.

As she stood there, soaking herself, washing away the grime of the intensity
of the training session, she began to think of how many other women had been
naked in this tower through out the ages, washing, bathing, getting changed
and preparing for execution, either to be hanged in the courtyard or to be
beheaded in hopefully one stoke of the axe. She'd studied the history of the
Tower before and it filled he with a sense of awe to be in a monument to
living history.

It was almost like travelling in time, she mused as she ended her shower and
stepped out of the water, still dripping and walked over to her locker where
her towel was. The advantages of working out in the wee hours of a Sunday
morning, she thought - unadulterated privacy. Then she removed her normal
clothes from the locker and began to get dressed. It was formal enough
clothing, but she didn't go to church. It wasn't that she didn't believe in
God, she just didn't believe He was still out there.

Her personal philosophy was that He'd created the universe and then gone off
to make another one, going on and on and on, doing just that. She believed
He could probably here everyone who called to Him; he just didn't have time
and pushed it away, much like muzak. If you were creating the infinite,
would you have time to listen to the ants?

She doubted it and so left him alone. If He wanted her, He knew where to
find her. He created everything after all. She put her watch on her wrist
and then looked down at the time. It was about half six, and she knew a
small place just outside the Square that opened at that time. It served a
decent cooked breakfast, and made one of the best cups of tea in the city.

After what she'd just been doing, she was hungry.

***

The central column stopped moving and he knew that the TARDIS had landed.
The time rotor was no longer humming and there was a small chime from the
console. He gave a slight nod of his head in a sideways glance as he checked
the co-ordinates of the landing.

Spot on. Not like the old days when he's missed the landing point by
anything from 10 meters to 10,000 light-years, or from 10 minutes to 1000
years. Something's definitely improved with age, he thought. Now he was here
in London, England.

He flipped a switch on the console and the old familiar whirr as the
mechanics kicked in and stabilised the dimensional transfer, creating a
balance that allowed him to step out of TARDIS and in to the world outside.
There it was, just as he wanted it - a small park bench, on a gravel path
beside a small lake with a fountain in the middle of it. Trees surrounded
the immediate area, so that the cityscape could not invade this little piece
of paradise, and at this time in the morning it was at it's most peaceful.

The plant life was just beginning to respond to the first rays of the sun
and was stirring on their stalks, as he closed the door and locked it,
placing the key in to his pocket. He stood their a moment listening to the
birds in the morning, the dawn chorus, and he knew this was where he wanted
to be, where he needed to be. This was as good a place as any to die, and he
sat down on the park bench, pulled his coat around him, for he was an old
man and it was cold out there and waited for sleep to take him, not knowing
if he would awake, or if he wanted to.

He wouldn't fight it this time, and indeed time would tell if he regenerated
and he wondered what the greatest adventure of all had in store.

***

"My Lord."

"Yes?"

"The scans are complete. We have the temporal anomaly locked and located. It
is coming from the early 21st Century."

"You can be more specific?"

"Yes, sir. We have the exact temporal co-ordinates."

"And location?"

"Exactly where you said it would be, my Lord. London, England."

"Excellent. Begin the firing sequence, and alert the Deacon."

"Sir."

***

He didn't like being woken on a Sunday at the best of times, but as the
Commander of the Inter Regional Taskforce, Inspector Dai Thomas had gotten
used to it. He still didn't like it though. It was nearly 7.30 in the
morning and he hadn't had a coffee yet, but he did have his cigarettes for
which he was grateful.

"So what's so important you had to get me up at this god forsaken hour?" he
asked of his lieutenant who was standing at the entrance to Kew Gardens,
Dai's light welsh accent coming through a little stronger than usual, but it
was always the same until he'd had his first cup of coffee of the day.

"We got a call about half an hour ago. The groundsman heard a strange
whirring sound from inside the Forest of Harmony, you know the small park
they built for the Princess."

"It may be early but I am awake, Montgomery."

"Sorry, sir. Anyway he went to check and he saw a police box in the middle
of the garden."

"A police box?"

"Yes, a blue telephone box that has..."

"I know what they are, lad. It was a rhetorical question."

"Right, sir." Dai sighed and took another long drag of the cigarette,
waiting for Montgomery to continue. "Anyway, he watches the door to the
police box open and an old man steps out of, in period dress no less. Very
Edwardian in type and colour. Then the old man sat down on the bench and
closed his eyes."

"Is he asleep?"

"We've tried waking him, but nothing. He has a faint, yet pounding pulse as
if there were two heartbeats, but he is deathly cold."

"Let's have a look then," said Dai, thinking this was more WHO's remit than
his, but the safety of the establishment and related areas came under the
IRT remit first. The man sounded like he was a mutant of some kind, which
generally meant trouble. He'd hung around Captain Britain and Excalibur long
enough to know that.

As they walked through the gardens to where the old man was, Dai began to
wonder how he'd gotten in and why he'd bring a police box? It didn't really
make sense and he got his cell phone out just in case. If the man was not a
threat, then he'd call WHO and he'd go back to bed. He flicked through the
speed-dial numbers until he got WHO HQ ready to be summoned at a moment's
notice. He was half tempted to do it anyway, but he knew what day it was.

As they got to where the old man was, Dai looked at the police box.

"It's locked," he said. "Is there a key?"

"Perhaps it's on the gentleman?"

"You haven't looked?"

"Well, we gave a cursory check for papers, ID or something but there wasn't
anything we could find. The DNA sequencer found nothing in, and his
fingerprints were, well, wrong."

"Define wrong."

"They didn't fit any known kinds, and there were no records that came
close."

"So we don't know who he is, where he came from or even what he is?"

"Basically."

"Brilliant." Dai leant down towards the man and noticed that his breathing
was shallow and he tried the man's pulse. It was faint yet racing as he'd
been told, and he gave the man a shake, but he didn't move. In fact he
slumped down on to the seat, half lying.

"Get an ambulance," he told Montgomery. "He's no threat like this." Then he
hit the call button on his telephone. He wasn't going to let this man die
because he didn't know what he was doing. He needed someone who could.

"It's Thomas, IRT. Get me some of your people down to Kew Gardens.
Alistaire's gonna love this one."

***

"Alistaire." The voice was soft and gentle as it spoke to him. "Alistaire."
Almost musical, in fact. "ALISTAIRE!"

That wasn't neither was the slap the accompanied it and it shocked him
awake.

"Wha' th' fu'?" he asked as he opened a bleary eye, to be met with intense
light and sound. His head hurt.

"Sorry, Ali," said Sapphire, in her normal voice but Alistaire closed his
eyes and waved at her, motioning downwards with his hand and she took the
hint that her boss was hung over. "But you're needed downstairs." He
carefully opened his eyes to look at her. He thought it was Sapphire, but he
wasn't quite sure.

"What time is it," he said in a whisper so that his head didn't explode.

"Quarter to eight," she said.

"Oh, God," he groaned, vaguely remembering the chimes of Big Ben at six. He'
had barely two hours sleep.

"Here," she said and passed a bottle of aspirins over which he caught,
opened and swallowed five of them. "Dai Thomas has had an old man brought
in. He arrived in Kew Gardens in a police box, and is near dead."

"What of?" asked Alistaire as he put on his jacket as they made their way
out of the room and down to the medical section of the offices.

"Old age," she said. "But I think I know who he is."

"So why am I needed?" he asked, almost pleading.

"Because if I'm right, then you have to see this." She did this more often
than not, and she was usually right. Except this time he felt as though
Galactus was playing the bongos on his head.

"Do I have to?"

"Yes," she said, grabbing him by the arm, pulling him along the corridor.
When they got there she asked about the patient and how he was doing to the
on duty medic.

"Not good," said the doctor. "He's in a bad way. Very old man, out on a very
cold morning. I'm not a psychologist but I think he might have been out
there, waiting to die."

"How long?"

"He should be dead already by my thoughts. Commander Thomas is with him
now."

"Dai's here?" asked Alistaire. Could this morning get any worse?

"Yes," said Dai, coming from behind a curtain. "Bloody hell, you look
terrible."

"Thank you," he muttered, meekly. Then he saw the police box. "Why is that
here?" he asked.

"I had them bring it in," said Sapphire. "He'll want it when he wakes up."

"If he wakes up," said Dai.

"When," she said, firmly.

"So what are we here for?" asked Alistaire. He knew he'd be better later,
but he wasn't in the right state for twenty questions.

"We're waiting for him to die," she said, at which point both Dai and
Alistaire looked at her.

"You just said he'd wake up." Dai was tired and the coffee at WHO was nearly
as bad as the muck you got in America.

"He will, after he dies. If he's who I think he is."

"And if he isn't?" said Alistaire.

"But he has to be," she said as she looked down. "It fits the profile."

"What profile?" asked Alistaire as he looked at the man. Then he shook his
head as if he didn't believe his eyes, which was a mistake considering the
delicate state of his head. He groaned and looked at the man again.

"By..." said Dai, his mouth open in disbelief.

"Yes!" whispered Sapphire, her fist clenched in success. The man in the bed
was shimmering, his features bending, contorting and altering, in a
multi-coloured hue that surrounded him. The colours got brighter and
brighter until it became a crescendo of light, that forced them all to cover
their eyes and when they could see again they saw a different man in the
bed, a younger more vibrant man, wearing the same clothes. The problem being
they no longer fitted him, as he had changed totally, from hairstyle to body
shape.

"What the hell happened?" asked Dai.

"Total autonomous cellular regeneration," whispered Alistaire. "Triggered on
the death or near death of the previous body. Incredible. Who is he?" he
asked Sapphire.

"Exactly," she said, with a smile. "If he is who I suspect, he's known as
the Doctor. When I was at the UN, I had the job of redoing the files and he
features prominently in some... special documents. He used to work with the
United Nations Intelligence Taskforce."

"UNIT?" said Alistaire, ignoring the fact that by special she meant
classified. "I think I have a relative who worked over there."

"Anyway, he's an alien. More to the point, he's a Time Lord. He travels
through time and space in that police box and..."

"I know him," said Alistaire. "He's from Gallifrey. We discussed trans
temporal relativity dynamics a couple of years back when I was on that caper
with Excalibur, travelling through the dimensions."

"Wonderful," said Dai. "Can I go now? We're still having difficulties
catching that murderer, you know. The last case I brought you people?"

"We're working on it," said Sapphire. "It's just this one's a little
easier."

"Terrific," said Dai. "Well, I'm awake now, so I suppose I'd better go and
get some paperwork done."

He was still chuntering to himself under his breath as he left he area and
Alistaire and Sapphire looked at each other. Or at least Alistair squinted.

"So what now?"

"We wait until he recovers. From the old notes at the UN, this thing takes
it out of him. Reconfiguring the brain, yet retaining everything that has
gone before isn't easy."

"Then I'll get some sleep. Wake me when he wakes," said Alistaire and
Sapphire nodded, as he settled down in to a nearby chair and closed his
eyes. She got a blanket for him, but by the time she returned he was asleep.

"Rest easy, Ali," she said as she placed it over him and then turned her
attention to the man in the bed.

***

Dai Thomas got back in his car and sighed. After all this time with dealing
super beings and WHO he'd have thought he'd be used to it by now. He wasn't
though, and he decided to go get some breakfast. There was a nice little
place not too far away, just outside the Square that did one of the best
cups of tea in the city.

He turned the key and the engine fired up as he put the black saloon in gear
and set off towards the Square. It was nice and peaceful at this time in a
morning, well compared to this time on a Monday morning anyway. Then he
thought to the plans that the new mayor had about blocking off the town
centre to most traffic. He knew that wouldn't apply to him, because he could
put the sirens on if he had to. Still it was rare that he was in London
these days. In recent months he'd been to Glasgow, Manchester and Wales. It
was good to get home for while, even if he was working.

Now he was back in the capital, working on a murder enquiry. It was a
specialised one, was this and it touch more than the IRT could handle. The
murder victims had all been killed while alone, in rooms locked from the
inside. Cameras had shown that there were no people coming in or out, scans
using the latest technology from Muir Island, courtesy of what was left of
Excalibur, had shown that there had been no mutant abilities used to commit
these murders.

Basically they were stumped and it came down to the Weird Happenings
Organisation to find out how someone had gotten in. It was taking the IRT a
lot of time to find the maniac, to predict who might be next and try and
stop the murder before it happened, except without knowing how it was done
it was almost impossible. It still took most of the time he had in the day
though.

"Just like an X-File," said Alistaire when he'd seen the case file after the
first murder had taken place, but it was a reference that was mostly lost on
Dai. He knew it was a TV programme, but it was American and he shied away
from those.

"Jonathan Creek," Alistaire had amended and then Dai knew what he was
talking about - seemingly unsolvable murders and crimes, cracked by a man
who created illusions for a stage magician.

"So it'll take you a Saturday night, then?" Dai had retorted. That had been
the best part of two months ago, and they were still no nearer, and the
victims had reached five so far and he'd been called in after the last one
and chastised for the failure, but that was nothing to the lecture that
Alistaire had got afterwards from the Secretary of State. Everyone's job was
on the line with his one, he thought and as he drank his cup of tea, his
mobile telephone rang and he answered it almost immediately.

"Thomas," he said and his eyes went wide. Victim number six had just been
found. Same MO, and one of the victims on the list the IRT had compiled. "On
my way," he said softly, and then he hung up and looked at the cup of tea in
front of him. He drained the cup and paid the man at the counter, pulling
his coat around him as he walked out of the cafT. He had to get to the other
side of London and he had a feeling he wasn't going to like today very much.

***

"Incredible," said Sapphire as she opened the door of the police box and
stepped inside. Alistaire and the Doctor were both asleep and had been for
the past two or three hours and she'd become bored of waiting and curiosity
had gotten the better of her. The first thing she noticed, other than how
big it was inside than out but she had been expecting that, was the style.
The Gothic redwood panelling complete with the complex six-sided control
panel that seemed to somehow fit in with the dTcor was not what she was
expecting.

Her gaze shifted from the control panel and to the rest of the room. There
was a massive collection of clocks and timepieces, which held the correct
time when she looked at her own watch. Did they match every world and time
period visited, she wondered and if so how?

The little garden area at the other side of the room was adorable, a scene
from the old world, with a church organ sat next to a small stone fountain,
where the water gently tricked down the intricate carvings and, as well as a
gramophone that seemed odd in principle for something that was as high tech
as the TARDIS but seemed in place.

Next to the garden were rows and rows of books, making up one of the most
comprehensive libraries she had ever seen, full of authors she had and
hadn't heard of, filed in alphabetical order. Then there were the filing
cabinets, almost as wide as the rows of books, filed by time periods and
place and in languages she couldn't hope to decipher.

She sighed in awed admiration at the place as she wandered about, the sounds
of her feet on the redwood floor echoing about the place.

"Just what do you think you are doing here, young lady?" came a voice from
behind her and she turned towards the panelled doorway, with its ornate
marble pillars and intricate decorations. She gasped as she saw the man
before her, the man who had been dead to the world not moments ago. He stood
there before her, about five feet ten inches in, height, quite well built
and having the face of a man in his early thirties. Or maybe late twenties,
she couldn't quite tell. It was the eyes, the piercing gaze that seemed to
be wrong from the rest of his appearance.

"Well?" he asked, more amused irritation in his voice than anger at the
trespasser in to his sanctuary.

"I was just seeing if the rumours were true," she answered. "I'm Sapphire.
Sapphire Steel, and you are the Doctor."

"I know who I am," he said, "and now I know who you are as well. However I'm
still certain we've never met before. At least I think so; regenerations are
usually tricky at first. New weight distribution, new style, I wonder which
aspects of my personality are dominant this time? Wasn't entirely sure I was
going to make it this time, but..."

"Excuse me," said Sapphire as she saw him working his hands across the
console. "What are you doing?"

"I'm just making sure everything is okay before I go. I seem to have come
through this regeneration much better than some of my others, my faculties
are in tact and I can remember more or less everything, however I think it's
time for me to be going."

"But you only just got here."

"No," he corrected sharply as he looked up. "I arrived at a nice little
park, and went to sleep on a bench. I woke up in a hospital bed in the Tower
of London, if I'm not too mistaken. I don't think it's changed in the past
200 years or so, except for the hospital equipment, which wasn't there then
obviously. Interesting," he said as his gaze went back to the console.

"What?" she asked.

"I seem to follow my sentences with afterthoughts. Must be an after effect
of regeneration, or maybe a new aspect of my personality."

"Oh," said Sapphire, a little disappointed with the man she was seeing.
She'd expected something different from what she'd read. "About moving you,
we're sorry for that, but we couldn't really identify you as we brought you
here and you seemed to be dying."

"I was. What's the world coming to when you can't die with half of London
watching you?"

"We are in a special state of security," she tried to explain then he rose a
finger in to the air as he suddenly realised where he was at went the time
was.

"Tower of London. You work for the Weird Happenings Organisation?"

"Yes," she said.

"Why didn't you say so," he said and stopped fiddling with the console,
except to flip a switch that opened the door. "I've been meaning to call on
you people for a very long time. Professor Stuart said if I was ever in the
area..."

"He's outside," said Sapphire, biting back the excitement in her voice.

"I didn't see him," pondered the Doctor. "However, I will go and change in
to something a little more apropos, and I'll be out shortly?"

"So you aren't leaving?"

"Not just yet," he said with a smile. "Besides I want to find out why you
know as much as you do about me. I didn't realise my profile was on record."
The smile vanished as he spoke hen returned and Sapphire got the feeling
she'd just received a ticking off, but he was off and went through a door at
the back of the garden and she exited the TARDIS and went to rouse
Alistaire.

***

The car pulled up outside number 25 Dalton Street in the Westminster
district of London and Dai got out. There was a flurry of activity there
already, with forensics, uniform, IRT agents and a few members of the press
hanging around, sniffing for a track on the story. They were early today,
thought Dai with a scowl.

"Who is it this time," he said to the first of his people he clapped eyes
on, ignoring the press with the same determination they were asking him the
questions. He already knew the answer but he had to check anyway. Mistakes
were made, communications slip-ups occurred and sometimes what he'd been
told wasn't necessarily true.

"Miss Angela Stevenson," came the answer and a chill hit Dai's heart. The
victim that they'd predicted, only due to the fact that she had more than a
passing interest in the political arena, usually due to a close friend or
relative who were involved in or retired from the day to day the business at
the Houses of Parliament. It was a vague link, but it was all they had been
able to come up with so far.

There were a lot of people like that so it stretched resources thinly and
there was also the possibility that they were wrong in their assumption.
When he'd worked in CID in Cardiff, the one thing his boss, a crusty
Detective Chief Inspector by the name of Anderson had told him 'never assume
anything because it makes an ass of you and me' and it was a lesson Dai
never forgot, but with the IRT there was often no other choice.

"Aged 23, moved to Westminster from Doncaster about three months ago," his
officer continued, refreshing Dai's memory with the details. "Her uncle used
to be minister in the Foreign Office. Retired in '97 due to heart problems,
but the two of them were very close, especially as her mother died when she
was 6. Her uncle was the only link she had to him, other than her father and
he couldn't fill in all the blanks."

"How?"

"Single stab wound to the heart, entry wound near the shoulder blade. No
weapon found as yet, but it looked like she was having breakfast at the
time. Didn't see the attacker coming."

"Same MO as the others. Doors and windows locked from the inside, no signs
of a break in?"

"Nothing suspicious, which is suspicious in itself. We did a sweep for
mutagenic traces, but found nothing. When she failed to check in, we went to
check. There was no reply so we broke down the door and found her."

"Damn."

"They're going over this with a fine tooth comb, sir."

"They won't find anything. Have you alerted WHO?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then all we can do is wait."

***

He examined the craftsmanship of the seat as he sat down. The chairs in the
office weren't antique, but they were comfy nonetheless, which was something
that modern chairs didn't really have. Alistaire had another cup of coffee,
as Sapphire just had a diet coke. The Doctor went for a cup of tea and
Sapphire mostly sat listening in as he and Alistaire caught up and
explanations were given.

"So this is your ninth regeneration?"

"Yes," said the Doctor, quite cosily. "The thing is I don't know what I'm
going to do with myself.  Perhaps I ought to go back to Gallifrey and
retire, but that would never do."

"I was the same," said Alistaire. "After I lost Sandy I wasn't sure where
the rest of my life was going. I tried to find out who framed her, what had
gone on and Excalibur were instrumental in that. Then once things had been
dealt with it was all over, and I didn't know where I was going anymore.
This place wasn't the same."

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor in a soft tone, as he lightly touched
Alistaire's arm. "I know it was a few years ago today. How did I know that?"

"Maybe you were keeping an eye on him a long time a go?" suggested Sapphire.

"No, I only met him in my eighth guise, when we were on Otherworld that
time. Now there's a story you'll be interested in, Alistaire, you see I was
experimenting with transdimensional physics. The vibrational frequencies are
similar to the ones given off by the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey and it just
took a small adjustment to the fractal reintegration core to get me to
Otherworld. I got kind of lost trying to find my way out though. All these
realms with super-beings in them make things a little overwhelming. I much
prefer normal reality."

"But Doctor..."

"Yes, this reality has super-being s in it as well, and there's another
story behind that. One of the most despicable acts of temporal altering I've
ever seen..."

"What?" asked Sapphire.

"My dear, you don't think mutancy is just a simple change? Darwin was on the
right lines, but this planet should never have held life at all, and it
fascinated some races in the universe. Humanity has a longevity, which is
surprising across the universe, no matter how many times it is defeated by
forces bigger than itself. When someone decided to turn humanity in to the
ultimate weapon, it was one of the most evil things I have ever witnessed,
or failed to stop."

"But we're not weapons," said Alistaire, and the Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"My dear Alistaire, not yet."

There was a silence for a moment as the revelation set in, a silence broken
by a telephone ringing on Alistaire's desk.

"Stuart... Another one... We're on our way. Saffy, something's come up.
Another one for the Invisible's case file."

"Oh no," she said. They both knew the pressure would be on now for a
solution to come up. WHO's reputation was riding on this, what was
supposedly one of the most high profile unsolved murder cases. It was time
for WHO to prove they were worth all the money that they were funded with.

"I can see you are busy," said the Doctor, standing as he saw the body
language before him. There was a curiosity about the thing for him, but it
wasn't his kind of thing. Or was it? Until he settled down properly after
his regeneration he wasn't sure. He'd always been curious before, and it had
more often than not got him in trouble. Maybe this regeneration was telling
him to slow down a bit, he mused.

"Oh, sorry, Doctor. Yes, we're kind of busy," said Sapphire. "May I escort
you back to your TARDIS?"

"We'd be delighted," said Alistaire, his tone giving her a slight reprimand,
and the Doctor nodded his acceptance.

"The least I can do after your care," he said as they made their way down,
and they went inside, as the Doctor said he had a small something for them
and gestured them inside. As he walked toward the filing system he glanced
at the control panel, where a small red light was flashing repeatedly.

"Hello," he said as he stopped moving and waited at the control panel,
pressing buttons and pulling levers to see what was going on. "That
shouldn't be happening."

"Doctor?" asked Sapphire.

"There's something not right," he said as he flipped a switch, moving around
the panel and seeing if he could figure out what was wrong.

"Can we help?" asked Alistaire.

"I don't think so," said the Doctor. "Besides, you are needed elsewhere."

"Of course," said Alistaire. "Goodbye Doctor, come on Sapphire."

The Doctor waved a hand, but didn't look up from the panel and the others
left and the doors closed behind them.

"Where to?" asked Sapphire, and Alistair told her.

***

"Twice in one day, Dai?" asked Alistaire as they arrived at the murder
scene, where the press had gone from a few members of the local paparazzi to
a mob. They had their photos taken as they entered the street and entered
the apartment building, meaning that if the world didn't know before, they
did now.

"Twice too many times," said Dai as he lit a cigarette and gestured to where
the body was discovered and Alistaire went looking around the area, while
Sapphire stood in one place, absorbing the ambience of the area. "Same MO,
no clues, no traces, bloody nothing. Please tell me WHO have some theories
now?"

"Sorry, Inspector," said Sapphire. "We've ruled out mutants and metahumans,
aliens and visitors from alternate dimensions."

"How the bloody hell do you rule out alternate dimensions?" asked Dai,
wondering why the bloody hell he was asking such a stupid question.

"You want me to explain?" asked Alistaire as he returned to them after his
little reconnoitre of the area.

"Not really," sighed Dai, wishing he'd never opened his mouth and thinking
that after all these years he ought to have learnt by now.

"She and all the other victims were not important figures, not politically
linked, didn't know each other and I have no idea why they were killed,"
sighed Alistaire. "How many people are left on the list of possible
victims?"

"57," said Dai, closing his eyes as if he could see all 57 displayed in
front of him.

"So what do we do?" asked Sapphire. "We're missing something, that's obvious
but how do we find it?"

"Rule out the causes and whatever is left however implausible must be it,"
muttered Alistaire, the earlier effects of his hangover forgotten as the
little grey cells inside of his head began to fire and churn.

"So what do we have?" asked Dai. "Members of a cult trying to bring down the
monarchy?"

"Doubtful," said Sapphire. "We'd have known about it by now."

"Yet we don't know what's going on here either." Alistaire leant back
against the wall.

Then there was a shimmering in the air and the three of them looked at each
other.

***

The Doctor sat down in his chair, his brow furrowed and his mind perturbed
by what the instruments were telling him. He half expected the Cloister Bell
in the heart of the vast labyrinth of the TARDIS to start chiming and
foretelling a coming calamity as time itself began to unravel around them.

"I hate post regenerative stress," he muttered as he reached for a book on
temporal shockwaves. 24 hours ago he'd have known this stuff backwards,
sideways and in sixty-seven alien languages. Now the answer was on the tip
of his tongue but he couldn't quite get at it, and it was irritating to say
the least. As he opened the book he flicked through the pages as the memory
of scanning it through before sprang to mind and he arrived at what he was
after.

"Oh dear, this is no good at all," he said as he read the chapter. The
diameter and curvature of the waves indicated not only a vast change in the
time stream, but the changes made couldn't be undone or there would be
another curve shadowing it in opposite dimensions, thus balancing out.
Because there wasn't it meant that he couldn't go back and fix whatever was
wrong, only stop what was happening before it went any further.

"But why can't I go back?" he mused and closed his eyes, rubbing his temples
to see if he could remember. "Because the of proximity temporal waves have
pushed the TARDIS out of synchronicity with the fourth dimension!" That was
why the light had been flashing on the console, and why the Cloister Bell
wasn't ringing; He and the TARDIS were both out of time, and the only way to
get back in line with the rest of nature was to stop what was going on. He
could still shift the TARDIS in space ad all he needed to do was find out
where the last disturbance was.

"Last?" he said his eyes opening. He hadn't thought of that before and he
looked at the shape of the waves. "It's still there." He grinned as he
realised that he was starting to come round from the regeneration and that
his knowledge was slowly coming back to him. The waves was obviously gaining
strength to dislodge the TARDIS from the time stream and one singular event
was not capable of such a feat, but several feats of such despicability
would.

If he could find the pattern between them all he would be able to see where
the next one was coming and he could get there and stop it before it did,
the TARDIS acting as a break for the shockwave to hit and disperse as it's
power was absorbed in to the Eye of Harmony itself.

"In which case," he said as he looked at the wave again and did some swift
calculations in his head, his fingers moving across the console as he did
so, setting the co-ordinates of where he needed to get to. Once they were
set, he pulled a lever and the TARDIS began to dematerialise as it began its
movement through space as travel through time was momentarily denied to it.

When the central column stopped moving he'd arrived at his destination and
he opened the doors and walked out to see what was going on.

"Doctor?"

"Alistaire?" he said as he saw he was in an apartment. There was blood about
and a marker indicating where a body had been. "Hmm. This can't be good."

"It's a murder scene," said Dai, knowing he was stating the obvious but the
appearance of the Doctor was not what he had expected and there was no way
it could have been coincidence.

"What happened here?" asked the Doctor, and Alistaire explained what was
going on, what had happened and where they were at with the investigation,
as the Doctor closed the doors of the TARDIS to keep out any prying eyes. It
would be hared enough to explain to the press outside why there was a police
box inside the room, let alone one that was dimensionally transcendental.

"Interesting," said the Doctor, once Alistaire had finished. "It's no
coincidence I'm drawn here. My presence alone is a miniature anomaly in the
time stream. Technically I'm supposed to let nature run it's course and stay
on Gallifrey, but that's not what I'm about, not who I am."

"You're saying you caused this then?" asked Dai. The Doctor opened his mouth
as if to answer and thought about it.

"Hmm. What if I did? What if my regeneration wasn't supposed to happen?
Maybe that was why I was thinking about the past before I came here. It
would make sense. Is this my fault?"

"Even if it is, you couldn't have known," said Sapphire.

"I'm supposed to know!" snapped the Doctor. "It's what I do, it's what I am,
and it's my responsibility as a Time Lord!"

"Then why haven't they done anything about it?" asked Alistaire.

"Because they don't interfere," said the Doctor. "They use pawns like me to
do their dirty work."

"Then maybe you were directed here, because they knew what was coming?"

"Perhaps," admitted the Doctor. Then he looked across the room at one of the
photographs. "Could it be?" he asked the air as he saw a familiar image.
"Did you say her name was Angela Stevenson?" he asked Dai.

"Yes. Why, you know her?"

"Of her. She was supposed to be the first British Prime Minister to win the
Nobel Prize for Science."

"She was supposed to be Prime Minister?"

"Yes, who revolutionised the world's space travel technology by creating a
self replicating energy source using the sources of energy within... well
you'll find out in ten years time. Maybe," he said, wistfully as he looked
at the picture and saw the promise of such a charming young woman wiped out
in an instant.

"Oh," said Alistaire as a thought occurred to him.

"Are you going where I think you are with this?" asked Sapphire.

"What if we're looking for the connection in the wrong direction?" asked
Alistaire. "We're accustomed to looking back, what if we're supposed to look
forward instead?"

"How could we possibly achieve that?" asked Dai.

"Maybe we're not supposed to," followed on Sapphire. "What if this ian't the
ultimate unsolvable case but involves a thought process we couldn't hope to
deal with because we don't have the capacity?"

"Doctor?" asked Alistaire. "Can you detect if another time traveller had
been here?"

"Possibly," said the Doctor who had been listening to their conversation and
thinking if they were right it was not only an attack on time, but on WHO
and the IRT as well, both of whom had a special destiny. At least they had
done before this went down. "I can calibrate a few bits and pieces together
on the TARDIS. Normally I'd use the instruments in the control room, except
I'm not exactly stable in this time frame."

"I have a headache," said Dai.

"Can we help?" asked Sapphire, anxious to get a closer look at the interior
of the TARDIS.

"Yes," said the Doctor, opening the door of the TARDIS once more. "Tell me
about the other victims."

***

In the future, the man controlling events froze in place as he felt a
disturbance in time, and not one he had created. It disturbed him more than
anything he had ever felt before.

"What is going on?" he wondered to himself as he sat there, watching and
waiting for the events to unfurl as he had planned.

"Sir?" asked one of his subordinates.

"What is happening back there? Can we tell yet?"

"Not until the temporal wave hits us and restructures reality. Estimating
impact in two hours fifty five minutes."

"I can alter anything I need but I cannot change the laws of physics. Can
you tell if there are any other anomalies back there?"

"There is nothing on the time scanner, other than our own man. We can only
detect him due to the slight stabilisation of the past after the wave."

"Perhaps what I am feeling is an unexpected side effect. Never before has
anyone altered time on such a massive scale, redirecting the history of the
entire universe. Even my fellow Time Lords have never considered this - even
now."

"Sir?"

"Ignore it, pay it no heed. If I am wrong, I am wrong and I can always try
again. At the very least, it will be the end of the Weird Happenings
Organisation and that is no small consolation prize."

***

"As I thought," said the Doctor as he finished listening to Alistaire's
recount of the current case and working on the special device he was
tinkering with in the lab in the TARDIS. Alistaire looked at him, wondering
if he meant the device, the case of even both.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"Your story makes sense. You were right in your suspicions," confirmed the
Doctor, looking at him and giving him a wide smile. "All you needed was a
push in the right direction."

"Lucky you arrived," said Sapphire.

"I doubt luck has anything to do with it," said the Doctor as the smile left
his face. "This has the hallmarks of something the Time Lords would look in
to. Did you find the book I wanted you to get?"

"Yes," she said. "Famous people of the 21st Century."

"Excellent," said the Doctor. "Open it to the 'Pioneers of Space' section
and look at the names and tell me what you see?"

"Isn't this against the rules of time or something?" asked Dai, who had
joined them to avoid the press.

"The people are dead, Inspector, I don't think it matters now." The Doctor
said it with such a matter of fact tone that Dai had no reply.

"Great Scott!" said Sapphire as she read the page as soon as she found it,
skimming down it with her mutant powers to absorb information almost
instantly kicking in and she passed the book to Alistaire.

"Oh this is heavy," he said.

"What is going on?" asked Dai.

"Your six victims," said the Doctor as he tweaked a few buttons and dials,
"were all destined for great things. They were going to be the basis for a
new political party in about ten years time, a party that inspired the world
like none other."

"And now they're dead," said Dai, with a sigh. "So what does it mean?"

"They're being killed in election order," said Sapphire. "You see, this
political party were called 'The People's Choice' a  party from the
disillusioned generation made up of people who saw what had been done, what
had been squandered and what could be achieved by working together."

"A nice speech, but did it work?"

"Yes," said the Doctor. "There is an apathy on this planet towards politics
which results in the people who are elected, who don't make things better,
but don't make them worse either. The faces change but the song remains the
same."

"Like you?" said Dai, appreciating the irony.

"Politics is something I try to avoid wherever possible. I recognise its
importance and the need for its controls but there's corruption within and
I'm not willing to make that sacrifice. I'd prefer the opposite route,
because it does seem to work much better for me. However the victims not
only revolutionised politics but science as well. Imagine all the greatest
minds working together for a common cause, and all the greater minds
produced by the emergence of the x-gene."

"And they created a space program that worked?"

"Worked and redefined the galaxy according to this," said Alistaire. "The
Earth was prepared for any and all threats, because it was unified towards
one goal. No war, no famine, nothing. Those with powers stopped fighting
long enough to truly save the world."

"What of the villains of the world?" asked Dai. "The dangers of such people
are always present."

"It wasn't without its difficulties," admitted the Doctor, as he started to
leave the labs and the others followed. "Yet, they did it. Now six of the
founding twenty have been killed. There is a chance that what they achieved
has been destroyed totally, though with less than half of them gone, it may
be possible to stop things before they get worse."

"That's a little cold," said Dai.

"I am saddened by the loss," said the Doctor, stopping and facing him. "You
will never know how much I regret that I could not get here in time to fix
things, to prevent it from happening and if I could go back I would, but
right now I can't and to get the ability to do so means I will negate the
possibility of it." There was sadness in the Doctor's eyes and Dai knew he
had been out of line.

"I'm sorry," he said, "it's..."

"I know," said the Doctor. "And I can't promise that justice will be done
either. However I think I can stop it from continuing."

"It works?" asked Sapphire.

"Soon find out. This way, it's a short cut." He led them in to a console
room they hadn't seen before and the humans had to blink at the brightness
of the white roundels that populated the walls. In the corridors they had
been less intense, but in here they were as if they pulsated with energy.

"This is the old console room," said the Doctor. "The primary control room,"
he said proudly. "Works the same as the other one, just has a more classic
look to it." His hand hit the switch and the door opened and he knew that
even after all the years he had not used it, it was still in perfect working
order. "Come on."

The others looked at each other as the Doctor left and they followed,
wondering which side they'd exit from. To their surprise it was the same
side as they had entered via the other control room.

"I'm not even going to ask," said Dai as the Doctor laid the device near to
the marking where the body had been.

"Okay," he said. "Stand back, please." They did so and he switched it on
tentatively, not sure how it would react being outside of time as it was.
The centre crystal in it began to sparkle and shine, absorbing the ambient
energy of the temporal disturbances.

"What is that?" asked Sapphire.

"A kontron time crystal. They have many applications in the manipulation of
time and energy. Luckily I've had experience with these things many times
before."

"What's it doing?" asked Alistaire. "It looks as if it's picking off the
excess energy and keeping it within itself, which accounts for the glowing
of it."

"Close," said the Doctor. "I calibrated it to locate specific signals."

"Such as?" asked Dai.

"TARDIS movements. It'll absorb all temporal particles from any recent time
travelling to this spot via TARDIS technology. It would explain how she
never noticed her attacker. It could have been disguised as a chair or
anything."

"They don't all look like police boxes then?" asked Dai.

"No," said the Doctor, sternly. "They don't." Then the crystal stopped
glowing. "Excellent. I hoped it would take the stresses of all the time
manipulation. Back in to the TARDIS!"

"I'll stay here," said Dai. "Who is the next victim?"

"A man named Mike Trenfile," said Alistaire. "Number 23 on our list."

"I'm on my way over there," said Dai. "I'll make it look routine," he said
before the Doctor could object.

"Of course," he said and he walked in to the TARDIS, Sapphire and Alistaire
behind him. Then the door closed and Dai left for a house in Dagenham.

"Dai can take care of himself, Sapphire," said Alistaire as the TARDIS
dematerialised from the apartment, the intensity of the white roundels not
as bad as it had once been, making him wonder if the TARDIS had been just
showing how pleased it was that the console room had been entered once more.
He didn't know if it was sentient, but it was definitely something more than
a mere machine.

"I know," said Sapphire, as the Doctor set the co-ordinates and the central
column began to rise and fall in a futuristic majestic splendour.

"Back to the library," said the Doctor as he led the way, for he was the
only one who seemed to know where he was going and the other two followed,
as the Doctor began to pat the front of his chin with his index finger,
obviously thinking of something. By the time they arrived at the other
control room, the central column also moving in a neo classical majestic
splendour, a stark contrast to the other he stopped and whirled around to
face them. It was a fair walk, but Alistaire figured that the Doctor had
obviously told the TARDIS to go the long way round until they got to the
other control room.

"I think we have an advantage. I can tell you when the next attack will be."

"How do you know when the next attack will be?" asked Alistaire, as the
TARDIS began to wheeze as the central column began to slow and then it
stopped. "The event has happened yet, and it's not a future you know of, or
can even have an intuition being outside of time as you are."

"I agree on all your points but there's something you haven't considered,"
said the Doctor, as he opened the door and they walked in to Alistaire's
office, where the TARDIS had arrived, blocking off the window. Sapphire got
the lights as the Doctor explained how he knew when the next attack would
be.

"For the time wave to maintain its intensity, the next attack must be soon,"
he said, as if he were teaching a class. "The attacks have been getting
closer to each other?" His tone didn't give the impression of a question
more a statement of fact that needed to be agreed upon. Alistaire was
impressed and it came out in his eyes as he answered the Time Lord.

"Yes. The first was about two months ago. The second was a three weeks after
that, the third a fortnight, the fourth a week and the fifth a few days ago
and today's... well today."

"Ah," said the Doctor. "Then we may have a problem, because if my
calculations are correct then we have to catch the killer the next time or
the murders after that will take place simultaneously." He didn't need to
say it would appear to be simultaneous from their point of view. Time was
fluid and time travelling could easily make consecutive kills seem as though
they were committed at the same time in different locations.

"Oh," said Alistaire, sitting down in his chair, while Sapphire sat on his
desk.

"Isn't that against the rules of time, having the same person existing in
the same place at the same time?" Sapphire was curious to what was going on
and what could happen.

"In theory, but the scale of the paradox being created now would give any
leeway for minor paradoxes. Also there may be something else here."

"Such as?" asked Alistaire, wondering what else there could possibly be
going on here.

"Our killer may be a Time Lord. A renegade. Not the Master, because he's
dead and gone. Not the Rani, either as she was lost in E-Space before the
singularity collapsed, trapping her forever. I wonder who it could be this
time..."

"When will the murder take place?" asked Sapphire, breaking the Doctor out
of his self-musing preamble.

"What? Oh, yes. May I?" he asked Alistaire who passed him a dry marker and
the Doctor started to do some calculations on the white board on the wall
nearest the door. "Now let's see... If I use the trans-chronal coefficient,
and subdivide it by the ethereal frequency... Taking in to account velocity
and effect of events undone... It should be... It should be in three minutes
forty seven seconds at the latest." He smiled as he looked at the time; it
had taken him only a couple of minutes to work it out. Then the smile died.

"Oh dear," he said, sheepishly.

"What is it?" said Alistaire, standing from his chair with a start as the
Doctor opened the door.

"Minus the two minutes I just took, we've got only moments before the killer
strikes again. Come on!" They entered the TARDIS, knowing they were going to
cut this fine, and the Doctor could have laughed at the irony as for the
second time today, Time was not his side.

***

Dai Thomas flashed his badge at the constable on duty and walked right up to
the door, and slammed his fist in to it repeatedly. He'd made good time from
Westminster to Dagenham - thank God it was a Sunday, during the week it
would have been almost impossible to get here in the time it had taken.

"Open up, Mr Trenfile. It's Commander Thomas, IRT." He slammed his fist in
to the door a few more times until it finally opened.

"Good God, man," said the man who answered. "It's bloody Sunday. I was
having a lie in."

"Then you haven't seen the news yet," said Dai, barging in.

"Come in, why don't you?" said the very irritated Mr Trenfile. He'd been
woken up, and now this brutish man had just forced his way in. So far he had
been very unimpressed with the performance of the IRT during this whole
affair.

"Angela Stevenson was found dead this morning. Our killer struck again,"
said Dai when Trenfile caught up to him.

"Angela? My God," said Trenfile, the news catching him off guard.

"He has nothing to do with this," said Dai. "We've had a reliable source
come forward and tell us you are on the list as the next victim. We're
relocating you to a safe house far away from here."

"I spoke with her last night," said Trenfile, as if he hadn't heard Dai's
words. "We were making plans, oh such beautiful plans. The future... it's
over."

"The hell it is," said Dai, grabbing him by the shoulders. He genuinely felt
for the man but he had no time for self-pity. He needed to get him out of
here.

"What would you know?" asked Trenfile, bitterly. "What have you ever lost?"

"My wife. She was killed in a super-hero rampage as they battled through 
the streets. She was caught in the cross fire, 'a tragic victim of
extra-ordinary circumstances' or so the inquest said. You have no idea the
hate I had in my heart then."

"But you worked with Excalibur, you've been one of the most active people in
securing mutant liberties in the UK. You may have handled this case badly,
but you do have a lot of respect."

"Yes, well," said Dai, taken aback by Trenfile's words. It was unexpected to
say the least, and no one had pointed it out to him before it that way. "I'm
just doing my job. I don't care if people are black, white, super-powered,
mutants, gay or anything. As long as my job is to protect the people in this
country then that's what I do, to the best of my ability. And sometimes it
just isn't enough."

"How true," came a voice behind them and they both turned to see a man
stepping from the entertainment unit and instead of a TV as expected they
saw a vast chamber. Then the intruder plunged the knife he held in to Dai's
chest. "On all counts." Dai fell to the floor, leaving Trenfile alone
against the killer before him.

"What are you?" asked Trenfile, backing in to the wall as the killer
advanced, his hands looking for some kind of weapon but he couldn't find
anything.

"The Herald of a new era," he said. "I am the Deacon, paving the way for a
new order in the name of my Lord."

"A religious fanatic," said Trenfile, his tone pleading for his life. "Why
me?"

"I'd tell you, but I'd prefer you to die in ignorance," said the Deacon and
he raised his knife, still coated in the blood of Dai Thomas, and Trenfile
closed his eyes, only to hear a wheezing and groaning. The sharp strike of
pain he expected as the knife plunged in to his heart never came as the
Deacon looked in horror as a police box appeared in the living room.

"It cannot be," said the Deacon, his voice echoing in venerable fear at the
site. Trenfile could not figure out what was going on, and then three people
stepped out of the box and the Deacon looked at the man who was in some kind
of fancy dress. The other two he recognised as the two WHO agents.

"Freeze!" said Sapphire as she pulled a taser gun out from her coat. They
wanted this man murdering SOB alive.

The Deacon did indeed freeze, but he stared directly at the man Trenfile
didn't recognise. More exactly he looked through him, their eyes locking on
to each other.

"Time Lord," he said.

"Have we met?" asked the stranger.

"Doctor," said Alistaire, giving the stranger a name as he looked at his
watch.

"Why?" asked the Deacon. "This is not right."

"Yes it is," said the Doctor. "Put down the knife. We can talk this over."

"You are not he," spat the Deacon. "You are inferior" and he spun and hurled
the knife at Trenfile's heart and Sapphire fired at Trenfile, the impact
pushing him out of the way.

"Good shooting," said Alistaire.

"Yes," said the Doctor, his tone saying that its use had been a necessary
evil he didn't fully endorse. The Deacon looked at him and then surrendered.

"I have failed," he said. "My Lord has forsaken me." Then the police from
outside entered and quickly took the Deacon down to the floor, guns pointed
at him.

"Quick," said the Doctor as he looked at Dai. "Get him in the other TARDIS."

"Why?" said Alistaire, doing so anyway, Sapphire giving him a hand.

"Because I'm going to activate the time circuits and create an artificial
mobius strip so that time loops, then I can send it in to reverse and that
way, we can undo the damage done to him, and cut it off when he's healed."

In the future, he watched as the variations to time took place. He'd done
some sabotage, and there were major variances on what had been destined, but
what he had been after had not come about, and WHO were still going. They'd
get one hell of a boost for solving the unsolvable.

The Doctor had once more thwarted his plans. It was unexpected, especially
to himself. He'd have thought he would have remembered it happening, but
that was the problem when you dealt with such events - the disturbances to
time meant what you remembered wasn't necessarily what now was.

The memories would right themselves eventually, and so now he had chance to
look back and plan again.

As a Time Lord, he had plenty of time to use. The Valeyard would and could
try again.

***

"That's it," said the Doctor. They had done as he'd asked and now they were
in the TARDIS of the killer, who had been taken in to custody under armed
guard and it had only been a matter of time before the Doctor had done what
he said he could as restored the Inspector to life.

"What happened?" asked Dai as he awoke.

"You died," said Sapphire. "Our suspect plunged the knife in to your heart
and you were killed. The Doctor saved you."

"I saw my wife..." he said.

"I don't doubt it," said the Doctor. "But now is not your time, trust me on
that."

"Thank you," said Dai and the Doctor simply nodded.

"So what do we do with this TARDIS?" asked Alistaire, as he looked around.
It seemed to be different to the Doctor's in style - perhaps an upgrade or
something similar.

"Leave," said the Doctor as he pressed a few buttons. "According to its
sensors the wave has passed over us and its effects have dissipated,
allowing me and my TARDIS to travel through time again. Which is good,
because I didn't fancy being stuck on Earth again. I've been there, done
that." He opened the door and they all left, Dai prodding himself where the
knife had entered him, stunned at what had happened, yet knowing there was a
better place waiting and someone waiting for him there and somehow he didn't
mind the world as much as he had earlier.

Once they departed, the Doctor closed the door and TARDIS vanished, silently
dematerialising.

"That explains how it got in and out undetected," said Alistaire.

"Where did it go?"

"Gallifrey," said the Doctor. "Let them deal with it and keep it safe. I
have to find out what brave new world I'm now living in."

"You're leaving?" said Sapphire, her disappointment evident. "Can I come
with you?"

"As much as I'd love the company," said the Doctor with a sad smile on his
lips. "There's a mystery here that needs investigating and I suspect I'll
work better alone. That fellow knew me, and I want to know why. I have a
feeling I won't like the answer." He opened his own TARDIS door and then
looked back at them, thinking he'd made some new friends and that was not a
bad start to a new regeneration at all.

"Will we see you again?" asked Alistaire as he shook the Doctor's hand,
quietly glad that Sapphire wasn't leaving.

"Time will tell," came the answer. "It always does. However I would be on
your guard. My being here was a variable your enemy wasn't counting on. Take
care of yourselves, all of you because I'd say this is only the beginning."

With that ominous warning he turned and entered his own TARDIS and it began
to wheeze and groan and after a moment it wasn't there anymore.

The three remaining people looked at each other and then set off to tie up
the loose ends.

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FINIS

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