So here it is, story number 2. Very different in style to The Cold Hand of Time, but wonderful and funny and very enjoyable! Rachel has kindly supplied me with some extras, which I shall put up soon, including some artwork! Watch this space...
But for now, sit back, relax and enjoy.....
Trudiode and the Doctor
By Rachel Morgan
This is a story, but you knew that already, so on with the prose. The TARDIS console room is not its usual minimalist white, in fact you can't even see it for all the clouds of smoke and the mad whirling shape of colour that was in fact its owner, pilot, best friend and neurologist, the Doctor. As some of us may know, the Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, a place so dull that even the libraries close early. In fact the books not only have dust on them but the senile old librarians have dust on them as well. Also it smells a bit like wee, but don't tell them that in case it was the fault of the person you complained to. Think of a rather unhygienic geriatric ward an hour after the orange juice has arrived, in summer, and all of the windows are locked, and double it. Now double it again and let the complaining begin…
The TARDIS is not usually like this dear reader, it's usually calm and serene and placid, unless someone makes a remark about food, weight or diets, then its louder than a disco inside of a volcano next to a nuclear bomb testing area in the middle of a planetary extinction event. Then again the TARDIS isn't usually found spiralling down into the atmosphere with no safety systems in place to protect the insides from something difficult, like say the outside for instance.
The Doctor has tried hitting things with a hammer, he's tried shouting like he usually does in those console room scenes on the telly, he's tried saying really long words and he's even tried prayers but all with no avail. Now he's trying to operate the controls just to see if they'll do something novel like save his life and possibly the one after that too if the crash is really bad.
Normally when something small like the outside of the TARDIS hits something big like the planet below no real harm is done outside of the localised crater, but when something large like the pocket universe inside of the TARDIS hits something small like the planet below then the planet is in really serious trouble and I won't even mention what might happen if the Eye of Harmony opens, we just do not want to go there, ok? It involves weird things from the Paul McGann telly movie like temporal orbits and no-one likes to get their heads around a paradox because the outside might just end up on the inside.
Luckily though a few controls seem to work and the TARDIS no longer seems to be so much as crashing as landing really badly, on someone, it's really not going to be her day is it?
Enough of that fancy pseudo-intellectual whiney-piney girly mush, time to set the record straight. I am not mad!!!!! I am VERY sane!!!!! My name is Aldrich and I'm here to kill the Doctor. Apparently he's based on a different actor now, I guess that's one way to keep a mildly diverting kids show on the air for longer. Sack the star when they demand too much money and put someone no-one's heard of into the role because they're cheaper and easier to control. Well now they'll have to come up with a new gimmick because I'm going to kill your hero!!!!!
Trudiode switched one optic back on as she realised she hadn't been turned into a pile of really pretty scrap metal by the falling blue box thingy. "Thank goodness I'd just been to the little robot's room ten minutes ago." She went over to the blue box to see if she could find a contact number she could complain to. Robots in this story like to contact people, they like making new friends and it's even better if they have something to talk about to their new friends. This is why your internet connection sometimes slows down for no explainable reason. "This one has its own inbuilt telephone." She tried to open the hatch but it was jammed. "Maybe the magic wishing pixie will grant my wish?"
The Doctor opened the TARDIS doors and emerged outside to find a robot trying to break the door. "Please leave my TARDIS alone.""You tried to kill me!" Trudiode said loudly. "That thing nearly fell on me!"
"Sorry." The Doctor apologised. "I only just managed to regain control in time."
"I wouldn't mind the first time, but you reversed and came back at me!" Trudiode felt the second attempt on her life was uncalled for.
"I'm very sorry." The Doctor said again. "Where am I anyway?"
"The street." Trudiode replied. "This is where we're standing. I'm called Trudiode, I'm wearing earrings."
"Very fetching they are too. I am known as the Doctor. I mean to ask, what planet is this?" The Doctor asked the robot. "Are you wearing make up?"
"Of course." Trudiode replied, after all she was up to date with all the latest fashion files. "I like to make myself look pretty."
"Do all the robots on this planet wear make up?" The Doctor really hasn't learned a thing about women despite travelling around the universe with twenty or so different ones over the long years of his midlife crisis. Why else do you think he really left the planet valued reader? Most people just get a flashy sports car or a boob job and have an affair with someone, but the Doctor ran away from home, maybe it was a really hot day and the smell of wee was really bad?
"Not all of us." Trudiode said trying to get the story back on track. "I'm a pretty robot. Some robots are non-pretty."
"You mean you're female? And those non-pretty robots you mentioned are male?" The Doctor ventured a guess.
"Usually, but not always." Trudiode wondered if the biological being was unaware of the centuries of robot culture and their historic struggle for freedom, toys, games and make up rights.
"I see." The Doctor said. "Do you know the name of this planet?" The Time Lord hopes for a vaguely helpful reply at some point in this story.
Trudiode looked up the answer in her helpful book of facts; most of the information had been carefully gleaned from years of patient observation and careful questioning. Informative information like which colour Tellytubby is Dipsy is not in the public domain for just anyone to know, that would be silly. Only true fans of the Tellytubbies would track down the information, as it should be. Trudiode casually wondered if the sort of human being in front of her was a cross between Laa-Laa and a parrot. "This planet is called f78etpvgfvbi, there's no human translation, sorry. How is my human by the way? I did a course at night school; I was top of the class."
"You speak human very well." The Doctor tried to be nice; he hadn't learned any machine languages at all in the 900 years of his life. "You speak it far better than some humans I know."
Look at the Doctor, a fat man in a bad suit. He could be your bank manager if he didn't look like a pillock!!!!! That suit looks like someone with special needs designed it and now I think I'm going to have to shoot him with a laser blaster!!!!! Dammit, missed!!!!!
The Doctor's age is a cause for some controversy as he's gained and lost age with regular inconsistency. I think its best to simply consider that it's all a work of fiction, not all of the bits add up and sometimes there's mistakes but just try to ignore them and focus on the story and all the pretty special effects that look good right now but in twenty years time someone on the world inter web net will call naff.
I'd better scarper before the cops see me!!!!!
Policebeing 248 walked over to the pretty robot and the strange non-robot person in the mad coat. "Good afternoon, I'm arresting you both for being next to a strange blue monolith. My personal religion file has classified this box is an icon of worship and so it's jail for both of you."
"That is my home." The Doctor said to the Policebeing. "I live in there."
"So you're a vagrant as well as loitering with intent to possibly do something?" Policebeing 248 was sure he could pin a dozen other unsolved crimes on the duo of hardened criminals. Obviously the robot was some sort of unwilling accomplice; there was no way a nice robot would normally associate with anyone in those clothes willingly.
"Run for it!" The Doctor said to the robot and took hold of her hand.
"I'm not that type of robot!" Trudiode said as she gave chase so that she could get her hand back from the maybe human.
"Obviously that deranged bureaucrat is applying the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law." The Doctor wanted to be angry at someone but he felt it unfair to have a go at the robot; after all he'd very recently nearly killed her by accident, twice. "We should find a place to hide. Do you think he'd recognise you again?"
"I hope so." Trudiode liked to think she stood apart to her 8973 mass-produced and nearly identical sisters. "I don't think anyone else wears this colour paint of pink around their speech output area."
"You mean your mouth?" The Doctor asked. "It's, um, very…nice?"
"Thanks, I was worried it made me look a little tarty. I mean its one thing to look nice and pretty, but I wouldn't want to look like a tart. I mean what robot would?"
"Maybe we should try hiding somewhere over there?" The Doctor looked at a convenient alley.
"I asked you what robot wants to look like a tart." Trudiode said.
"I don't know many robots." The Doctor admitted. "Maybe, um, a tarty robot?" He hoped he'd said the right answer.
"That's right." Trudiode nodded in agreement. "You see them more and more these days, robots wearing short skirts and they panel beat their chests out to ridiculous proportions. I'm a very fashionable shape and my skirt is the correct length for this season's style. Ok the shoes may be a little nicer than some robots prefer but you have to look nice if you want to feel nice about yourself. You obviously disagree, wearing that jacket I mean."
"What is wrong with this jacket?" The Doctor demanded.
"It's so last season." Trudiode replied. "Last year was clashing colours and weird patterns; this season is more about complimentary colours and pleasing patterns."
"Oh." The Doctor mulled this over. "I always liked to be one year ahead of the fashion trends. Maybe its time I bought something from next years fashion?" He walked over to a jacket shop. "Yes, that blue one looks nice. I'll buy that one." Just like that he fitted into the esoteric continuity of reality even more so than before.
"Is blue the in colour next year?" Trudiode asked.
"It will be." The Doctor smiled to himself. "I do get around; I'll pop along to London Fashion Week and dazzle them with this."
"Does sir have an authorised credit stick?" Salesbot ifug-465 asked.
"I'll just pay cash." The Doctor too out a bag of varied moneies and a large green emerald. "I wish I could remember where I picked this up, it's very pretty. Take what monies you need, there's something of everything in there. I have no use for the stuff really; I used to collect money a long time ago, before I got into music in a big way. Did you know I was almost a back up session musician for Lady Gaga?"
"Cash is illegal." Trudiode advised her potentially new friend while looking at the pretty green sparkly rock and imagining it being turned into nice earrings. "The penalty for offering cash to a jacket seller is death."
"What?" The Doctor asked. "Who made up that rule?"
"The credit card company, they own the whole galaxy." Salesbot ifug-465 replied. "I've called the police; they'll be here soon to kill you. Have a nice day."
"Have a nice day?" The Doctor was shocked. "Have a nice day?! How can I have a nice day if I'm about to be shot at by a gun totting maniac on a world where cash is illegal? Who makes all this rubbish up anyway?"
"The law is the law." Salesbot ifug-465 said casually, reading his lines from the sheet of paper stuck to the wall next to him.
"He's a tourist." Trudiode didn't know what the word meant but she'd heard it used by visitors to the planet as an excuse to avoid being killed.
"Oh, you should have said." Salesbot ifug-465 said regretfully. "Tourists are allowed clemency for a first offence."
"Well there was the mix up with the blue box." Trudiode said to the Doctor, "so this really isn't a first offence. So it's probably death, and just when I was going to suggest we go back to my place where you could hide from that Policebeing as well, oh dear. My sadness circuit is really playing up now."
"Lead the way!" The Doctor headed towards the exit as quickly as he could, pushing Trudiode ahead of him possibly with the intention of using her as some sort of anti-bullet shield.
"Where are we going?" Trudiode asked. "Why am I in the lead if I don't know where we're going? Do you know where we're going? Let's go over there to the lingerie section, or maybe not. The doors it is, bye everyone."
Maybe the best way to kill an irritating blond man is to drop an anvil on his head? Just to make sure I'm going to use a skip full of 53 anvils!!!!! Dammit the release mechanism has jammed!!!!!
The major religions of the planet our characters are on in this story can be divided into three groups, those that like to kill non-believers, those that don't and those that make them kill themselves through jealousy and envy at not being part of the inner circle of those allowed to worship the strange unexplainable visitation of Our Lady of the Party. Basically one devout monk saw the visitation of a strange woman in a party dress stumbling across the cloisters at 4am and since we women were not allowed in the monastery, ever, it had to be some sort of religious manifestation because otherwise it would be unthinkable to consider that some sort of boozy hen party had infiltrated a holy site of worship and desecrated it with our evil feminine ways, and since then it became a strange hypnotic cult that allowed its members to pay a small fortune to see a replica of the dress and even more to wear it for a while! A similar incident in Europe during the dark ages led to the creation of the Malleus Maleficarum and all sorts of weird fall out is still littered throughout every European society to this day as a result of this. It wasn't even as if Romana had intended to cause any harm and how is an alien woman supposed to know the difference between a dress and the Pope's robes when they basically look the same? What if the pope wore one of my dresses by mistake? I think this story has taken a wrong turn somewhere…
Blimey the mob is after me!!!!!
Trudiode considered it very good fortune that she and her strange new friend had found a nice place to hide from the strange angry mob of people. "It's not usually this exciting. I've never been chased down a street before."
"It happens to me in quite a few stories." The Doctor admitted to his potentially new travelling companion. "I'm still not sure where all those burning torches and pitchforks came from, it was like they were already carrying them concealed about their person."
"Maybe they were a rentamob?" Trudiode considered the possibility of finding somewhere nice that sold pretty shoes; she liked to think of fashion at times like these as it helped her not to focus on reality which was very strange and often confusing if non-robots were doing strange non-robotic things. "I wonder where we are?"
"Welcome to the Church of Partiology." Tim Drive said to the potential new recruits. "That will be 64 gysu each. That's including the special reduced entrance fee discount."
"I can buy three pairs of shoes for that!" Trudiode would much rather spend her money on shoes.
"Do you take cash?" The Doctor hoped there wouldn't be a repeat performance of the earlier outrage in the story.
"Luckily today is our special cash payment day." Tim smiled and wondered if the robot's strange pet parrot was trained to say more than just ask about simple cash transactions.
"He's paying." Trudiode said. "I'm far too pretty and nice to pay for things with cash. Are you wearing a gold lame cocktail dress?"
"Yes, it's my turn to wear the holy relic today." Tim explained with a smile. "It's our most holy item of religious devotion. For more money I can show you the holy shoes and for all the cash you'll earn in the future I can let you see the handbag of the lady. Legend has it that she dropped it when she bent over a rose bush to be sick on it. It's a sacred item."
"I have a handbag already." Trudiode was confused; religion always made her processor think it was faulty when it wasn't.
"All other handbags are a mere echo of the one true handbag." Tim said to the confused robot. "Give me more money now."
"There's a name inside this bag." The Doctor looked inside of it. "Perpugilliam Brown! Peri! This is Peri's handbag! She's my friend. I'd better return this to her at once, I should pop by and see her and Ycarnos as I did miss their wedding. This handbag can be the perfect gift for her."
"I never saw that episode." Trudiode looked up some old episodes on her mobile phone. "How come you used to dress nicely? Is this the next you?"
"Spoilers!" The Doctor said sharply before the paragraph ended sud…
Dear editor, why-oh-why can't I kill the fat man? I'm due my revenge, I'm entitled to it and I will have my revenge of deadly vengeance!!!!! What do you mean Steven Moffat has put a cease and desist order on that line?
The chase sequence is a classic staple of the silent era of film making. Very little narration is needed to inform the viewer what is going on because all the main clues are visually provided. Alas for the written page there are no visuals, so great lengths of detail are needed to describe the mob, the twisty-turny nature of the chase, the near-escapes, the escalation of events as more and more people join in as for one reason or another they are sucked into the narrative device to turn a mere fracas into a brouhaha. Luckily for you dear reader you are saved all of this tortuous and pedantic writing because this is a short story and not a Buster Keaton film. Although Harold Lloyd was rather good wasn't he and he did all his own stunts too.
Laugh? I thought I'd stab him in the head, but I missed. Does anyone have a bandage? I think I need a nurse!!!!!
Trudiode was pulled to the safety of the mysterious alleyway by the Doctor and they stood in silence as the crowd ran past their hiding place. The robot wondered if she could make the time pass more pleasantly for the reader if she played the accordion or perhaps the drums, but she didn't have any musical instruments to hand so she didn't raise the subject of entertainment while you wait. "I wonder where they're all off to?"
"They were chasing us." The Doctor said using his 3rd best astonishment tone. "You wore the divine dress without payment."
"It does suit me." Trudiode also had the sacred shoes and the holy handbag. "Now what shall we do? We could go to the oil exchange, I'm very thirsty."
"Oil exchange?" The Doctor was mystified.
"You don't know much about robots, do you?" Trudiode had heard that biology was not always compatible with technology, just look at the way humans in the late 20th century treated their VCR's!
"You drink oil?" The Doctor guessed. "Animal, vegetable?"
"Semi synthetic for choice." Trudiode replied. "It's all in the taste. It's like the difference between spoons and other forms of metal cutlery. Spoons have that scoopy texture."
"K9 never liked drinking oil." The Doctor mused to himself as he remembered Image of the Fendahl. "Or Kamelion, I first met him during The King's Demons. In fact I've never met a robot that likes to drink oil. Not even the Raston Warrior Robot."
"You don't get out much then." Trudiode said. "All robots drink oil, like you non-robots eat bits of dead things." She'd done a one day course of biology once and thought she knew the basics about them. "You're not going to do anything weird are you? I'd like advance notice if you are." Trudiode hadn't read the next bit of the story in advance and so she was trying to wing it as best she could.
That's better. Now let's see if this bomb will do the job…!!!!!
The thing about robots is not their curious fascination with the complexity of human-made toys, or their strange interest in wearing fashionable items made out of metal or metallic fragments, but it is their strange obsession with detail. For instance a robot might be distracted by a great new toy by a thief, and she might casually observe the thief's strange new clothes but she'd defiantly describe in detail the thief's appearance, accent, distinguishing features and other items of information needed by the police before returning her attention to the fun-ness of the toy she'd been distracted by. So for our protagonists they can be sure that the robot police have very accurate descriptions of them, possibly even paintings done in oils or charcoal (never a watercolour unless the robot was in a severe artistic mood) and the police are on their way to apprehend the suspects and perhaps question them politely with tea and cakes on the menu. After all it never does to be impolite to a guest, that's not the robotic way of doing things; all suspects thrown repeatedly down the stairs are offered first choice of the really nice biscuits for their trouble.
Why does the robot like him so much? He's basically a sociopath; I'm doing everyone a favour by killing him!!!!! Now let's see if this large pie stuffed full of dynamite will work. I don't believe it, it's not working!!!!! Maybe it needs a new detonator?
Trudiode was wondering if she should try accessing her cookery files to find something in them that her non-mechanical friend might eat. However he seemed to her to be somewhat sullen and moody in the same way that robots are not, so she decided to cheer him up with some banjo playing. "Do you have any requests?"
"I think we should get out of this place." The Doctor said grumpily. "I have a feeling that somewhere there's injustice to be fought, dangers to be faced and bested. I want to do some good in the universe, not skulk about in an alleyway with a banjo-playing robot." He wondered if he'd gone too far and offended his new friend as there were still three pages of story to go.
"I also have a guitar." Trudiode changed instruments. "This one is about a doggy and there's a window involved too. On the whole though I'd rather have a pet cat, isn't that interesting?"
"I like cats." The Doctor's mood brightened instantly. Anyone who liked cats was well above those people who didn't in his book and as his book was a 900 year diary it was a rather good book, especially as it listed all the enemies he'd defeated, when and how. He wouldn't know how to keep score otherwise, probably hang around museums or other such places. "Cats are good."
"Let's get a pet cat." Trudiode had a pretty robot one already selected in the internal database, but she felt that being single she couldn't fully provide for its needs but with a friend to help her then she could.
"I think we should focus on our current plight, don't you?" The Doctor asked the somewhat irresponsible robot. "Although perhaps a pet cat would be nice to have around the TARDIS. I would get it to chase little balls of string or play with a nice clockwork mouse."
"I think the crowd has gone." Trudiode looked out of the alley to see that indeed the flash mob had departed. "There's just that large army waiting for us."
"Oh my goodness." The Doctor exclaimed. "Now I really am finished."
"It's ok." Trudiode looked at the story outline again. "The planet's been invaded by some robot superheroes in flashy outfits!"
"Those are not superheroes!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Those are the Daleks! They're anything but heroes; they're one of the most evil life forms ever to have evolved in the universe. Inside those tank-like shells are twisted lumps of hatred given misshapen fleshy form. They will kill without mercy, just because they can. We have to get back to the TARDIS and get out of here before they find me."
"Don't they like you?" Trudiode backed away slowly, in case they thought she was with him.
"I have a habit of defeating their plans." The Doctor said modestly. "They've never defeated me."
Trudiode edged closer to the Doctor again. "What's the plan then?" She decided to stick by her nice friend after all; well what else are friends for if not for shopping, trips to the beach and talking to about relationships?
"I think perhaps discretion is the better part of valour." The Doctor considered uttering a pithy quote from Shakespeare, except only the tragedies sprung immediately to mind. "Present fears are less than horrible imaginings."
"What's an imagination?" Trudiode wondered what one could be and worried that she might have one.
I shall plot my plan of revenge from my hospital bed!!!!!
The Daleks are of course a Doctor Who shortcut for evil. Simply have the Daleks arrive and you know things are about as bad as they can get for the Doctor. Luckily of course the Doctor is planning on running away from them, which is usually very wise. However explaining them to Trudiode may just prove to be one difficulty too many for our hero to face right now.
Help, my nurse is a Dalek!!!!!
"I like running." Trudiode said as they ran away from the strange and mysterious Daleks. She wondered if she could make friends with them but judging from the Doctor's reaction to them she began to doubt it.
"Daleks?" The Doctor exclaimed. "Daleks? Daleks? Why are the Daleks here now?" He looked up at the vast armada of flying saucers in the sky. "They also looked different, more enhanced. Are they the new ones from Victory of the Daleks? I do hope they're not looking for me. They usually are, which is worrying at the best of times, but why here and why now? It's Revelation all over again but without the wrap party. Perhaps I'm just in the wrong place at the wrong time?"
"You always are my dear Doctor." The Master stepped out of the shade provided by a convenient something. "Oh my dear Doctor you have been naïve in this story."
"Who is the weird man with the beard?" Trudiode asked the Doctor. "He looks scary; I want to hide behind something, like a sofa."
"I am the Master." The Master addressed the curious robot. "The Doctor and I know each other of old; we've fought many times across the cosmos. Hyaus, Tiuasd, Yiuad, Jouais and many other battlefields. Now though is our final confrontation, the endgame of our little game of galactic chess."
"Chess?" The Doctor scoffed. "Never had time for the game. I prefer monopoly and you've just landed on my hotel." The Doctor effortlessly leapt past the Master with ninja grace and delivered a Venusian karate chop to the wall behind, which promptly fell over the wrong way to reveal the waiting army of Daleks.
"Exterminate!" The Dalek Eternal commanded while looking disturbingly like a Scottish National Party gift item.
The Doctor, Trudiode and the Master threw themselves at the floor before the air above them was filled with a million rays of instant death. "I've saved you once again." The Doctor said to the Master. "You ungrateful wretch."
"You will never defeat me." The Master said to the Doctor. "Do you hear the drums?"
"Sorry." The Doctor stopped playing and stood up. "I thought Trudiode and I might form a drum and bass band."
"The drums in my head never stop, isn't it fun?" The Master slapped the Doctor.
"Get a room you two and you stop being so John Simm all of a sudden." Trudiode said to the two biologicals, especially the one with the face hair. "I'm going home; I've had enough of today. I was doing fine until I met you, now I'm a wanted criminal, my world's been invaded and a creepy man with a beard is looking up my skirt!"
"Sorry." The Master said. "I've been written as an insane weirdo in this story."
"Your home has been destroyed." The Doctor said sadly to Trudiode. "Come with me, I'll let you travel through time and space with me. We'll have fabulous adventures every weekend and maybe we'll find you a new home one day."
"The Cybermen have arrived." The Master smiled coldly. "My temporary allies against those silly oversized pepper pots."
"Delete!" The Cybermen intoned as they advanced towards the Daleks, caring not for the three people between them and their targets.
"Exterminate!" The Daleks replied and cared even less about not hitting three bystanders.
"Brave processor Trudiode." The Doctor said solemnly just as the Sontarans and the Draconians turned up for the big fight as well.
"Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha!"
"We are the People's Democratic Republic of Draconia, the female robot will be silent!"
"I don't think so." Trudiode looked up as the sky started to open up and the whole planet began to get swallowed up by a temporal weapon created by a race of dusty librarians, so she took the teleport device out of her handbag and took herself away to the planet of her robot girlfriend Violet where they moved in together, got a robot cat and later adopted a robot baby together before one day getting married and living happily ever after. Occasionally she wondered how her friend the Doctor escaped too, but not too often as she liked a quiet life and didn't want to think about armies and invasions when she had a small robot to look after.
I give up, I'm leaving this story, trying to kill the Doctor is too dangerous!!!!!
So that's my bit of this meta-fictiony story over more or less...but how did the Doctor escape? That's your homework, to think about the story, the impossibility, improbability and insubstantiality of the plot and come up with your own secret ending to the Doctor's part of the story, maybe he had an idea, maybe he was rescued, maybe he's still fighting or maybe it was all a dream, just don't tell anyone else or it won't be true…
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