Doctor Who_ Trading Futures - Lance Parkin [8]
‘They didn’t like people time travelling, did they?’ he asked the wall.
No answer.
‘The people that created you? The Doctor’s people? I… think I remember what happened to them. If it ever happened. It happened to me, it happened to the Doctor. So it’s got to count. Hasn’t it? Just because I don’t remember all of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.’
No answer.
‘They didn’t like other people time travelling. They tracked them down, punished them. Probably for all the right reasons, don’t get me wrong. I do get it, you know – I do understand that if those… laws… hadn’t been enforced, then everything we know could have come crashing down. There would be anarchy. We got a glimpse of it, remember. It was madness. But now they’ve gone. Everything they stood for is gone. Their time has passed. You do know that? There’s no law, no order, not now. You’re a police box, but there aren’t any policemen left.’
There was a rumble, something echoing deep, deep below his feet.
‘I wish that I was wrong,’ Fitz said softly. ‘But I’m not. It’s just us, now.’
Fitz had left the ship to consider that, emerging into the sunshine and joining his friends.
* * *
Twenty four hours later, they were back on the beach. The TARDIS stood there as if it always had. The Doctor, Fitz and Anji sat nearby.
‘Aren’t you hot in that coat?’
Anji was hot in her bikini, even covered in the cooling suncream she’d bought (‘Now with telomere fray protection’, according to the bottle). The Doctor hadn’t even taken off his jacket. The three of them sat on a large beach towel in the shade of the TARDIS, the Doctor intently examining the briefcase, Anji watching the Doctor, Fitz trying so hard not to look like he was ogling the sunbathing women.
‘I suppose you’re just trying to blend in. All the teenagers are wearing suits.’
‘So?’ Fitz and the Doctor asked.
‘It’s just odd.’
‘Not particularly. Teddy boys wore suits, the mods wore suits,’ Fitz reminded her. Anji hadn’t really thought of it like that, but it was true. The ska bands, or whatever they’d been called, wore suits, too. It was one of those things that came around.
‘The Beatles started off in suits,’ she said.
‘Well, they didn’t start off like that,’ the Doctor said, taking a small black box out of his pocket. ‘But they took the suggestion well, I have to say.’
The fashion seemed to be unisex, and it was almost an eighties look – baggy and with shoulder pads. None of the natives, men or women, were wearing anything underneath their jackets, but they were wearing ties. Most had a metal lapel badge, a stylised monogram – R:C.
‘Rebel: Conform,’ the Doctor said. ‘The children of this generation realised that the best way to worry their parents was to pass exams, become teetotal and settle down in a steady job.’
‘It doesn’t sound much fun.’
‘Precisely. Their parents, who are your generation, after all, don’t understand it, so it really worries them.’
Anji wondered how someone who’d lived for over a hundred years could make her feel so old.
‘You still look worried, Anji,’ the Doctor noticed.
‘You’re waving a Geiger counter around. If you’re doing it to reassure me, then there are better ways.’
‘This?’ The Doctor passed her the device, a featureless black box the size of a audio cassette. ‘This registers disturbances on the Bocca Scale.’
‘And that means?’
‘It can tell whether an object has passed through different time fields. Here –’ He pointed the device at her, it squawked, then started bleeping excitedly. Then passed it over the sand, and it almost stopped bleeping. He pointed it at himself, and the bleeping quickly became a constant high‐pitched tone. Finally, he aimed the device at the briefcase. The reading settled to a new rhythm – bleeping more than it had for the beach, less than it had for her.
‘You’re saying the case has travelled through time?’
The Doctor hesitated. ‘Well… it might have done. I think, to be honest, that I might have contaminated the case by touching it.’
Anji rolled her eyes.
He handed Anji the detector. She