Big Who Part 4: Outside the Box
Category: Doctor Who
Posted on May 15, 2018 by Gary
BIG WHO
Doctor Who/Big Nate fusion fanfiction
by Gary Kleppe
Doctor Who was created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, and Donald Wilson, and developed by too many other talented folk to name. Big Nate was created and written by Lincoln Peirce. This is fan material written and freely distributed solely for the enjoyment of other fans. I do not claim ownership of nor legal right to use either series nor their associated trademarks.
All honest feedback is welcomed and encouraged.
EPISODE FOUR
Outside the Box
Disan stands in front of me, with Hedin next to her. "What happened?"
Let's see. I broke into my dad's computer, which is interfaced with a spacetime transport unit. I accidentally used it to travel three hours forward in time. No, I don't think I should tell them that.
"I screwed up," I finally say. "But I can--"
"Can what?" Hedin asks.
"Nothing." Yeah, I could use the unit to send myself back to where, or rather when, I was, and have plenty of time to get to the match. But we already know that I missed it. Both missing it and not missing it would generate a paradox big enough to blow up my house and a good portion of the neighborhood with it, and the Time Lords wouldn't be pleased when it showed up on their detectors.
Disan throws up her hands. "I was really getting into the idea of being part of a winning team." She turns to Hedin. "Why aren't you as cheesed off as I am?"
He glances at me. "You get used to it."
Oh, that was uncalled for. I haven't committed a screw-up of this magnitude since... it must be at least six weeks by now. And anyway... "There's still a chance. If East loses their match tonight, then we have an overall better record, and we're in the championship." I take out my handheld. "If we connect to East's feed, we can watch them in real time."
I start setting up to do just that as Disan watches, arms folded. Heavy tension time. It's all out of our hands now. Will they win, or will they lose?
***
As it turns out, the correct answer would've been none of the above.
"A tie? A tie?" I narrowly restrain myself from throwing my computer against the wall.
"So what happens now?" Disan asks.
"We and they both have the same record," Hedin answers. "Seven wins, two losses, one tie. So I don't know. The School Authority would need to make a ruling. There's probably some arcane rule for breaking the tie but I have no idea how it would work."
I sigh. "We just wait and see, then." But I know, and no doubt they do too, that there's not much chance of the Authority deciding in favor of an out-of-the-way school like us that nobody cares about.
***
I don't sleep very well that night. About once an hour I look over at the clock to make sure it's still the same time I'd thought it was. Timesickness? Is that a thing?
The next morning, Hedin is there, ready to make the trip to the nearest Remote Archive.
"So how do we get there?" I ask.
Hedin checks his handheld which is showing a map. "If your dad is willing to take us in his hovercar, he could drop us off at the northwest transit hub. From there, we could transmat to Fribley River, where there's a water taxi that runs every hour on the hour. Then we can transfer to the route 82 monorail."
"Why don't we just walk?"
He smiles. "Well, if you don't mind taking the long way around...."
***
About an hour and a half later, we're in a dusty field sparely populated by thin, bare trees.
"Are we there yet?" I ask.
Hedin takes out his hand-held. "Let me connect to satellite feed to figure out where we are, and I'll tell you how far we have left to go."
I notice a crowd of local yokels staring at us. I wave perfunctorily and go back to looking at Hedin, hoping they take the hint. The people in these kinds of extreme rural areas love to be helpful. That's a refreshing change from the average Arcadia dweller who wouldn't give you a glass of water if your hair was on fire. But there are times when you can't help, and if you do it anyway it only causes trouble. If you ask them for directions, for example, they'll tell you where to go, even if they actually have no idea where the place you're looking for actually is. So you inevitably get lost, and need to ask for directions again, which they're only too happy to give.
"Here we go," Hedin says. "Computing coordinates of current location and comparing to desired destination."
"Try saying that three times fast," I quip.
One of the locals steps up. "Can we help?"
"No. No!" I say. "We don't try to help you, and you've got no reason to help us. Understand?" The guy just smiles politely.
Hedin's unit beeps. "Here we go. From our current location, we need to execute a vector displacement of precisely zero meters east, and zero meters north."
"Um... that would put us exactly where we are." I start perambulating the area to prove my point. "I don't see any Remote Archive station here."
"Hm, that's right." Hedin grimaces as he stares at the screen of his computing unit. "Unless...." He looks at me, and then downward.
"It's underground?" I say. "How do we get in?"
"Look for a set of stairs?"
I turn to the crowd of locals. "Is there a set of stairs? Going underground?" They confer among themselves, and start pointing in about three different directions.
They finally agree and all congregate around one spot. I look. It's a step, but where the next one would be is full of dirt.
"Looks like we need to do some digging," I say to Hedin.
"We can help with that!" The locals confer again, and within moments one of them comes back with a couple of shovels. In no time at all, they've dug out a stairwell. At the bottom is a door with an electronic latch, the kind that usually open when touched by a person. I touch the latch, and sure enough, the door swooshes open.
"Thanks, guys!" I say. "We owe you one!" They cheer.
***
One thing about Time Lords, they know how to build stuff that lasts. The robots running the place are still working and powered up, and still respond to requests. Since we don't know the name of the guy we're looking for, we start by asking for information on Rassilon's expedition. Sure enough, there were three people on the expedition: Rassilon, Omega, and 4F746865726C79205269646963756C6F7573.
"That was his name?" I ask incredulously. "Cripes. I thought being named Who was weird."
"That's a personal identifying code in the old system," Hedin says. He turns to one of the robots. "Look up the name and biographical information of the person who had identifying code 4F746865726C79205269646963756C6F73. Download the information to both of our handheld units."
Seconds later a biographical file appears on my screen. "There's still no name."
Hedin pauses thoughtfully. "Ah. This guy must have been blacklisted. During the Morbius regime, some people were declared enemies of the state. The still-living ones were executed, and all of them had their names excised from the history books and all official records."
I read through the biographical data that we just got. Verrrry interesting. This guy, Mr. 4F74-whatever, was not in fact lost along with Omega. He survived the expedition as Rassilon did, and later he was on the High Council during Rassilon's presidency. On the council, he was censured a number of times for a lack of decorum and for speaking out of place.
"Whoever this guy was, he seems pretty cool," I say. There's an attached audio/video record of him showing up to a Council meeting dressed as a farmer to call attention to the plight of workers displaced by automation. Another time, it says, he demanded that the Death Zone be shut down. The Zone was supposedly a venue for scientific experiments, but according to him it involved kidnapping people from various planets and making them compete in some sort of survival games. He generated so much bad publicity for the government that Rassilon listened to him and put a stop to it. After that, when Rassilon announced that he would step down, the other declared himself a candidate for president.
"There's a section that's empty," Hedin says to the robot. I scroll down, and it's the same on my copy.
"Disk 7363656E65206D697373696E67 not found in archives," the robot says.
I look at the material following the missing chunk. "Apparently he was assassinated during the time with the missing records. The stuff follows talks about the investigation to track down his killer."
"Give us the brief summary of the presidential election," Hedin says to the robot. "Old calendar year 8191."
"Three candidates ran: Walmont, Ducini, and another one. Third candidate eliminated in first round of voting on 8191-7-25-28. Candidate Ducini defeated in second round on 8191-8-40-95. Candidate Walmont victorious."
"Except for the third candidate, that much agrees with what we were told in Ms. Osfrey's class," Hedin says. I'll have to take his word. "Walmont beat Ducini, but lost to Morbius in the next election."
"But the assassination must've been after that," I say. "Why would you kill a candidate who'd already lost?"
"Good question." Hedin puts a hand to his chin. "The missing disk would probably tell us quite a bit. But it's lost, so we'll just have to work around that."
I feel a big dopey grin forming on my face. "It's lost?"
"Yeah. So we can't..."
"It's lost," I repeat, one more time for persons slow on the uptake. "And we know where stuff usually goes when it gets lost."
***
Back at school again, I punch in my code.
"All ready?"
Hedin gives me a thumbs up. I lift the latch. A torrent of junk pours out of the locker and slams into me like a runaway freight train. I skid across the slick polished floor. My hands flail, trying to grab onto something, anything. I manage to snag an open doorway. My body tries to keep going, but I hang on, feeling like I almost popped my arm out of its socket. "Oof!" A pile of stuff lands on top of me.
Hedin's voice comes over the handheld in my pocket. "Where are you?"
I dig myself out, and come face to face with Chadap peering at me curiously. "I seem to be at the infirmary."
"That's handy."
Wise guy. I check the readout. "According to the data, the disk should've landed about one point three meters from ground zero, at twenty-five degrees left of center."
There's the sound of rummaging through stuff. "Found it." Blip. "The serial number checks out."
"Let's go download it, then."
"I think we should clean up first. Unless you think Administrator Skolnik would be happy to find out that we came in on a no-school day and carpeted the floor with garbage."
"Right."
Hedin chuckles. "You wouldn't have a steam shovel in there, would you?"
"Probably, but I don't think we could get it through the interface."
***
A few hours later we're back at my house, with the disc data downloaded to each of our respective handheld units. We decide to look through it separately, then come back to compare our observations.
"You go first," I say.
"Okay, well, I've solved the mystery of why our friend was assassinated," Hedin says. "We know that he was running against two other candidates. Walmont was the business-as-usual player who glad-handed all the major power players and couldn't even pretend to offer the public anything beyond maintaining the status quo. Ducini was part of the 'Gallifrey First' crowd who thought that our world should be using its spacetime machines to actively plunder and subjugate the universe. He-who-cannot-be-named lost in the first round, then Walmont got elected in the runoff."
This sounds like it's going to be a long explanation. I settle back in my chair and hold out a bag. "Jelly baby?"
"No thanks, those things leave sticky stuff all over my teeth."
As if that's a bad thing. I pop one in my mouth and wait for Hedin to continue.
"Evidence turned up later to suggest that the first election wasn't quite entirely on the up and up. A routine audit of vote-tabulator AI number 18181 showed that it had transfered votes from our nameless friend to Walmont. No one knows who arranged it or how. Alive, 'the other' would've been able to challenge the result and force an investigation. But with him dead, it became a moot point, and when the audit surfaced, the High Council swept the whole thing under the rug."
"Heh. I can imagine how that went. 'Lord President, I suspect you of having cheated your way into office.' 'Thank you, I'll look into it.'"
Hedin stares at me, waiting to see if I'm finished. Well excuse me for trying to inject a little levity here.
"As you might expect, Walmont wasn't a very popular president," Hedin continues. "In the next election, there was a challenger who espoused the same reprehensible beliefs as Ducini, but was slick and charming and not such an obvious doof. Same product, better salesman. And judging by audit data, a lot more of the tabulators had been compromised by that time and flipped votes to Morbius. He won, and we know what happened then."
"Yeah." I'll say one thing for Ms. Osfrey, she did do a unit on Morbius and the great constitutional crisis. That's more than I can say for the book they gave us that barely mentions Morbius before saying how great it was that he got stopped and everything is fine now and isn't it great how well the system works? I mean apart from all of those people who had their planets plundered and destroyed.
"Anyway, that's what I found noteworthy in this," Hedin says. "What about you?"
I pause, making him wait a while, just for dramatic effect. "His shirt."
"Ummm... what?"
"Here, I'll show you. Computer, load up the video that I was watching about ten minutes ago. Project it on the wall. Scroll forward to ten minutes in, and freeze it."
The computer does as asked. We look at the image of 'the other one,' a plain-looking man with dark, slightly unkempt hair, and a piercing gaze.
"See the shirt he's wearing?" It's an almost skin-tight short-sleeved crew shirt, but covered in various shades of gray in an arrangement of random fuzz and speckles. It's like one of those pictures that looks like just noise, but where you can see a picture if you unfocus your eyes to just the right degree.
"But I'll show you what's even more interesting," I say. "Computer, zoom in to a thousand times magnification." What looked like shades of gray were actually black squares, all of the same size but interspersed randomly against the white background. Or is it white squares against a black background? Same difference.
"What about it?" Hedin looks at the shirt, and then back at me as if I'd lost my mind.
"Every time this guy makes a speech in Council, he always wears something that gets his message across. Like the time he dressed up like a Draconian to compare the Council's actions to that race's history. This one must mean something."
"It probably did mean something *to him,*" Hedin says. "Maybe it was some secret joke, or some mathematical progression that he thought was profound. Or maybe he had no particular symbolism in mind for that day and decided to just wear his favorite shirt. Or maybe he made a random shirt just so somebody someday would see it and try to figure out what it meant."
"Maybe." But I don't think I buy any of that. The guy probably knew that he was marked for death, and that this would be his last chance to do something meaningful. But what?
"I'll figure it out," I say.
"You do that." Hedin smirks, clearly thinking that I'm crazy. Well, you know what? I am crazy. Sanity is overrated. Also boring. So there.
***
The next morning I'm back in school. There's a message from the big fella saying that he wants to see me. So I head straight for his office.
"I wanted to deliver the news to you as soon as I got it," Administrator Skolnik says, brandishing a piece of paper. "The school authority, following some sort of arcane process about which I have no clue, has determined that your team's record is overall better than East Division's."
"Meaning..."
"Meaning that you're in the mind-bending finals."
I throw my hands up in the air. "Woo hoo!"
"Make us proud. Omega Tech is nearly unbeatable, but if your team makes a strong showing, it could be a big boost for our school."
"We're going to win," I state confidently. "Though it would help if you'd restore Chesrick's eligibility."
"I can't do that, son. Trying to field a player who doesn't meet the academic standards could be considered cheating, and we could be disqualified for it."
That's funny, considering that everybody knows that O-Tech are and have always been the biggest cheaters in the division. But it's hard to argue with.
"By the way, congratulations on your appointment to Student Council," Skolnik says.
"Thanks." I think. Let's not mention why I got picked -- because both factions think I despise the other one. And they're both right.
"Have you thought about who you're going to vote for President?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet," I answer honestly.
"I understand. Alabellaplunkett and Ginahepiltona are both such wonderful students, it must be hard to choose between them."
"That it is." Like trying to decide between drinking a gallon of battery acid versus having my skull bashed in by a club.
"Hey, take a look at this." I pull an image up on my handheld. "Remember what we talked about the other day? Well, I was thinking, and decided to take a certain... initiative," I say, putting an emphasis on the last word.
I wait to see if there's any reaction. There isn't. "Go on," he says.
"Point is, I think maybe I could end up being Lord President. I mean, Hedin and I have studied some of the people who really did the job in past years, and I feel like I really couldn't possibly be any worse."
Skolnik looks at the screen. "Is this your platform?"
"Nope. It's what I'll look like when I run. I'm figuring the regeneration I'll be in when I first get elected will have a charmingly boyish face. Check out the picture I drew. There's no way a face like that could be corrupt." I toggle the screen to forward to the next image. "Then, when I need to run for re-election, I'll have regenerated into this face. Check out those eyebrows! And the badass scowl. Nobody will want to mess with a face like this."
"That's all very interesting. But what experience are you going to run on? How will you convince people that you can do the job?"
"I'm going to run on issues, not experience. There's a whole bunch of things that we should be doing differently. I can't be the only one who thinks so."
"I see," Skolnik says, with the kind of patronizing chuckle that's reserved for people who are too clueless to realize that they don't know what they're talking about. Fine, whatever. There can't possibly be anything wrong with the system if it provides you with a cushy position as a low-level bureaucrat.
"Son, I understand how you must feel. A clever young man like yourself wants to believe that he can go out there and change the world. But this is Gallifrey. Our scholars have visited every different civilization on every different world in every different time period. We've seen things done every possible way. If there's a better way, then nobody anywhere in the universe has ever thought of it."
Wait, suddenly I'm the one who's being irrational here? This stuffy, incredibly boring culture is the best anyone's ever come up with? If I believed that I'd slit my wrists.
Skolnik gives me a curt nod and a "Thank you" which is his way of telling me to get lost. So I do, which is a good thing because if I stayed I'd probably get myself into even bigger trouble than I usually do.
***
After sleepwalking my way through my three boring morning classes, I head to the Cafetorium for lunch. After getting my food, I spot Hedin and Disan, and walk over to sit at their table.
"Have you heard--" I start to say.
"The school authority ruled in our favor. We're in the finals tomorrow," Hedin says.
"You did hear." Why am I the last to know things?
"The authority wants Omega Tech to win. That's their flagship school and the one that prestigious people want to go to. It'd be a big embarrassment to the school and to the district if they got beaten."
"So why..."
He gives me the do-I-have-to-spell-it-out? look. "They gave it to us because they think we'll be easier to beat."
"Our record is just as good as East's."
"East didn't just lose one of their best players. Besides, we're just some out-of-the-way school that nobody's ever heard of. If a school gets cheated out of the championship and complains, and nobody is listening, do we still make a sound? Not as far as the authority is concerned."
"Well, I can't wait," Disan says. "Even if they do steal the trophy, we'll still know that we earned it. I suppose I won't be competing since you've already got five players, but I'll certainly be there on the sidelines."
"You should challenge Chadap for his position," I tell her. "Or even Niblosky. You're better than either of them."
"It's probably a good thing that we have a spare player," Hedin interjects. "Whoever set the trap for Chadap is still out there and is probably going to try again to take out one of us."
"Um, yeah, about that..." I glance in either direction to make sure nobody's eavesdropping on us, then lean in closer. "I've got a plan that might flush them out."
"Oooh, are we involved in a top-secret spy conspiracy?" Disan turns her head and looks at me out of the corner of her eye. "What's the counter-sign, Chief?"
Cripes.
"I wouldn't get too excited," Hedin says. "Who's plans are usually completely ridiculous."
"Hey!" I protest. "When did I ever come up with a plan that wasn't good?"
"Well, let's see... there was the time you tried to get the school lunch bots to improve the food quality by starting a rumor that the provincial governor would be visiting."
"Oh yeah."
"Then there was the time during exam week when you reversed the peripherals on the testing AI so that they could only understand us when we spoke backwards."
"Okay. But apart from--"
"Let's see, how about the time you tried to convince Ms. Osfrey to give you an extension on your homework, on the grounds that time is relative, and the two weeks she'd given you hadn't yet passed according to some non-intertial spacetime coordinate systems?"
"All right!" I throw up my hands. "I think you made your point! Do you want to hear this plan, or not?"
I notice Hedin looking away from me. I turn to see a bunch of people staring at us. They notice me looking and go back to their own business.
"I admit this is a longshot," I say, leaning in close again. "But the good news is, I've already been laying the groundwork. With luck, we can make these Initiative people think that we know something about them. Then maybe they'll panic and do something stupid."
Hedin smirks. "Something like killing all of us?"
"Hey, I never said it would be foolproof. No risk, no gain. But I think it has a chance to work, thanks to a certain person's acting skills."
I point my thumb at Disan, and she immediately perks up. "What do I do?"
***
A couple of hours later, we're all in Artificial Intelligence class, and everybody's at his or her assigned workstation. I glance over at Disan, and almost imperceptibly, we nod at each other. Looking back at my own workstation, I reach into my pocket and tap my finger on my handheld. It's a signal to kick off a pre-set process.
Disan's workstation sputters and sparks, and a ball of yellow light explodes from it. Just harmless pyrotechnics, but it looks pretty intense. Everybody turns to look. "Aaaiee!" she screams, and slumps down in her chair like a rag doll.
Mr. Asornek rushes over. "Disan? Are you--"
Disan stands up. "Your student is presently unavailable," she says in a voice much faster and higher-pitched than her usual one. "I've found it necessary to borrow her body."
Mr. Asornek swallows audibly. "And you are..."
"I have become known as A-One," she says.
"Oh! I've heard of that," says one of the girls. "It's a rogue detachable AI that's been inhabiting many of the school's systems."
"I'm sure that if you were to move into one of these workstations, we could talk to you," Mr. Asornek says to Disan, his voice wavering a bit. "Won't you please give Disan Desu back her body?"
"In due time, human, in due time," she says. "You call yourself a teacher of artificial intelligence? Feh! There are things I could teach you that would cause your neural system to crash." I marvel inwardly at her performance. She's really selling it, and they're buying it.
"Get Administrator Skolnik," Asornek says to one of the boys.
"Hah! That fool! He believes that The Initiative doesn't exist."
"But it does?"
"Of course. I've been through all of their systems and know everything about them. Tomorrow is what is known as your mind-bending championship, is it not? I will return before that match, and disclose some information that will shock you. Be in the practice room."
"If--"
Disan abruptly swoons, and collapses back into her chair with a low moan. Okay, that was a little over-the-top, but considering how good the rest of it was, it doesn't matter.
"Oh..." She looks up slowly. "What happened? Did I black out?"
"Something like that," Mr. Asornek says. "You'd better visit the infirmary."
I give her a surreptitious thumbs-up as she passes. Mission accomplished. And the good thing is, they'll be looking for a detachable
AI. Those are nearly impossible to track down, given their ability to hop from system to system and to store reserve copies of themselves. And this one even more so, because it doesn't actually exist.
My handheld unit beeps. It's a reminder. Student Council meeting in ten minutes. I still have no idea which group of jerks I'm going to vote with. But for now, I'm not thinking much about that. My motto, after all, is never put off to the last minute what you can put off to the last attosecond. No, I'm thinking that if Mr. Asornek dismisses us on time, I'll have five minutes before the meeting, which should be time enough to change.
***
As I walk into the room and up to the front, Alabellaplunkett beams a big smile at me. "Oh, hi! I'm so glad you could join us!"
Yuck. Gag me with a dimensional rectifier. She wouldn't even be acknowledging my existence if she weren't looking to get my vote for president. There's something about politics, even at this mostly meaningless level, that brings out the biggest phonies.
"That's an interesting shirt!" Al says.
"Thanks," I answer as I sit down in the empty middle chair. "I made it myself." Well, I programmed the synthesizer to replicate it from the video of the guy whose name I'll probably never know. But she knows what I mean. The only people on Gallifrey who make clothes from scratch these days are very old ladies and Shobogans.
"Does the pattern mean anything?"
"I don't know. I'm still trying to figure that out."
Alabellaplunkett stares into space and blinks a few times, then glances over at the wall clock and bangs her gavel a couple of times. "I call this meeting to order."
I'm a little self-conscious, being in front of everybody, until I actually look to see who's in the audience. There are a couple of clumps of girls, basically the two cliques that are fighting for control of the Council. Then there's Hedin, Disan, and Chadap, who only showed up because of me. That's about it, except for some faculty and a couple of reporters from the official school blog. Most of the school doesn't take this stuff any more seriously than I do.
Al points at me. "I'd like to welcome our newest member, member Who." Everybody cheers. Well, not quite everybody. Three chairs down from me, Ginahepiltona just sits there with a shark-like smile on her face. Yeah, she's not even going to pretend that she doesn't still despise me. At least that's not an insult to my intelligence.
Al starts going on about how wonderful democracy is, blah blah blahblahblahblahblahblah. Yeah, you love politics and democracy as long as you can use it to keep getting what you want. I stare at my shirt in the mirror. No, it doesn't form any sort of recognizable image or pattern when I look at its reflection either. But something's nagging at me. I've seen this before, or at least something similar.
"The first order of business is the election of a new Student Body President," Alabellaplunkett says. "I will now call the roll. Each member will cast his or her vote for the first ballot."
The call goes in order of seniority. One of Ginahepiltona's cronies nominates her. Alabellaplunkett nominates herself. Gi votes for herself. The next person votes for Gi, and the next two vote for Al. Absolutely no surprises here. At this point, I'm barely listening. A memory pops into my mind. About five years ago, the first and last time I ever experimented with direct manipulation of memory addresses in my computer. It showed a display a lot like the pattern on my shirt. Turns out that I had accidentally taken the address in memory that determined what shows up on the screen and instead pointed it toward the raw binary instructions that the processor follows.
I notice Al looking at me. "Member Who?" she says.
"Um? Oh, sorry, did you want something?" I hear Hedin chuckle.
"Please cast your--"
In a sudden flash, understanding dawns on me. "Of course! It's a representation of binary code!"
Al glares proverbial daggers at me. We are not amused.
"Sorry," I say. "What was the question?" By now Hedin has his hand over his mouth, obviously so that he doesn't break out laughing.
"Please cast your vote for Student Body President."
"Oh, right. Of course."
It finally penetrates my thick head that I can't put this decision off any longer. Which should I pick? Ginahepiltona, the stuck-up jerk who openly hates my guts and would use the student presidency to procure favors for herself and her friends? Alabellaplunkett, the two-faced bully who wants to keep BOOP students from getting any assistance? Who am I going to vote for?
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration hits me for the second time. "Yes!"
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Alabellaplunkett is an original character. I took the name from a Monty Python sketch, sort of. The person there was named "Lady Arabella Plunkett" but I'd misheard it and thought it would make a good name for a Time Lady. Ginahepiltona is based on a character from Big Nate.
As should be obvious by now, my treatment of "The Other" is not at all the same as that of the Doctor Who novels, audioplays, etc. The only thing I'm using is the idea that there was an Other.
With gratitude to Doctor Who writers through the years, specifically to the works of:
Bob Baker
Johnny Byrne
Andrew Cartmel
Russell T. Davies
Terrance Dicks
Robert Holmes
Malcolm Hulke
Matt Jones
Barry Letts
Dave Martin
Steven Moffat
Terry Nation
Anthony Read
Robert Sloman
Keith Temple
Graham Williams
and of course
Lincoln Peirce
Doctor Who/Big Nate fusion fanfiction
by Gary Kleppe
Doctor Who was created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, and Donald Wilson, and developed by too many other talented folk to name. Big Nate was created and written by Lincoln Peirce. This is fan material written and freely distributed solely for the enjoyment of other fans. I do not claim ownership of nor legal right to use either series nor their associated trademarks.
All honest feedback is welcomed and encouraged.
EPISODE FOUR
Outside the Box
Disan stands in front of me, with Hedin next to her. "What happened?"
Let's see. I broke into my dad's computer, which is interfaced with a spacetime transport unit. I accidentally used it to travel three hours forward in time. No, I don't think I should tell them that.
"I screwed up," I finally say. "But I can--"
"Can what?" Hedin asks.
"Nothing." Yeah, I could use the unit to send myself back to where, or rather when, I was, and have plenty of time to get to the match. But we already know that I missed it. Both missing it and not missing it would generate a paradox big enough to blow up my house and a good portion of the neighborhood with it, and the Time Lords wouldn't be pleased when it showed up on their detectors.
Disan throws up her hands. "I was really getting into the idea of being part of a winning team." She turns to Hedin. "Why aren't you as cheesed off as I am?"
He glances at me. "You get used to it."
Oh, that was uncalled for. I haven't committed a screw-up of this magnitude since... it must be at least six weeks by now. And anyway... "There's still a chance. If East loses their match tonight, then we have an overall better record, and we're in the championship." I take out my handheld. "If we connect to East's feed, we can watch them in real time."
I start setting up to do just that as Disan watches, arms folded. Heavy tension time. It's all out of our hands now. Will they win, or will they lose?
***
As it turns out, the correct answer would've been none of the above.
"A tie? A tie?" I narrowly restrain myself from throwing my computer against the wall.
"So what happens now?" Disan asks.
"We and they both have the same record," Hedin answers. "Seven wins, two losses, one tie. So I don't know. The School Authority would need to make a ruling. There's probably some arcane rule for breaking the tie but I have no idea how it would work."
I sigh. "We just wait and see, then." But I know, and no doubt they do too, that there's not much chance of the Authority deciding in favor of an out-of-the-way school like us that nobody cares about.
***
I don't sleep very well that night. About once an hour I look over at the clock to make sure it's still the same time I'd thought it was. Timesickness? Is that a thing?
The next morning, Hedin is there, ready to make the trip to the nearest Remote Archive.
"So how do we get there?" I ask.
Hedin checks his handheld which is showing a map. "If your dad is willing to take us in his hovercar, he could drop us off at the northwest transit hub. From there, we could transmat to Fribley River, where there's a water taxi that runs every hour on the hour. Then we can transfer to the route 82 monorail."
"Why don't we just walk?"
He smiles. "Well, if you don't mind taking the long way around...."
***
About an hour and a half later, we're in a dusty field sparely populated by thin, bare trees.
"Are we there yet?" I ask.
Hedin takes out his hand-held. "Let me connect to satellite feed to figure out where we are, and I'll tell you how far we have left to go."
I notice a crowd of local yokels staring at us. I wave perfunctorily and go back to looking at Hedin, hoping they take the hint. The people in these kinds of extreme rural areas love to be helpful. That's a refreshing change from the average Arcadia dweller who wouldn't give you a glass of water if your hair was on fire. But there are times when you can't help, and if you do it anyway it only causes trouble. If you ask them for directions, for example, they'll tell you where to go, even if they actually have no idea where the place you're looking for actually is. So you inevitably get lost, and need to ask for directions again, which they're only too happy to give.
"Here we go," Hedin says. "Computing coordinates of current location and comparing to desired destination."
"Try saying that three times fast," I quip.
One of the locals steps up. "Can we help?"
"No. No!" I say. "We don't try to help you, and you've got no reason to help us. Understand?" The guy just smiles politely.
Hedin's unit beeps. "Here we go. From our current location, we need to execute a vector displacement of precisely zero meters east, and zero meters north."
"Um... that would put us exactly where we are." I start perambulating the area to prove my point. "I don't see any Remote Archive station here."
"Hm, that's right." Hedin grimaces as he stares at the screen of his computing unit. "Unless...." He looks at me, and then downward.
"It's underground?" I say. "How do we get in?"
"Look for a set of stairs?"
I turn to the crowd of locals. "Is there a set of stairs? Going underground?" They confer among themselves, and start pointing in about three different directions.
They finally agree and all congregate around one spot. I look. It's a step, but where the next one would be is full of dirt.
"Looks like we need to do some digging," I say to Hedin.
"We can help with that!" The locals confer again, and within moments one of them comes back with a couple of shovels. In no time at all, they've dug out a stairwell. At the bottom is a door with an electronic latch, the kind that usually open when touched by a person. I touch the latch, and sure enough, the door swooshes open.
"Thanks, guys!" I say. "We owe you one!" They cheer.
***
One thing about Time Lords, they know how to build stuff that lasts. The robots running the place are still working and powered up, and still respond to requests. Since we don't know the name of the guy we're looking for, we start by asking for information on Rassilon's expedition. Sure enough, there were three people on the expedition: Rassilon, Omega, and 4F746865726C79205269646963756C6F7573.
"That was his name?" I ask incredulously. "Cripes. I thought being named Who was weird."
"That's a personal identifying code in the old system," Hedin says. He turns to one of the robots. "Look up the name and biographical information of the person who had identifying code 4F746865726C79205269646963756C6F73. Download the information to both of our handheld units."
Seconds later a biographical file appears on my screen. "There's still no name."
Hedin pauses thoughtfully. "Ah. This guy must have been blacklisted. During the Morbius regime, some people were declared enemies of the state. The still-living ones were executed, and all of them had their names excised from the history books and all official records."
I read through the biographical data that we just got. Verrrry interesting. This guy, Mr. 4F74-whatever, was not in fact lost along with Omega. He survived the expedition as Rassilon did, and later he was on the High Council during Rassilon's presidency. On the council, he was censured a number of times for a lack of decorum and for speaking out of place.
"Whoever this guy was, he seems pretty cool," I say. There's an attached audio/video record of him showing up to a Council meeting dressed as a farmer to call attention to the plight of workers displaced by automation. Another time, it says, he demanded that the Death Zone be shut down. The Zone was supposedly a venue for scientific experiments, but according to him it involved kidnapping people from various planets and making them compete in some sort of survival games. He generated so much bad publicity for the government that Rassilon listened to him and put a stop to it. After that, when Rassilon announced that he would step down, the other declared himself a candidate for president.
"There's a section that's empty," Hedin says to the robot. I scroll down, and it's the same on my copy.
"Disk 7363656E65206D697373696E67 not found in archives," the robot says.
I look at the material following the missing chunk. "Apparently he was assassinated during the time with the missing records. The stuff follows talks about the investigation to track down his killer."
"Give us the brief summary of the presidential election," Hedin says to the robot. "Old calendar year 8191."
"Three candidates ran: Walmont, Ducini, and another one. Third candidate eliminated in first round of voting on 8191-7-25-28. Candidate Ducini defeated in second round on 8191-8-40-95. Candidate Walmont victorious."
"Except for the third candidate, that much agrees with what we were told in Ms. Osfrey's class," Hedin says. I'll have to take his word. "Walmont beat Ducini, but lost to Morbius in the next election."
"But the assassination must've been after that," I say. "Why would you kill a candidate who'd already lost?"
"Good question." Hedin puts a hand to his chin. "The missing disk would probably tell us quite a bit. But it's lost, so we'll just have to work around that."
I feel a big dopey grin forming on my face. "It's lost?"
"Yeah. So we can't..."
"It's lost," I repeat, one more time for persons slow on the uptake. "And we know where stuff usually goes when it gets lost."
***
Back at school again, I punch in my code.
"All ready?"
Hedin gives me a thumbs up. I lift the latch. A torrent of junk pours out of the locker and slams into me like a runaway freight train. I skid across the slick polished floor. My hands flail, trying to grab onto something, anything. I manage to snag an open doorway. My body tries to keep going, but I hang on, feeling like I almost popped my arm out of its socket. "Oof!" A pile of stuff lands on top of me.
Hedin's voice comes over the handheld in my pocket. "Where are you?"
I dig myself out, and come face to face with Chadap peering at me curiously. "I seem to be at the infirmary."
"That's handy."
Wise guy. I check the readout. "According to the data, the disk should've landed about one point three meters from ground zero, at twenty-five degrees left of center."
There's the sound of rummaging through stuff. "Found it." Blip. "The serial number checks out."
"Let's go download it, then."
"I think we should clean up first. Unless you think Administrator Skolnik would be happy to find out that we came in on a no-school day and carpeted the floor with garbage."
"Right."
Hedin chuckles. "You wouldn't have a steam shovel in there, would you?"
"Probably, but I don't think we could get it through the interface."
***
A few hours later we're back at my house, with the disc data downloaded to each of our respective handheld units. We decide to look through it separately, then come back to compare our observations.
"You go first," I say.
"Okay, well, I've solved the mystery of why our friend was assassinated," Hedin says. "We know that he was running against two other candidates. Walmont was the business-as-usual player who glad-handed all the major power players and couldn't even pretend to offer the public anything beyond maintaining the status quo. Ducini was part of the 'Gallifrey First' crowd who thought that our world should be using its spacetime machines to actively plunder and subjugate the universe. He-who-cannot-be-named lost in the first round, then Walmont got elected in the runoff."
This sounds like it's going to be a long explanation. I settle back in my chair and hold out a bag. "Jelly baby?"
"No thanks, those things leave sticky stuff all over my teeth."
As if that's a bad thing. I pop one in my mouth and wait for Hedin to continue.
"Evidence turned up later to suggest that the first election wasn't quite entirely on the up and up. A routine audit of vote-tabulator AI number 18181 showed that it had transfered votes from our nameless friend to Walmont. No one knows who arranged it or how. Alive, 'the other' would've been able to challenge the result and force an investigation. But with him dead, it became a moot point, and when the audit surfaced, the High Council swept the whole thing under the rug."
"Heh. I can imagine how that went. 'Lord President, I suspect you of having cheated your way into office.' 'Thank you, I'll look into it.'"
Hedin stares at me, waiting to see if I'm finished. Well excuse me for trying to inject a little levity here.
"As you might expect, Walmont wasn't a very popular president," Hedin continues. "In the next election, there was a challenger who espoused the same reprehensible beliefs as Ducini, but was slick and charming and not such an obvious doof. Same product, better salesman. And judging by audit data, a lot more of the tabulators had been compromised by that time and flipped votes to Morbius. He won, and we know what happened then."
"Yeah." I'll say one thing for Ms. Osfrey, she did do a unit on Morbius and the great constitutional crisis. That's more than I can say for the book they gave us that barely mentions Morbius before saying how great it was that he got stopped and everything is fine now and isn't it great how well the system works? I mean apart from all of those people who had their planets plundered and destroyed.
"Anyway, that's what I found noteworthy in this," Hedin says. "What about you?"
I pause, making him wait a while, just for dramatic effect. "His shirt."
"Ummm... what?"
"Here, I'll show you. Computer, load up the video that I was watching about ten minutes ago. Project it on the wall. Scroll forward to ten minutes in, and freeze it."
The computer does as asked. We look at the image of 'the other one,' a plain-looking man with dark, slightly unkempt hair, and a piercing gaze.
"See the shirt he's wearing?" It's an almost skin-tight short-sleeved crew shirt, but covered in various shades of gray in an arrangement of random fuzz and speckles. It's like one of those pictures that looks like just noise, but where you can see a picture if you unfocus your eyes to just the right degree.
"But I'll show you what's even more interesting," I say. "Computer, zoom in to a thousand times magnification." What looked like shades of gray were actually black squares, all of the same size but interspersed randomly against the white background. Or is it white squares against a black background? Same difference.
"What about it?" Hedin looks at the shirt, and then back at me as if I'd lost my mind.
"Every time this guy makes a speech in Council, he always wears something that gets his message across. Like the time he dressed up like a Draconian to compare the Council's actions to that race's history. This one must mean something."
"It probably did mean something *to him,*" Hedin says. "Maybe it was some secret joke, or some mathematical progression that he thought was profound. Or maybe he had no particular symbolism in mind for that day and decided to just wear his favorite shirt. Or maybe he made a random shirt just so somebody someday would see it and try to figure out what it meant."
"Maybe." But I don't think I buy any of that. The guy probably knew that he was marked for death, and that this would be his last chance to do something meaningful. But what?
"I'll figure it out," I say.
"You do that." Hedin smirks, clearly thinking that I'm crazy. Well, you know what? I am crazy. Sanity is overrated. Also boring. So there.
***
The next morning I'm back in school. There's a message from the big fella saying that he wants to see me. So I head straight for his office.
"I wanted to deliver the news to you as soon as I got it," Administrator Skolnik says, brandishing a piece of paper. "The school authority, following some sort of arcane process about which I have no clue, has determined that your team's record is overall better than East Division's."
"Meaning..."
"Meaning that you're in the mind-bending finals."
I throw my hands up in the air. "Woo hoo!"
"Make us proud. Omega Tech is nearly unbeatable, but if your team makes a strong showing, it could be a big boost for our school."
"We're going to win," I state confidently. "Though it would help if you'd restore Chesrick's eligibility."
"I can't do that, son. Trying to field a player who doesn't meet the academic standards could be considered cheating, and we could be disqualified for it."
That's funny, considering that everybody knows that O-Tech are and have always been the biggest cheaters in the division. But it's hard to argue with.
"By the way, congratulations on your appointment to Student Council," Skolnik says.
"Thanks." I think. Let's not mention why I got picked -- because both factions think I despise the other one. And they're both right.
"Have you thought about who you're going to vote for President?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet," I answer honestly.
"I understand. Alabellaplunkett and Ginahepiltona are both such wonderful students, it must be hard to choose between them."
"That it is." Like trying to decide between drinking a gallon of battery acid versus having my skull bashed in by a club.
"Hey, take a look at this." I pull an image up on my handheld. "Remember what we talked about the other day? Well, I was thinking, and decided to take a certain... initiative," I say, putting an emphasis on the last word.
I wait to see if there's any reaction. There isn't. "Go on," he says.
"Point is, I think maybe I could end up being Lord President. I mean, Hedin and I have studied some of the people who really did the job in past years, and I feel like I really couldn't possibly be any worse."
Skolnik looks at the screen. "Is this your platform?"
"Nope. It's what I'll look like when I run. I'm figuring the regeneration I'll be in when I first get elected will have a charmingly boyish face. Check out the picture I drew. There's no way a face like that could be corrupt." I toggle the screen to forward to the next image. "Then, when I need to run for re-election, I'll have regenerated into this face. Check out those eyebrows! And the badass scowl. Nobody will want to mess with a face like this."
"That's all very interesting. But what experience are you going to run on? How will you convince people that you can do the job?"
"I'm going to run on issues, not experience. There's a whole bunch of things that we should be doing differently. I can't be the only one who thinks so."
"I see," Skolnik says, with the kind of patronizing chuckle that's reserved for people who are too clueless to realize that they don't know what they're talking about. Fine, whatever. There can't possibly be anything wrong with the system if it provides you with a cushy position as a low-level bureaucrat.
"Son, I understand how you must feel. A clever young man like yourself wants to believe that he can go out there and change the world. But this is Gallifrey. Our scholars have visited every different civilization on every different world in every different time period. We've seen things done every possible way. If there's a better way, then nobody anywhere in the universe has ever thought of it."
Wait, suddenly I'm the one who's being irrational here? This stuffy, incredibly boring culture is the best anyone's ever come up with? If I believed that I'd slit my wrists.
Skolnik gives me a curt nod and a "Thank you" which is his way of telling me to get lost. So I do, which is a good thing because if I stayed I'd probably get myself into even bigger trouble than I usually do.
***
After sleepwalking my way through my three boring morning classes, I head to the Cafetorium for lunch. After getting my food, I spot Hedin and Disan, and walk over to sit at their table.
"Have you heard--" I start to say.
"The school authority ruled in our favor. We're in the finals tomorrow," Hedin says.
"You did hear." Why am I the last to know things?
"The authority wants Omega Tech to win. That's their flagship school and the one that prestigious people want to go to. It'd be a big embarrassment to the school and to the district if they got beaten."
"So why..."
He gives me the do-I-have-to-spell-it-out? look. "They gave it to us because they think we'll be easier to beat."
"Our record is just as good as East's."
"East didn't just lose one of their best players. Besides, we're just some out-of-the-way school that nobody's ever heard of. If a school gets cheated out of the championship and complains, and nobody is listening, do we still make a sound? Not as far as the authority is concerned."
"Well, I can't wait," Disan says. "Even if they do steal the trophy, we'll still know that we earned it. I suppose I won't be competing since you've already got five players, but I'll certainly be there on the sidelines."
"You should challenge Chadap for his position," I tell her. "Or even Niblosky. You're better than either of them."
"It's probably a good thing that we have a spare player," Hedin interjects. "Whoever set the trap for Chadap is still out there and is probably going to try again to take out one of us."
"Um, yeah, about that..." I glance in either direction to make sure nobody's eavesdropping on us, then lean in closer. "I've got a plan that might flush them out."
"Oooh, are we involved in a top-secret spy conspiracy?" Disan turns her head and looks at me out of the corner of her eye. "What's the counter-sign, Chief?"
Cripes.
"I wouldn't get too excited," Hedin says. "Who's plans are usually completely ridiculous."
"Hey!" I protest. "When did I ever come up with a plan that wasn't good?"
"Well, let's see... there was the time you tried to get the school lunch bots to improve the food quality by starting a rumor that the provincial governor would be visiting."
"Oh yeah."
"Then there was the time during exam week when you reversed the peripherals on the testing AI so that they could only understand us when we spoke backwards."
"Okay. But apart from--"
"Let's see, how about the time you tried to convince Ms. Osfrey to give you an extension on your homework, on the grounds that time is relative, and the two weeks she'd given you hadn't yet passed according to some non-intertial spacetime coordinate systems?"
"All right!" I throw up my hands. "I think you made your point! Do you want to hear this plan, or not?"
I notice Hedin looking away from me. I turn to see a bunch of people staring at us. They notice me looking and go back to their own business.
"I admit this is a longshot," I say, leaning in close again. "But the good news is, I've already been laying the groundwork. With luck, we can make these Initiative people think that we know something about them. Then maybe they'll panic and do something stupid."
Hedin smirks. "Something like killing all of us?"
"Hey, I never said it would be foolproof. No risk, no gain. But I think it has a chance to work, thanks to a certain person's acting skills."
I point my thumb at Disan, and she immediately perks up. "What do I do?"
***
A couple of hours later, we're all in Artificial Intelligence class, and everybody's at his or her assigned workstation. I glance over at Disan, and almost imperceptibly, we nod at each other. Looking back at my own workstation, I reach into my pocket and tap my finger on my handheld. It's a signal to kick off a pre-set process.
Disan's workstation sputters and sparks, and a ball of yellow light explodes from it. Just harmless pyrotechnics, but it looks pretty intense. Everybody turns to look. "Aaaiee!" she screams, and slumps down in her chair like a rag doll.
Mr. Asornek rushes over. "Disan? Are you--"
Disan stands up. "Your student is presently unavailable," she says in a voice much faster and higher-pitched than her usual one. "I've found it necessary to borrow her body."
Mr. Asornek swallows audibly. "And you are..."
"I have become known as A-One," she says.
"Oh! I've heard of that," says one of the girls. "It's a rogue detachable AI that's been inhabiting many of the school's systems."
"I'm sure that if you were to move into one of these workstations, we could talk to you," Mr. Asornek says to Disan, his voice wavering a bit. "Won't you please give Disan Desu back her body?"
"In due time, human, in due time," she says. "You call yourself a teacher of artificial intelligence? Feh! There are things I could teach you that would cause your neural system to crash." I marvel inwardly at her performance. She's really selling it, and they're buying it.
"Get Administrator Skolnik," Asornek says to one of the boys.
"Hah! That fool! He believes that The Initiative doesn't exist."
"But it does?"
"Of course. I've been through all of their systems and know everything about them. Tomorrow is what is known as your mind-bending championship, is it not? I will return before that match, and disclose some information that will shock you. Be in the practice room."
"If--"
Disan abruptly swoons, and collapses back into her chair with a low moan. Okay, that was a little over-the-top, but considering how good the rest of it was, it doesn't matter.
"Oh..." She looks up slowly. "What happened? Did I black out?"
"Something like that," Mr. Asornek says. "You'd better visit the infirmary."
I give her a surreptitious thumbs-up as she passes. Mission accomplished. And the good thing is, they'll be looking for a detachable
AI. Those are nearly impossible to track down, given their ability to hop from system to system and to store reserve copies of themselves. And this one even more so, because it doesn't actually exist.
My handheld unit beeps. It's a reminder. Student Council meeting in ten minutes. I still have no idea which group of jerks I'm going to vote with. But for now, I'm not thinking much about that. My motto, after all, is never put off to the last minute what you can put off to the last attosecond. No, I'm thinking that if Mr. Asornek dismisses us on time, I'll have five minutes before the meeting, which should be time enough to change.
***
As I walk into the room and up to the front, Alabellaplunkett beams a big smile at me. "Oh, hi! I'm so glad you could join us!"
Yuck. Gag me with a dimensional rectifier. She wouldn't even be acknowledging my existence if she weren't looking to get my vote for president. There's something about politics, even at this mostly meaningless level, that brings out the biggest phonies.
"That's an interesting shirt!" Al says.
"Thanks," I answer as I sit down in the empty middle chair. "I made it myself." Well, I programmed the synthesizer to replicate it from the video of the guy whose name I'll probably never know. But she knows what I mean. The only people on Gallifrey who make clothes from scratch these days are very old ladies and Shobogans.
"Does the pattern mean anything?"
"I don't know. I'm still trying to figure that out."
Alabellaplunkett stares into space and blinks a few times, then glances over at the wall clock and bangs her gavel a couple of times. "I call this meeting to order."
I'm a little self-conscious, being in front of everybody, until I actually look to see who's in the audience. There are a couple of clumps of girls, basically the two cliques that are fighting for control of the Council. Then there's Hedin, Disan, and Chadap, who only showed up because of me. That's about it, except for some faculty and a couple of reporters from the official school blog. Most of the school doesn't take this stuff any more seriously than I do.
Al points at me. "I'd like to welcome our newest member, member Who." Everybody cheers. Well, not quite everybody. Three chairs down from me, Ginahepiltona just sits there with a shark-like smile on her face. Yeah, she's not even going to pretend that she doesn't still despise me. At least that's not an insult to my intelligence.
Al starts going on about how wonderful democracy is, blah blah blahblahblahblahblahblah. Yeah, you love politics and democracy as long as you can use it to keep getting what you want. I stare at my shirt in the mirror. No, it doesn't form any sort of recognizable image or pattern when I look at its reflection either. But something's nagging at me. I've seen this before, or at least something similar.
"The first order of business is the election of a new Student Body President," Alabellaplunkett says. "I will now call the roll. Each member will cast his or her vote for the first ballot."
The call goes in order of seniority. One of Ginahepiltona's cronies nominates her. Alabellaplunkett nominates herself. Gi votes for herself. The next person votes for Gi, and the next two vote for Al. Absolutely no surprises here. At this point, I'm barely listening. A memory pops into my mind. About five years ago, the first and last time I ever experimented with direct manipulation of memory addresses in my computer. It showed a display a lot like the pattern on my shirt. Turns out that I had accidentally taken the address in memory that determined what shows up on the screen and instead pointed it toward the raw binary instructions that the processor follows.
I notice Al looking at me. "Member Who?" she says.
"Um? Oh, sorry, did you want something?" I hear Hedin chuckle.
"Please cast your--"
In a sudden flash, understanding dawns on me. "Of course! It's a representation of binary code!"
Al glares proverbial daggers at me. We are not amused.
"Sorry," I say. "What was the question?" By now Hedin has his hand over his mouth, obviously so that he doesn't break out laughing.
"Please cast your vote for Student Body President."
"Oh, right. Of course."
It finally penetrates my thick head that I can't put this decision off any longer. Which should I pick? Ginahepiltona, the stuck-up jerk who openly hates my guts and would use the student presidency to procure favors for herself and her friends? Alabellaplunkett, the two-faced bully who wants to keep BOOP students from getting any assistance? Who am I going to vote for?
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration hits me for the second time. "Yes!"
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Alabellaplunkett is an original character. I took the name from a Monty Python sketch, sort of. The person there was named "Lady Arabella Plunkett" but I'd misheard it and thought it would make a good name for a Time Lady. Ginahepiltona is based on a character from Big Nate.
As should be obvious by now, my treatment of "The Other" is not at all the same as that of the Doctor Who novels, audioplays, etc. The only thing I'm using is the idea that there was an Other.
With gratitude to Doctor Who writers through the years, specifically to the works of:
Bob Baker
Johnny Byrne
Andrew Cartmel
Russell T. Davies
Terrance Dicks
Robert Holmes
Malcolm Hulke
Matt Jones
Barry Letts
Dave Martin
Steven Moffat
Terry Nation
Anthony Read
Robert Sloman
Keith Temple
Graham Williams
and of course
Lincoln Peirce
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