The idea of crossing Doctor Who with Bubblegum Crisis is not
original, I know.  When I first thought if it, it was "Hey, this would
be neat.  But what do I do with it?"  I'd heard that another BGC/Who
story was being worked on, but I said to myself, "Just because it's been
done doesn't mean I can't do it, and do it well."  Now all I had to do
was come up with a good story idea.  I put the premise on the shelf for
a couple of weeks and worked on other things, like finishing my second
chapter of MI: Channel Surfing.
        It didn't take me long to come up with what I thought was an
excellent plotline, but for obvious reasons I can't say much about it.
I will mention, however, that I plan to use the "KS as psychotic
villains and Genom benevolent" idea that was posted to the list not too
long ago.  Whoever posted that, email me ASAP.  I want to credit you for
it.  :)

        Oh yeah.  If you haven't seen Doctor Who, don't worry.  You'll
understand everything well enough.  If you have, I hope you enjoy the
nostalgia.  And now, on with the show.  C&C appreciated, it's short
enough.  8)

*       *       *

        The tepid drizzle outside was ending, giving way to a fine mist
that filled the lungs and hindered breathing.  The sky roiled with
clouds, threatening continued punishment at the slightest provocation.
Somewhere off in the distance, a car horn wailed, a lonely howl against
the unfriendly night.
        Pandrel was wheezing softly.  Curse the foul weather, he thought.
There would be no pickings tonight.  The makeshift hut around him
shifted uneasily as the wind gusted and heaved momentarily.  It would
hold, though.  The timber was strong, and the aluminum panels themselves
were lashed together carefully, holed in the corners with an old swiss
army knife imitation (not that Pandrel knew how to tell the real thing
from the cheap take off, or that there was a difference) and
painstakingly smoothed, padded, and tied with small bits of a heavy,
fibrous cord he'd scavenged from the refuse and detrius piled high on
this side of the canyon.
        The wind moaned again, a pained sound.  Yes, most of the other
freejacks, as they called themselves, would be under cover, to say
nothing of the quiet, middle class plebes who took to the old town out
of a desire for excitement and adventure.  They tended to huddle in
groups for protection, almost like an aristocratic herd of animals.
There were still enough willing to chance it singly or in pairs that he
could eke out his living, however.
        Pandrel pushed a mold-eaten mattress across the hut's doorway,
partly to keep out the wind and partly to post an obvious "freeloaders
can eat shit and die" message to any wandering freejacks in the area.
There was a bundle of rags in one corner that served as his bed; he
collapsed into it, not bothering to undress.  His own clothes were
nearly as much a part of him as his hair or fingers, and they served a
better measure of protection than his naked skin might.  For a while he
stared into a high corner of the hut, where a small crack in the
aluminum siding let in a view of the sky outside.  A few sickly stars
shone fitfully down through the smog-filled air.  The steady susurration
of the wind outside, rising and falling in a complex pattern just beyond
his semiconscious ability to comprehend, slowly lulled him toward
dreamlessness.

        He awoke with a start, glancing about quickly, warily.  The wind
and rain had altogether stopped, and the night was quiet.
        No, that wasn't right.  The night was silent as death.
Something was wrong.
        He rose silently, padding to the mattress to peek around it at
the world beyond.  Nothing leaped forward and attacked him, biting and
scratching and tearing out his life.  The panicky fear and dread that
had overcome him loosened its grip somewhat.  Maybe a distant gunshot,
or car crash, or explosion.  The crickets were already chirping again,
and a faint flapping sound overhead told of a bird seeking its roost
after whatever had disturbed the night.
        The ground several meters away crackled softly.  Pandrel tensed
again. Someone was walking towards the hut across the small, sharp
rubble he'd purposefully scattered outside.  A hint of moonlight caught
a metallic form -- buma!, something inside him screamed.  But it wasn't
a buma. Its head cocked away towards the earthquake-shredded pavement
beyond his hut, and tilted slightly, as if listening.  Then, the thing
walked languidly out of sight towards the old town.
        He cursed himself silently even as he knew he must follow.  It
couldn't have been what had awoken him.  No, whatever it was, they were
more likely observers of the mysterious event, if event it was.  Half a
minute later, the mattress slipped noiselessly aside, and he padded
across the ground without so much as a sound, the rough but cushiony
foam he'd wrapped his feet in for protection from the elements as
well as stealth keeping him unnoticed and unheard.
        All at once, he saw it.  Glowing amber like a dying fire, a
column of *otherness* rose into the night, reaching for the black void
above.  Here and again at its base, electricity crackled across its
width, giving the air a faintly acrid taste.  Whatever unnatural and
hellish abomination this might be, there was only one answer for it.
There could only be one.  Genom.
        Standing on a small rise in front of him were four of the metal
creatures.  One turned at his approach and regarded him with what he
felt must be a predatory look, and the black fear rose in him again.  It
was only when it turned back again to gaze at the nightmare beyond that
he could relax.  They, at least, were not of Genom.  They were not his,
and every man's enemy.

                        *       *       *

        The crystal column in the center of the console rose and fell,
meshing with an identical column in the ceiling, with a satisfying
familiarity.  The room about it was mostly empty of uninteresting
objects, save for a fancy metal hatstand, a handbag, and an umbrella
leaning against one wall.  Everything else appeared far too interesting
and too complicated to comment on.  The high tech console bleeped and
booped happily, humming to itself.
        Outside the room, outside the machine, a whirling tumbling
nothingness darted by, impossibly fast.  If one had eyes to see it and a
place to stand, one might have made out a faint bluish afterglow from
the passage of the machine.  It was oddly shaped, a tall blue box with a
bobby light on top.  Both within the room where the console stood and
immediately outside, a groaning, wheezing sound echoed, vaguely similar
to the sound a train might make as it pulls into the station.
        From beyond an arched doorway came the sound of a man's voice.
It was difficult to make out the words, on the whole, because of the
wheezing sound.  But the woman's, or I should say girl's, voice that
followed was unmistakable.
        "Professor!  That's not being very fair, how come I don't get a
say in it?" the girl's voice said.  It had the cockney accent one might
find on the streets of middle-class London, without sounding middle-
class.  Immediately, it was answered, and this time the man's voice was
loud enough to be understood.  "Because it's a surprise, Ace.  Don't you
like surprises?  It's a vacation planet, and lord knows we need one
after the business with the Cybermen."
        As if the business of being in an enormously complicated and
intricate machine traveling through nothingness with reckless abandon,
carrying two very human sounding passengers who obviously thought little
of the sheer unbelievability of their situation were not enough, the
sight of the people from whom these voices had issued was even less
reassuring.  The smallish man wore a tan hat and colorful sweater, with
a shirt collar embroidered with a pair of question marks poking from
underneath it.  His hands were gesturing in wide arcs, as if hugging to
himself all that surrounded him in the slightly gothic chamber
containing the console, claiming it as his own.  Which, in fact, it was.
His face was warm and friendly, with a long nose sticking out above two
deep brown eyes.  He was wearing a clownish smile, as if everything
during his entire life had been happy and gay, and he hadn't a care in
the world.  Nothing could, of course, be farther from the truth.
        The girl was pert, walking quickly, very sure of herself.  A
short ponytail and a cheeky smile she wore, both with confidence and a
bit of flippancy.  The backpack completed the college girl look, but
something about her manner gave air to her never having been in a
college of any sort, but more of a high mannered street urchin life.
"And I'm glad it's over.  If I never see another robot with a gun and a
mind to use it for the rest of my life, it'll be too soon."  She
giggled, and the man realized she was pulling his leg.
        "Ace," said the Doctor, for that was what he called himself,
"where we're going, they serve the drinks with a spoon, and the pastries
they bake are lighter than--"
        The console interrupted him, squealing in alarm.  An ominous,
echoing *klong* vibrated through the whole of the machine.  The Doctor
dashed forward and began poking and prodding at several things on the
console.  What he did or how long he did it or how often the dire-
sounding *klong* echoed yet again, one couldn't say.  The girl kept
silent, and the seconds, then minutes dragged on.
        "It's no good," he muttered finally, drawing back.  "Something's
ruptured the space-time continuum, and she won't respond.  We'll have to
materialize soon, or we never will at all."
        "Well, where and when are we?" Ace asked.  "Still near enough to
Earth, although a bit farther along," he replied, without taking issue
at the outlandish question.  "Hold on to something, this won't be very
gen--"  The entire room bucked, and he was thrown against a wall.
"--tle..."

        The old city was quiet again.  The column had already dissipated
or disappeared or whatever it had done which meant it ceased to exist.
Well, before that much is said with certainty, let it be said instead
that it could no longer be seen.
        There was a shimmering in the air, a faint bluish light.  The
wheezing, groaning sound grew louder and louder, frightening the night
creatures into silence once more.  The sound wavered and trailed away
into the silence of the night, and where the shimmering had appeared,
the blue box rested, slightly askew on the broken pavement that once had
been a superhighway crossing the canyon before a great earthquake had
torn the land apart.
        Pandrel was very unhappy at being awoken a second time, and he
peered out from around the corner of his hut in tense annoyance.  The
sight of the two strangers emerging in a cloud of smoke from the blue
box, cursing and sputtering, was enough to turn his spirits, though.  He
crouched low, and listened as they came nearer.
        "This place really gives me the creeps.  Are you sure it's
Earth?" came the girl's voice.  Pandrel nearly coughed in shock at the
statement.  Is he sure it's Earth??!? he wondered.  What the hell?
        "Of course I'm sure," said the man.  "It's not very hard to tell
you know, not when you've been around.  That canyon there?  There were
two major earthquakes that formed that, in the late 2020's.  We're in
Japan, fairly close to Tokyo."  The voice smiled.  "And if the man
behind that hut decides to spring out and rob us of our pennies, you'll
see he's quite human, too."
        Pandrel started guiltily, stepping away from the hut and eyeing
the strangers.
        "Hello."  The man waved cheerfully.  "I'm the Doctor, and this
is Ace.  Lovely night, isn't it?"
        Pandrel would have none of it.  He skulked back into his hut and
pushed the mattress into place.  Whoever they might be, they spoke
Japanese well enough.  But the night had been full of too many odd
things to make any course of action other than shutting all of it out
safe enough.
        "That's it, then," the Doctor sighed.  "Let's get going.  We
should be in Tokyo by morning."  Ace simply gaped.  "You're kidding,
right?"  "Of course not," he said.  "The TARDIS isn't going anywhere in
the shape it's in, and we'd best not hang about here.  Let's go see the
town, shall we?"

Damon Casale, scyth@andrew.cmu.edu
Spam, spam!  WONDERFUL spam!  ^_^