A thing I wrote the other day
This seems to be my reaction in fic to the State of Things in the Whoniverse. Not sure whether it's worth archiving, so it's just going here for now.
[1812 words, Yaz, Graham, Ryan, Silver (strictly incognito!), Original Element]
Not for the first time, Ryan looked around the half-built housing estate as he couldn't quite believe the Doctor hadn't shown up already.
"What do we do now?" he said.
Graham shrugged. "We can wait a couple of hours, I suppose. See if the Doc shows up. But if she doesn't, we'll have to call it a night sometime."
"You know that's not what Gran-"
"Ryan!" Yaz's urgent voice cut in on the conversation. "We've got company."
Ryan looked out into the street. Although seconds before it had been empty, there were now two men approaching the house. One was slender, clad in a long, fawn-coloured mackintosh with the collar turned up, and a pork pie hat pulled down low over his ginger hair. The other was short, stout, with sparse dark hair, sporting grubby overalls and holding a well-used wrench.
"Good afternoon," the thin man said. "Are you the owners, lessees, proprietors, tenants, residents or occupiers of this property?"
Ryan started forward, but Yaz waved him back. "Might I see your ID, sir?"
The stout man's response was an amused snort, while the thin man smirked.
"Do you know," he said, "I don't think I've been asked to prove my bona fides quite like that before. However, it shouldn't be a problem."
He bent down and picked up a discarded cigarette packet. With a brief expression of concentration, he pressed it between his hands- and suddenly turned to his partner and whispered something that sounded like "What was my name again?"
"Beryl," the stout man replied, not troubling to lower his voice.
"Ah, yes, of course." The thin man opened his hands, and held out a laminated piece of card. Wordlessly, Yaz took it and looked it over. On the left-hand side of the card as she held it was a picture of the man, seemingly taken at that very moment. The right-hand side bore the single word BERYL and, below it, a barcode that, when she looked at it, made her feel as if the black lines were wires pressed against her eyeballs.
"Right," she said slowly, and passed the card to Ryan. "You forged that card just now, didn't you? You know that's not going to prove anything."
The man smiled. "If I could 'forge', as you put it, something like that in front of you, wouldn't that prove my identity?"
"It'd prove something," Yaz conceded. "Not sure what."
"What about the other geezer?" Graham put in.
"No card, mate, sorry." The stout gentleman shook his head. "Call me Terne." He stuck out a grimy hand. "Pleasure to meet you."
"So who are you?" Ryan asked.
"Or should that be what are you?" Yaz said.
"I'm a completely normal passer-by going about my completely normal business," the man calling himself Beryl said.
"What business is that, then?" Ryan said.
"I'm a vehicle inspector. And that" - he pointed at the house-resembling TARDIS behind them - "is definitely a vehicle that needs a thorough inspection."
"Hold it, mate." Graham held out his arm. "You can't go in there."
"I think it's quite within my capabilities," Beryl retorted, and vanished.
"Oh." Yaz contrived to convey the impression with one word that while certain other people might find it surprising if someone disappeared in front of their eyes, she, Yaz, had seen ten weirder things that day alone. She advanced on the plump man, half-expecting him to vanish too. "Come on, what are you, really?"
Terne rubbed his bulbous nose with a grubby finger. "I s'pose what people usually call us is Elements," he conceded. "'Cos of the names, see?"
"Don't know much," Ryan said. He paused, as if expecting someone to contradict him, but nobody did. "Don't think anyone said anything to me about an element called Terne."
"Beryl's not either," Graham pointed out.
"Nor's sapphire or bronze, but do you see people complaining about them?" Terne retorted. "'Course, they wouldn't send them for something this bad. Proper mucky job, this is." He knelt down, and lifted a manhole cover that Yaz was positive hadn't been there a minute ago. Beneath it, at an indeterminate depth, a malodorous, viscous substance seemed to be flowing through a channel - not a steady flow, but in jerks and spasms, as if pumped by a failing heart.
"Dear oh dear." Terne replaced the manhole cover and, wheezingly, climbed to his feet. "It'll all have to come out, you know."
He glanced around, as if expecting a reply. In the end, it was Graham who succumbed to temptation and said "All what?"
"All everything. Who put this in, anyway?" He shuffled across to a nearby lamp post, tapped it with his wrench, and watched as the post melted like a sugar sculpture in the rain. "Bunch of fly-by-nights."
Before he could go into the matter in any more depth, Beryl's voice said from behind the trio "Does any of you happen to have a brick I could borrow?"
"A brick?" Graham repeated, as they turned. Beryl was standing behind them on the drive, between them and the house-shaped TARDIS.
"I need to make a telephone call, you see."
"You can borrow my phone," Ryan said, holding his out cautiously.
"I suppose that will have to do, then." Beryl received the phone with a slight bow. "But it would definitely have been quicker to start with the brick."
He flipped the phone open - which, since it hadn't been a flip phone, shouldn't have been possible - pushed a few buttons, apparently at random - and it hadn't had buttons before - and began to speak. According to the universal law of mobile telephone conversations, while doing so, he began to pace to and fro - except that in his case, this manifested as random teleportations from place to place around the group.
"Hello? Is that the moonbase? What do you mean, there isn't a moonbase? I assure you, only last week- well, you should take better care of the timeline, shouldn't you? All right, then how about UNIT? Oh, I see." He took the telephone away from his ear and gave it a disdainful look. "There's definitely something the matter with this event nexus. It might all have to come out."
"That's what I said," Terne remarked to the world at large.
"Then thank you for your lack of help, sir or madam," Beryl went on. "And please accept my apologies in advance." A slight pause. "Oh, for this."
A flare of silver lightning blazed around his hand for a fraction of a second, accompanied by a brief shriek from the telephone. With a nod, he put the handset to his ear again.
"Hello, is that you?" He listened, and apparently got a satisfying result. "Yes, who else would it be? No, I know. Strictly incognito. Now, I suggest you sit down and make sure you're in a calm frame of mind for this bit. We've seen some worrying signs that someone's broken the Universe again. What? No, just a strong possibility at the moment. But to be on the safe side I suggest you pack a few things. I'll call round later. Yes, that's right. While it is still 'all this.' See you then." He flipped the telephone closed again, clasped it briefly between his hands, and tossed it back to Ryan. "She took that better than I expected."
Ryan gave the phone a few experimental taps and swipes; everything seemed to be working as normal. "Now just a minute," he said.
"For you, I can spare all the time in the world," Beryl said, putting his hand on Ryan's arm. "Though that mightn't be much longer, the way things are going. Now, I have a few questions to ask you."
"Such as?"
"That building behind me is a Gallifreyan time capsule. And it would be tremendously helpful to us if you told us how it got there."
"Tell you what," Graham said, before Ryan could reply. "We'll tell you what we know. But we need to know about the Doc. Is she...?" He tailed off, the word 'dead' hanging unspoken in the air.
"No promises," Beryl said. "But I'll do what I can."
"Right." Graham cleared his throat. "I suppose it started like this..."
⁂
"And that's it," Yaz said. "We got here and then... well, we waited for a bit. And you showed up."
Terne nodded. "Fair enough."
"Now it's your turn," Ryan said. "What about the Doctor?"
The two Elements exchanged glances.
"Doesn't sound good," Terne eventually said.
"I can't give you a lot of hope," Beryl said. "But if there's anyone who can get out of something like this, it's the Doctor."
"What, even when it's..."
Beryl nudged his colleague. "Ssh!"
"Anyway," Terne said. "Thanks for the tip-off. And you won't tell anyone we was here, will you? 'Cos we weren't."
"You what?" Ryan said.
"You never met us," Beryl said. "And you never lent me your telephone, and you never answered our questions. Because we were. Never. Here."
And sure enough, they never had been.
Ryan rubbed his temples, as a sudden headache pang flickered and was gone again. He looked around the half-built housing estate, and reverted to more important concerns. "What do we do now?"
⁂
On a deserted planet far in the future, a police box and a single tree stood side by side. Equally mismatched, Beryl and Terne looked down at them from a nearby rise of ground.
"What a mess," Terne remarked gloomily. "Time's really done it now."
"It's never liked the idea of Lords," Beryl said.
"Well, you wouldn't, would you? Bunch of blokes in silly hats coming along and saying they're the lords of you." He grimaced. "You think those people'll see the Doctor again?"
"Maybe."
"If they do, maybe it'll be somethink that looks like the the Doctor. Talks like the Doctor. But what it'll be..." He sniffed. "Infected her, that's what it's done. All the way back. Further. Like a tapeworm sticking out at both ends."
"What a delightful image."
"That's what it is, though. No wonder this place is all over the shop. If my bosses get to hear of it - or yours, even..."
"Quite." Beryl seemed to huddle in his trenchcoat. "Well, they won't hear it from me."
"Nor me." Terne sniffed again. "If you hear anything, get in touch, OK?"
"Likewise."
Terne nodded. The aura of oil around him seemed to intensify until he was nothing more than a black silhouette, glistening with faint rainbow patterns. Then, he was gone. At the same moment, Beryl winked out of existence, leaving the trenchcoat and hat suspended in midair. They tumbled, disintegrating into glittering dust before they hit the ground.
Time, unruffled, continued to gnaw patiently at the Universe. There was no need for it to hurry. After all, it had all day. It had all the days.
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