(MAIN RANGE): Checkout

 

(MAIN RANGE): Checkout

Starring Elizabeth Olsen as The Twenty Second Doctor and Gillian Jacobs as Paige

(This is one of many adventures taking place before Blindspot and Paige's first departure) 

Chapter One

"Shopping?" 

Paige was indignant. "We're taking the TARDIS shopping?!?" 

"Yep. We're going to a little out of the way mall known as Pest Buy. One of the leading branches of Supermarkets in the cosmos. It sells...everything." 

"Everything?" Paige asked, suspiciously.

"Everything you can conceive of. As well as a few things you can't..." The Doctor manically pulled levers and pushed switches, swinging herself around the console like a maniac. 

"For instance." The Doctor said, opening the doors and walking straight into a service line in the mall. 

She tapped a computer screen. "I'd like a purple cheetah-bear hybrid that instead of roaring, speaks in ominous rhyming riddles about your own impending death."
The computer calculated.

"Found in Aisle Three!" It toned.

Paige's jaw dropped. "Woah, really?!?" 

"Yep, it sells everything." The Doctor said smartly. "Don't bother trying to purchase that Cheetah though, they're rotten scalpers on limited edition items..." 

Paige tapped the computer. "Hi, um, can I, um, get The Chimes of Midnight on Vinyl?" 

"Found in Aisle 18 for $3.99." It beeped. 

"Okay, yeah, this place is amazing." Paige said. 

"Come on, Paige!" The Doctor laughed. "Let's go pick up a few bags of liquid time to re-fuel the TARDIS! I'm positively certain nothing is going to go wrong today!"

Paige laughed, and rushed after her, as a ceiling camera rotated towards them it's red eye zooming in on them in an ominous fashion as that big BOMMMMMM noise from Inception played. 

Chapter Two

"Okay, Aisle 347. Paper Clips, Tartar Sauce, Unicorns, Screaming disembodied heads, and finally, Liquid Time, here, down this aisle." The Doctor said. 

"Is there any organization? How many Aisles are there? How can so much fit in this place?" Paige rapid fired questions.

"The store is it's very own bigger on the inside infinite dimension, just like the TARDIS. It reorganizes itself according to your point of view. Other customers, looking for different things, will find things differently. It sort of scans your brain, almost, and tries to give you what you're looking for. Scans Are Nothing intrusive, I think." The Doctor said absentmindedly.

"Hold on, Brain Scans? Infinite Dimensions? Who the hell runs this place?"

"A group called Faction Paradox. It's a side project, it's how they pay for their bills. They aren't gonna show up." The Doctor said ditzily. This was because the author knew nothing about them. 

Paige saw a piece of folded paper placed in an alcove next to a screaming head and a barrel of Tartar Sauce. She picked it up, and unfolded it. 

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE? WE CAN GET IT FOR YOU. YOUR DESIRES ARE OUR ORDERS. PLEASE COME TO THE DESIRE DEPARTMENT, RIGHT NEXT TO THAT WEIRD CITIZEN'S BANK THAT EVERY MALL HAS. 

Paige discarded the paper. It read too much like some kind of creepy internet thing. 

The Doctor had placed on some pink Elton John-like spectacles in an effort to examine the liquid time. "Paige, it's corroded. Whatever this is, Pest Buy is underselling us. It's low grade." 

"I mean, isn't that what Malls do?" Paige asked. 

"Not pest buy." The Doctor insisted. "Whatever's going on here...Something's off. I can't put my finger on it."

They stood there in the silence.

 "Pest Buy is usually bustling, but today it's dead quiet. Utterly...Silent." The Doctor worried. 

"This is bad. This seems bad." Paige worried. 

"I mean, oh, I can't believe it took me so long to notice. The cleaners haven't been by in a while either. Look, that shelf there with the paper clips, it's.."

"Oh my god, Doctor, it's growing moss." Paige exclaimed. "Is that because the other aisle has fertilizer in it, or is this place...has this place been abandoned this whole time?" 

"Stupid, stupid, brain." The Doctor said, swirling her hands around her in an effort to digest the scene. 

"Why couldn't I see it? This place has always been automated, but..." 

Paige looked around nervously. "I think we should go to another Aisle." 

The Doctor delicately moved forward. "I agree." She said, for once, deadly serious.

The Doctor and Paige entered the next aisle, and this one was worse.

"Doctor, look, these LEGOs, they've all been spilt out of their boxes." Paige said nervously. 

"These shelves are empty," said The Doctor, placing herself in one to prove a point. "It's all on the floor! Makes No Sense, No Sense!" 

They rushed into the next Aisle. This aisle was completely encompassed by a full sized replica of the Statue of Liberty. 

The next Aisle was completely empty, but there was mad scrawling, as if written by some kind of madman, all over the shelves. 

SOLD OUT
DISCONTINUED
SOLD 
GONE 

ALL GONE

The Doctor and Paige cautiously moved into the next Aisle, once more.

This one was scrawled on too, but this time, only titled with

50 PERCENT OFF, and a mutilated body lay cut in half on the floor.

Chapter Three

"Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope!" Paige said, after a long moment of silence, and staring at the body. "I'm sorry, this is too much, I- I, we need to get out of here." 

The Doctor walked over, crouching down to examine the body. She tried doing a Sherlock Holmes analyze crime scene technique, but all she really did was wave her hands haphazardly, looking ridiculous. The corpse was overlaid with two separate sorts of hospital gowns. 

"Fascinating." The Doctor said. "Severed, every artery has been sort of, fused-" 

"Look, Doctor. I got killed by a note and stalked by a 50 foot monstrosity covered in blood and looking for train tickets in the past week. You have to understand, I already have anxiety attacks without this kind of thing-" Paige yelled, agitated. 

"I'm sorry, Paige." The Doctor said, getting up, her coat mildly stained with red, "But I can't exactly stop this sort of thing from happening, after the fact. Perhaps I could give you Therapy after this, I am licensed. Somewhat." 

"Finding out what did this..." Paige said, trailing off, "That's important." 

"I promise you, figuring out Baby's First Medical Horror is on the top of my to do list." 

"Hey! I'm not a baby!" 

"No, the person who commited this. Inexperienced..." The Doctor trailed off. "And I can only think of one suspect." The Doctor got up.

She yelled out.

"Mall! Hello there, Mall! Nice to finally speak! You know, I was an avid customer once upon a time. But now, I think you've gotten yourself a little edgy streak. You were always a TARDIS. Nothing else can have infinite interior space to house a mall like this. And we both know well TARDIS's have brains. So tell me, why'd you break your pilots?" 

The Mall shook, with an angry roar. Suddenly a soft voice came out of the speakers.

"Very Well, Then, Doctor. Let's talk." 

Chapter Four

"Mall, let me guess. You've been famous for a long, long time. A TARDIS, as we know, takes after it's occupants, after a while. And you've been filled, you've been filled up! Hundreds, thousands of people, day after day, and every single one of their thoughts influenced how you conducted yourself, be it the order of your infinite shelves, or your, dare I say, personality." The Doctor explained, angrily. "That many people, one of them, one just made you snap."

"Ah, yes. I'm just another one of your machines gone mad, Doctor. Through no fault of their own, there was a programming malfunction, and I was 'influenced.' I killed them because I was mad, you say. But what if, what if I did it, because I enjoyed it. What if I was always a monster? What if my code is functioning perfectly? What if I'm sane?"

"In my experience, psychopaths, madmen, are a dime a dozen. As well as good people, who do things for motives. Those who do what they do, without motive, without madness, those are rare, be it a robot, or a human."

"Just because you don't understand my train of thought doesn't make me insane." 

"How'd you kill them all?"

"I promised what they came here to buy. They all flooded into a room that I insisted was to give them their desires. I then, of course, jettisoned it into deep space."

Paige called out. "I- I- read about that. There was a pamphlet, lying around!"

"I then of course, had to be messy with the remainder of the people in the mall, the Faction Paradox workers, and the managers, and all of that. For those, I simply activated my Murder Roombas. Observe!" 

"You have a serious tonal consistency problem!" The Doctor complained, as a bunch of Roombas with knives taped on them barreled towards them. 

Chapter Five

The Doctor and Paige ran, but as they moved down the Aisles, they began to reshape around them, and they looped back into the same place, over and over.

The Murder Roombas moved in closer. 

The Doctor activated her sonic screwdriver. "Computer, Explosives!"

"Stop That! No, Stop That! AAAA-----

Explosives Found, in Aisle 612." 

"Why, thank you!" The Doctor called, as the store began to shape around them more to move them closer to Aisle 612.

"How dare you do that to me! That's my architecture you're using. My programming!"

The Doctor and Paige zoomed into Aisle 612, soon finding a pile of Dorothy McShane Brand Nitro-9.

As the Murder Roombas rolled in to stab at their shins, they were suddenly exploded by the Doctor and Paige lugging the Nitro-9 at the roombas.

"Computer, find me the exit!"

"--You-! You! Aren't Doing That To Me Again! You Can't Manipulate My Code Like That, I'm--

Your TARDIS is ahead in Aisle 9572."

The architecture of the mall began to shape around them again, and suddenly, The Doctor and Paige were in front of the TARDIS.

"Goodbye, Mall! I'm phoning the space police as soon as I get in this thing!" The Doctor yelled. 

And as the mall screamed in rage, the TARDIS dematerialized into the time vortex.

The Doctor rang the space police.

Epilogue:

The Space Police promptly arrested the mall for it's crimes, placing it's (smaller on the outside) exterior in a holding cell in Arkham Asylum. Meanwhile, The Doctor and Paige struggled with their experience. 

"I'm sorry, Paige. It's sheer coincidence, I'm telling you, but life in the TARDIS isn't always what I want it to be," The Doctor said sympathetically. 

The Doctor looked down, rather sullenly. "And if you want to leave, I understand."

"I...I know. And, I don't always know. I may have a hard time with it all...but..." Paige stammered. 

"We save people. I'm certain that mall, now in Space Police hands, isn't gonna harm anyone else. And, that, like, makes me feel good, y'know?"

Paige sat down. "I used to have panic attacks every day before I came to the TARDIS. Day in, Day out. Someone mention to me I have some kind of responsibility at work, or Mom calls me asking how Cardiff is doing, all of that. Total freak out. It was scary, life like that. And...as much as it still overwhelms me, the guns, and the lasers, and the eldritch being from beyond time that's going to eat the universe, but is actually a cat, it's...it's somehow less scary than working paycheck to paycheck." 

The Doctor smiled faintly.

"I want to stay. I want to save the universe with you." Paige said, a small bit of her mouth smiling back.

She extended her hand and The Doctor shook it.

"You're paying for the Therapy though." Paige joked, as The Doctor gasped melodramatically, waving her hands all over the console, as the ship ascended into space and time.

The End

This Story (Hypothetically) Starred

Elizabeth Olsen as The Doctor

Gillian Jacobs as Paige

Douglas Rain as The Mall