NCBBDAS: The Nobody Clause
NCBBDAS: The Nobody Clause
Trauma Conga 1.1
Starring Brenda Blethyn as The Twenty Sixth Doctor with Ted Danson as Calvin
Featuring Stevie Nicks as Millie
Previously On Doctor Who...
The Doctor and her new friend Millie, an alternate dimension version of Amelia Earhart now travel together. Her companion Calvin is in critical, evidently, but he’s frozen in the TARDIS zero room while they get him medicine. Honestly there’s no continuity to be found here...
Chapter One
The Doctor and Millie sat awkwardly in the TARDIS. “What kind of place is this, really?” Millie asked, concernedly.
“The TARDIS is my home,” The Doctor said, “ and it’s my ship. I live here. Like a psychotic boat owner,”she said, speaking as if she had experience.
Millie felt cautious. “Well, what are we doing sitting in it? We just landed, and Calvin’s in critical! We need to get out here onto the planet and get him space medicine like you said!”
“Never does to jump into anything,” The Doctor said slowly, adjusting and panning the scanner through various settings on the console. “It’s how problems happen. It always pays to think, my poppet. Always pays to analyze the situation before entering it. Like you say, Calvin’s in critical. It would be bloody stupid of us to land on a planet we can’t help him on and then jump out of the TARDIS anyway!”
“I suppose....” Millie said, thinking to herself. “...Were you always like this?”
“Now what’s that got to do with it?” The Doctor said, continuing with the scanning. “I may save the universe quite a lot, but I am a woman of comfort. Safer one is, the better one can at saving others.”
“I don’t know. I just...I get feelings. With being in the air, it’s always about instinct, and that instinct sinks into everything. You...you seem like a classical example of an atoner. For what, I don’t know, but...”
The Doctor scoffed, and closed the scanner. “You wanna travel with me, you lay off the psychoanalysis!” She squeaked. “Looks like a sufficiently advanced planet. Let’s go.”
* * *
The Doctor and Millie stepped out of the TARDIS, having left Calvin inside in the Zero room where his condition wouldn’t deteriorate. “Woah...” Millie said. “It’s.. the sky! It’s like...slate!”
“Yeah. We seem to be in some kind of underground civilization. There are some bio-power lights over there. Come on.” The Doctor trudged towards the city ahead. Millie rushed forward. She already knew that the Doctor could be a hell of a runner. Even faster than her, and she had trained for the Air Force. So she couldn’t understand why the Doctor purposefully walked like some kind of walrus.
Above them, cameras tilted.
* * *
Across the city, a white man with slicked brown hair who looked so generic that he might has well have been in five other episodes of Doctor Who in the past looked at the screen, where he saw the Doctor and Millie pass by the cameras.
Now what were Nobodies doing here? And what were they wearing? The one in the beret and uniform looked almost passable, if not for the headwear and the fact that the uniform was all wrong. It had a scarf and adornments. But worse was the other short stout woman with blazing red hair who wore a floppy hat and trench coat so large it seemed like she didn’t care what she was wearing.
This was highly irregular.
He picked up his personal radio. “Comm, we have two nobodies converging on the cities walls. Repeat, Two Nobodies. Confirm, Please.”
“Confirmed. Bring them in for questioning.” A clipped voice commanded.
Oh great Officials, The Man thought. More nobodies. What next? Mass hysteria?
* * *
The Doctor and Millie, having had some rather enjoyable conversation, came to the city’s walls.
A voice came out of the loudspeakers. “Nobodies. State your names and identifications.”
“Hi. I’m Amelia “Millie” Earhart. And probably not the one you’re thinking of.” Said Millie, helpfully.
“The Doctor.” The Doctor said gruffly.
“Identifications, Please.”
“Ooh, we don’t have any, dear.” The Doctor said. “Will that be inconvenient?”
The Loudspeaker seemed unable to process this and exploded.
Chapter Two
The sparks harmlessly fell onto Millie and The Doctor’s shoulders.
“What was that, Doctor?” Millie asked, concerned.
“I don’t know, love.” The Doctor said. “Which is concerning as the TARDIS scanners insisted that this was a fully harmless planet. This place, Planet Two-Two-Two used to be a medical base. Famous for hospitality. This goes against everything the scanners told me.”
“Oh, so the information we wasted five minutes on getting was inaccurate?” Millie teased.
“TARDIS is’ never inaccurate..” The Doctor said, pursing her lip. “Come on, Millie. Let’s do a bunk over the wall.”
“Is that legal?” Millie asked.
“Oh, definitely not, but we’re almost definitely dealing with an oppressive city state here,” The Doctor said. “Nobodies, they called us. My guess is they’d sooner shoot us for breathing.”
This didn’t do anything to assuage Millie’s worries as they climbed over the walls.
* * *
The Doctor and Millie shimmied over the wall and into a back alley.
The Doctor leaned down to examine the dust on the ground, picking up a handful. "Someone's tried to wipe away some footprints here. Come on, they go this way."
Millie didn't stop to question how the Doctor knew this.
The Doctor and Millie made their way through the back alley and eventually to some bins, where a man lay. He had been bandaged up, haphazardly, with whatever cloth he could find. He had died trying to treat his wounds.
"It seems you've found a nobody," a clipped military voice called.
The Doctor growled.
The man walked forward, accompanied by several drones.
"You will tell me who you are." The man said. "It's been 20 years since we've found an unknown. It's very problematic you're here indeed." He took out a gun.
Chapter Three
The Man led the two of them to what he called a 'processing unit.' Which Millie didn't really like the sound of.
"Why'd you call us Unknowns?" The Doctor asked.
"People here are usually processed immediately as of their birthing. You have not been processed."
"Oh. Hmm..."
The Doctor didn't put up much a fight at all. She muttered something to Millie about how "The Man who has thrown the first punch has already lost the battle" which Millie didn't necessarily agree with, but she followed her (for what was she to do?) to the building where they led The Doctor and Millie inside.
"So what are you going to do to us?" Millie asked, adversarial. The Doctor made a gesture for her to calm down. "So what are you going to do to us?" The Doctor asked, mildly.
"We are going to document your class," the man said, still in his cool clipped tone.
"We don't have time for this. The Doctor's friend is in the TARDIS, dying." Millie said, urgently.
"Bit overdramatic, love." The Doctor said to Millie. "But even still, you're right on. I don't see how-"
"We will document you and then treat you accordingly." The Man said. "Step into the scanner."
"Mm. Fine." The Doctor said, walking over to the scanner. "It'll probably short out anyway."
The scanner in fact, did not short out. "Surplus." The Scanner said, not before the Doctor had even set more than a foot into the scanning booth.
"Hm." The Man said cooly. The Doctor began to wonder if he was capable of excitement whatsoever, or any other emotion beyond stern and stuffy.
Millie stepped into the scanner. The scanner took much longer than it did on the Doctor. "Surplus." It eventually said.
"Oi. What do you mean, surplus?" The Doctor asked, irritated.
"It means you don't have any connection of importance to anyone on this planet. You are of limited value." The Man said sharply.
The Doctor got very angry indeed. "She's Amelia bloody Earhart! Course she has value! Woman of Steel, circumnavigated the globe! And...Oh, come on. You must have heard of me! Don't like to toot me own horn, but Mister, I'm made of value!"
"Not according to our potential analyzing algorithms. You're both to be sent to the Exiuridium mines."
"Exiuridium? Isn't that highly toxic?" The Doctor spat. "Are you telling me that we're being disregarded? On what basis?!"
"Well, you're Surplus. We call you Nobodies. You don't have any value, so we're sending you to the servant caste."
"Oh, you've crossed the line, son. There's a difference between potential and connections. Class systems like this may keep the rich and powerful families happy, but all you're doing is building an empire on slavery determined by who's the son of who!! I saw what happened to that so-called Nobody in the alley. You left him to bleed out on the street!" The Doctor was livid. "We came here for medical treatment! For help! And you turn us away because you don't have our parents on record?" The Doctor paused to breathe, she was so incensed. "Let me tell you, you have right pissed me off."
Chapter Four
The Doctor grabbed Millie's hand and they began to rush through the processing unit.
The Man screamed. "Drones! Restrain Them!"
The Drones made Electronic beeps and boops and proceeded after the Doctor and Millie.
"Nobodies who attempt insurrection will be culled." A loudspeaker sounded.
"Oh, Doctor!" Millie yelled nervously.
"I'm working on it!" The Doctor said, leading Millie down a hallway.
They rushed down the hall to find a door to the Exiuridium mines. The Doctor smirked and opened it, rushing inside as the Drones moved down the hallway in the other direction.
"Doctor, I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I am rather worried about the whole... radioactive metal mine?"
"It's only radioactive to normal humanoids, not to Time Lords." The Doctor said. This took a second to sink in. "Oh. Oh, right, still toxic to you, okay, get out of here!"
The Doctor practically shoved Millie out of the door and moved towards an elevator, pulling a lever and descending into the mine.
* * *
"How does one exactly reform an entire government in less than an hour? Ooh, young sprightly me could have done it with their eyes closed." The Doctor grumbled to herself. "Hook up a deus ex machina in twenty minutes flat. Hmm..."
The Doctor shrugged it off. Something about this new clone body, even if it was new, made the Doctor feel positively overstuffed with memories. Lives One to Twenty Six plus all that stuff before did get a bit strainy on her synapses. If she chose to remember the 4.5 billion years number 12 spent screwing about in a confession dial or any of the antics her previous self had got up to (like an entire acting career for instance) it got positively ludicrous.
All the same, it came back to her like that. "mm, getting sloppy," She muttered to herself. "All that relaxing on earth must be getting to ya-" The Doctor got out her Sonic and began to scan the Exiuridum very carefully... Her plan came to her just like that.
* * *
On top of the city, there was a spire, and Shaughnessy Finnigan looked down on the peasants with a glass of wine and a smug look on both of his chins.
An elevator whirred. Must be one of his staff members.
"Oh, April dearest, is it?" Shaughnessy asked. "Fetch me another bottle."
"Yes sir." April said, a young woman in a maid outfit depressedly walking away.
The Elevator came to a stop and out rushed Millie, in a huff.
"I'm sorry, the peasants enterance is that way." Shaughnessy pointed.
"I'm sorry, you are-" Millie asked confused.
"Oh, isn't it evident?! I'm A-Class. Cream of the Crop. If you don't have my wine, get out of here." Shaughnessy grumbled, continuing to look out the window.
"I just... I was expecting a lot more people up here. I thought that there was-" Millie was still confused.
"Oh no. Mummy and Daddy died on a golfing trip about forty years back. I'm the last one. Last one on the planet, mind."
"I'm- I'm sorry? There's only one person in the upper class on the whole planet?
Chapter Five
A dramatic pause...
"Yes, that's correct," Shaughnessy said shamelessly. "There is technically Mister Higgins, I suppose, but he only runs security and documentation. And there's the nameless guy who runs the cameras."
That must have been the man they encountered, Millie thought.
The nameless guy who runs the cameras sounded completely made up.
"I'm afraid you don't belong here. You simply must be ejected. I can't stand to have the poor on my carpet." Shaughnessy said in a ridiculously pompous tone.
Millie stared at him awkwardly.
She punched him in the jaw.
* * *
The Doctor came up the Elevator to the top of the spire, and stepped out, carrying a jury-rigged device with a green glowy crystal and a bunch of wires sticking out of it. "Stop right there!" She began, only to find Millie standing by Shaughnessy Finnigan knocked out on the floor, talking intently with April on whatever was going on.
The Doctor made a strange face as Millie walked up to her. "I've knocked out the bad guy and established a new regime here." Millie said happily. "April and her team of Maids are going to release all the Nobodies."
The Doctor pursed her lips. "Well, strictly speaking, that's my job, but good on you. Now, let's have a strict talking to with the huddled masses. Make sure nothing like this ever happens again."
"Doctor, I can't help but feel this story was some kind of commentary." Millie commented.
"Eh? Nah, it was clearly a random sci-fi story with no agenda whatsoever. Doctor Who is never political." The Doctor said, as they stepped back into the elevator.
"Stop right there!" The clipped voice of the now evidently named Mister Higgins called out. He walked up to them, carrying a gun.
"How'd you get up here? This is the only elevator." The Doctor commented.
The Man did not respond, lowering his gun at them ominously.
The Doctor waved her jury-rigged sci-fi device at him and he toppled over as the Doctor pressed the buttons to go downstairs.
* * *
Millie and The Doctor entered the TARDIS, and walked to the Zero Room.
"Hey, Calvin!" Millie called. "Are you conscious yet?"
"Must be, he's billed on the cover." The Doctor said, and Calvin was sitting in the Zero Room.
"Did you get any of the medicine you needed for me? I feel like the bees knees." He muttered.
"I believe the bees knees is an appealing phrase." Millie commented.
"How could bees knees possibly be good?" Calvin groaned, annoyed. "I feel awful then."
"It's fine, Calvin. Got this from April as well." The Doctor said, waving a medical pack happily. "It'll fix you up in two minutes and eleven seconds." She applied the pack to Calvin's skin and it sunk beneath it.
"Okay, that's mildly freaky." Calvin said, touching where she had placed the pack. He couldn't feel anything but his normal skin there.
"Hey. We're good. Really advanced medical tech." The Doctor said, happily. "Now let's get back to Kate. I'm certain she'll-" Suddenly sirens blared. The door to the Zero Room slammed shut and the Zero Room disconnected itself from the TARDIS, falling through time and space.
"What's going on?" Millie screamed.
The Zero Room landed with a thud. The door slid open. The Doctor poked her head out to find herself in a white void.
"I swear. Every other week..." She muttered.
To Be Continued...
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