A Dastardly Plot

A DASTARDLY PLOT
Episode One
by Ben Saunders

1

On a dark and dreary night in the cold month of September, a man came home from a day he'd always remember. As he walked up the three flights of stairs to his small, dingy flat, he thought of his girlfriend Cacie, and suddenly thought that... No, surely not. It's just another intrusive thought. He opened his front door and threw his briefcase off to the side. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Cacie, arms open wide. He'd been waiting for this moment all day - he had so much to say. He took his key back out of the other side of the door, and gouged out Cacie's eyes and threw her to the floor. He stomped upon her head to make sure she was utterly dead. He didn't know why he was doing it, but he knew that it felt right. He made sure to tidy up, else the cleaner'd get a nasty fright.

2

Back in the TARDIS, Sarah Jane Smith was feeling inquisitive. "If you regenerate to sort of fix everything that's wrong with you, repair all the damage... then why do you still have a belly button?"
"Well," the Doctor croaked and took a slight pause, momentarily looking deep in thought before smiling and continuing; "I just rather like them, is all. Have you ever seen a stomach without a belly button? It just looks wrong, like a face with no nose or a building without any windows."
"Did you have one when you were born?" His companion hesitated. "You were... born, right? You weren't... woven or anything? Wouldn't surprise me, knowing you." she laughed. There was a slightly-too-long-pause... "Were you?"
The 750 year-old Time Lord suddenly seemed full of energy. "Woven?! Woven? Of course I wasn't woven! How would you weave a human being?" He gave a wide eyed, zany smile. "You're asking too many questions, which obviously means you're bored. So where would you like to go?"
"Ooh, can we go to New York?"
"New York?!" the alien spewed incredulously. "Haven't you any imagination, hmm? This thing can go anywhere! Anywhen!"
"Well alright then, why don't you pick, eh?"
"Good choice."
The Doctor threw a lever, pushed some buttons and twisted some knobs, seemingly at random, as if he neither knew nor cared what he was doing. A wheezing, groaning sound emanated from the central column which slide up and down like a pendulum ride at a funfair. The column slowed, the noise faded away, the Doctor pulled a lever and the door opened.
"New York." the Doctor said with a grin and a raised eyebrow.

3

The old traveller and his old friend stepped out of the TARDIS into a dark and dreary night in the cold month of September. The Doctor shut the doors behind himself and put the key into his breast pocket. "This isn't New York!" Sarah giggled.
"How would you know? We only just got here, there are no signs. This is definitely New York. Just look at this architecture! And that sky! And that smell! Bona fide-y New York, if you ask me."
"Well, if this is New York, where's all the skyscrapers? Where's the Empire State Building?"
"Well, er, maybe they only come out at night. Listen, I've been flying that TARDIS for over four hundred years and we know each other very well, and she nev-"
His's sentence was cut off by a sickening scream cutting through the fog that could curdle the blood of a Drashig at seven hundred knots.
"Come along, Sarah." The Doctor grabbed his assistant's arm and ran towards the source of the curdling, kicking the water out of puddles as they went. She got the brunt of the result of this, but figured there were more importing things o do than chastise the man at this particular moment in time. She'll save it all up for later, and really have a go at him.

The Doctor urgently knocked on the door of the first flat he came to, having established that this manky stone structure must be the building where the event took place. Sarah peered up the stairs to check if anyone was out and about, just as the door creaked open, and a foul stench permeated the landing, like a pile of dirty clothes three weeks old that a squadron of skunks used as a fighting ground.
"Awrite?" asked a man with short dirty blonde hair, a look like he had just gotten out of bed and no sense of style or personal hygiene.
"Hello, I'm The Doctor and this is Sarah. We heard a scream. Do you know what happened?"
The man blinked extremely slowly, the hamsters in his head got to work and he responded: "Fokin'... I wis jus' mindin' ma own business, right? An' this pure mad scream jus' like... screamed doon the stair, an a wis like... 'fuck's 'at, man? 'At disnae sound good."
"Yes, yes, but where did it come from?" The Doctor looked annoyed.
"Fokin'..." there was a long pause, as the clearly inebriated man stared into the distance and swung his jaw from side to side. He seemed to lapse in and out of consciousness before making eye contact with his visitors, looking startled, and asking, "awrite?"
"The scream! Where did the scream come from?" Sarah tried to encourage an answer out of the man.
"Aw, the scream, aye... it came fae upstair, no?"
"Thanks for your help." the clearly miffed man mumbled in monotone. Before he could say 'come along Sarah', a tall blonde man with a suit and tie and blood all over came careering down the stairs.
"Wait!" yelled the pair of inquisitors into each other and out of this way. "Come along, Sarah!" He grabbed her arm again and off they went.
"Dee Dee..." the man in the flat said to himself. "See, 'is'z why a' keep tae masel. Too much drama."

4

The Doctor and Ms. Smith sprinted after the man, coming down to a shack by a warehouse by the lakeside. He was nowhere to be seen in this serene scene where he should have been. The moonlight glistened on the water in a way that would be absolutely breathtaking, had the three solid minutes of running they had just done not taken all of their breath away first. Just as they could begin to appreciate the beauty of the night, a man yelled with all his might. "Get away from me!" The doors to the shack crashed open and the tall blonde man with a suit and tie and blood all over came careering down the embankment.
"There!" The Doctor ran over to the man, skidding down the dirt like a skater down a rail. "What on Mondas are you doing?"
The man jumped up after his great fall, barely fazed by it at all, and ran directly towards the water. "Stop!" shouted the Doctor, running after him.
The man jumped right into the water and didn't get up. By the time the Doctor was able to pick him up, he was severely out of breath and choking. "For heaven's sake man, what's going on?" he barked at the man. The man sneezed on him, and his head rolled back, his eyes shut, and all life left his body, as if all of his life force had been contained within that one final sneeze. Clearly dead, The Doctor placed him gently at the side of the lake and tried to make sense of what had just happened.
Sarah approached him slowly and nervously, horrified at what she had just seen. A clearly insane man trying to drown himself after attacking at least two innocent people. She had seen some horrors in her travels with the Doctor, but she never got used to it. 'At least it can't get any worse than this', she thought to herself, placing her hand on the Doctor's shoulder.
The Doctor sprung to life, jumped up, turned around, and tried to strangle her.

---oooooooOOOOOOOWWWWWWWEEEEEEOOOOOOOooooooo---



Episode Two


5

Sarah screamed. "Doctor, no! Stop! What are you doing?! Oh," the faintest hint of the beginning of a "no" emerged from her larynx as she quickly dropped to the floor and rolled out of the way, emerging behind the Doctor. She jumped up, and turned around to face him, ready to run. He was staring off into the distance in the opposite direction. He slowly turned around first, head followed by body followed by legs followed by feet. He looked directly into Sarah's eyes, but she didn't feel fear. She recognised his warm, familial gaze. The Doctor seemed only very slightly embarrassed, and stuttered a little.
"I'm so sorry Sarah Jane, I don't know what came over me. You must be used to me becoming possessed by now."
"Oh, yes, of course!" she said sarcastically, swinging from left to right. Rather than just shaking her head, she shook her entire body. "Happens all the time! But it's never exactly a -welcome- change." Her expression changed from exasperation to concern. "Are you alright now... Doctor?"
"Yes, yes, I should think so. The Time Lord mind is much more impenetrable than your typical human. Now, shall we get going? I have an idea." He grabbed her arm yet again, but only momentarily, and guided her to follow him back to the TARDIS.

6

Sarah felt on odd heat on the back of her neck, and swore she could hear a faint-yet-piercing low-frequency hum coming from... somewhere. "Doctor... do you ever get the feeling you're being watched?" she asked anxiously.
The Doctor turned to his left and looked off into the distance, as if to nowhere. He definitely seemed to be looking at -something- however. "I don't know what she's talking about" he said to nobody in particular, with a wide eyed grin and raised eyebrows. He then nonchalantly swaggered into the TARDIS leaving Sarah with a furrowed brow, licking the back of her teeth, wondering what that was all about. It must be a side effect of the possession. She quickly followed.
The welcoming white walls of the vast alien craft she had come to call her home-away-from-home were like a warm mug of tea on a winter's afternoon. The warm abmient electrical noise from the hexaganol central column was a refreshing replacement for whatever that was before. However, the question still lingered. "Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched, Doctor?" she repeated.
"Well, yes" he replied matter-of-factly. "In fact you are, most of the time. Security cameras, people in bushes, crusty old clerics who feel the need to keep tabs on you at all times."
"The Time Lords?"
"Who else?"
"Well that's what I'd like to know."
"Yes, and I think we're bout to find out."
The Doctor flicked on the scanner, showing a map of London with glowing green dots scattered at specific locations across the country. Sarah was curious, but didn't have to ask. "This map should show all of the televisual broadcasting going on in the area. It's only the seventies right now, I think. Or possibly the eighties... the exactitries aren't what's important. What do you notice about this map?" he asked expectantly.
"There's a huge signal coming from... right down by the lakeside!" she said in proud bewilderment. The Doctor beamed proudly, his student having passed he test, as he knew she would.
"Precisely! And it's bigger, even, than the one in the centre of London, where one would expect the bulk of the activity to be taking place."
"Hold on," Sarah said somewhat sourly, as she was sure she was certain to receive an answer she didn't want to hear. "Don't tell me that's coming from all the way back down inside the warehouse where we -just- came from!"
"It is", sighed the Doctor defeatedly. He looked down at Sarah as if through glasses, though  he was clearly wearing none. "Are you coming, Sarah Jane?" He threw in a cheeky smile. "The exercise will do you some good."
"Of course I'm coming!"

7

They threw open the doors to the warehouse by the lakeside and ran in. Quickly glancing from right to left, before they could begin to catch their breath, they immediately spotted... a man giggling away watching a television set. The warehouse was otherwise completely empty, aside from a desk with some test tubes and flasks and a large, odd looking computer terminal.
"So you found me. I knew it wouldn't be long." The man lamented, his ramshackle clothes matching his unkempt hair, but at odds with his curiously cool composure.
"Are you behind all this?" questioned Sarah, already suspecting the answer. It was more of a formality at this point, really.
"Yes, yes, I'm behind it all. You can take me away and jail me now, but be gentle."
"You -want- to go to jail?" queried the Doctor. "Why?"
"Well you want me to go to jail, don't you? I have committed a most heinous crime! Driving people mad and causing them to commit murders. Worthy of a maximum security sentence, I should think. Constant guard, a week's worth of paperwork before anyone can visit. It's just what I deserve."
"Well, yes," the Doctor agreed suspiciously. "But why are you so eager to go?"
"I just can't bear the suspense. I don't want to sit here and explain why I did what I did, that's just so boring. I already know. And you wouldn't really care to hear it."
"I would." Ms. Smith piped in.
"Well, if you must know, I was causing drama" Opened up the man. "I needed a good plot. All the other shows were boring me so I decided to make my own. I'm surprised it took you so long to find me, what with all the blackouts I've been causing to power my equipment."
"You did this for entertainment?!" An appalled young woman stood shocked.
"Of course, why does anyone ever do these things? Now hurry up and arrest me, I don't much care for this dialogue."
The Doctor, disgusted by this man and wanting nothing more to do with him, escorted him down to UNIT HQ, instructing Sarah to keep an eye on him. They were going to lock him up in a high security prison and throw away the key.

8

"I wonder why he was so keen to be arrested" pondered Sarah.
"No matter," the Doctor said reassuringly. "At least the trouble's all over. He can't cause much drama in there, believe me. Shall we go?"
"Mhmm," she nodded in agreement, bearing her teeth in a broad, endearing smile. They climbed into the TARDIS and it wheezed and groaned away into the ether.Seemingly out of nowhere, a large white spheroid fell from the sky and splashed into the water surrounding the high security prison where the perpetrator had been taken. A squat, lumbering shape like a monstrous puppet emerged from the sphere and marched up to the gates of the complex. "I- I'm sorry, sir," said the guard, bemused by the odd, dominatrix-esque get up of the figure. "You need level six clearance to get in here. We have some very dangerous criminals locked up in here and no one is allowed to talk to them without proper vetting."
The lumberer lifted his large black helmet from his massive, hunched shoulders, revealing a domed, reptilian head. The guard looked appalled and backed away. "Take me to him" the Sontaran demanded. "He is wanted for much more heinous crimes than you, puny human, could ever imagine. Take me to him or I shall enter by force."