Mind the Gap

Special thanks to all the great reviewers that I have blatantly
plagiarized.

The First Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide
Fiction Appendix O' Literacy

 The Doctor Who Universe comprises a diverse tapestry of
storytelling.  Few other concepts have been presented in such
a wide range of mediums - Television, Film, Radio, CD Audio dramas,
Novels, Graphic Novels, Video Games, Webcasts, Fanzines, Fanvids,
Anthologies, and of course, Underpants.  

 With all of these varied formats being exploited for over 4 decades
a curse has befallen fandom - "How shall a man know his canon?"

 Was Peter Cushing actually the Doctor?  Did the Cyberman actually
have a 4 phase plan to invade the earth using a church as their
headquarters? Did the 6th Doctor travel with a shape-shifting
penguin?  And more controversially, did Dodo actually screw the
Marquis de Sade?

 Now, at last, I have come to clear away the murkiness with this
simple rule -

 If I write about it in the programme guide, it's canon.
Otherwise, you're on your own.

 Got it?
 



PS: The underpants ARE canon.




NOVEL NA10 - Mind the Gap - 

Cover Blurb
---------------

‘Mind The Gap!’ 

 It’s the ultimate in mass transit systems, a network of
interstitial tunnels that bind the planets of the solar system
together. Earth to Pluto in forty minutes with a supersave
non-premium off-peak travelcard. 

 But be careful, the gap between the platform and the train is
a wormhole leading roughly 5,000,000 light years into deep space.

 But something is living in the gap, chewing its way to the very
heart of the system and leaving a trail of death and mutation
behind -- and this time it's NOT the Doctor! 

 Annoyed that some dark god from before the beginning of time is
once again making a move on his turf, the Doctor is compelled back
to stake his claim over the universe.  

  A reluctant Doctor is dragged into human history. Having drinks
at very lively interstellar parties with joyboys, freesurfers,
chessfans, politicians and floozies.

  But even as he pops heavy amounts of E and dances to loud 
repetitive music he is unsure of how this battle should play out.

 Is he here as humanity's friend, or should he just be a psychotic
killing machine and get it all over with once and for all?





Plot Summary
--------------

 Mankind has once again accomplished an engineering marvel.

 First they sent slow, inefficient, chemical rockets through
the solar system on journeys which took years. Then they 
developed T-Mat, a system capable of transporting 3, maybe even
4, people to nearby worlds at speeds rivalling light.

 Then, one magical day, humanity came up with a machines that
could completely remove the need to actually travel "IN" space.

 All you had to do was tear a giant rip in the fabric of space
time, punch massive holes through interstitial reality, wrap
the tattered remains around themselves with the use of a
mini-blackhole, maintain a constant and definable cosmic
rupture, then set it down in the centre of London and ram trains
through it at high speed --

 And everyone thought this was a good idea.



 When the first train driver makes the jump from King's Cross to
Alpha Centauri, a technician notices several unusual things -

1) A slight shift in the texture of the carrier wave 
2) A slight sub-atomic structure change in the hull of the train
3) The complete absence of the train driver's head
4) The passengers have all been eaten

 This disaster is of such a great scale that it causes the
authorities to briefly consider shutting down the line.

"Mysterious deaths on intergalactic voyages, yes I know we have
to look into that.  But what I'm really worried about are all
these fare-jumpers recently.  We need to start catching and
eliminating free-riders, or else we'll be bankrupt!"

 
 
 Many years ago, a young soldier named Alistair Gordon
Lethbridge-Stewart was briefly stationed in Africa, where he met a 
strong-willed and intelligent native woman...okay, well he met
a LOT of "strong-willed and intelligent" native women...in fact
he met SO many strong-willed and intelligent native women that it
got embarrassing to the British Army and that explains why he was
only "briefly" stationed there, and then immediately sent to
Antarctica.

 One of Lethbridge-Stewart's many descendants, Kadiatu is a student
at Lunarversity. She is desperately short of money with half the
term left to go, and is forced to take a job dressed as a giant
mouse, desperately attempting to entice people into "Kentucky
Fried Rat", a rather unpopular fast food chain. 

 A passing war veteran, Old Sam, asks Kadiatu why she doesn't get
a proper job - like peddling designer drugs to school children.

 Kadiatu explains that she doesn't have a drug dealing permit and
can't afford one.  Old Sam offers to forge her one in return for
various sexual favours.

 And as this is a hellish cyberpunk world, Kadiatu is pleased by
the offer -

"Wow really?  Most guys wouldn't forge a permit like that unless
they could jack your body for a weekend, store data in your brain,
or genetically alter you in someway -- you're a real gentleman Sam."


 Kadiatu joins Sam in a schoolbus that has been converted with
rails, making it a pirate vehicle able to navigate the complex
Interstellar Underground.   

 They cruise the transit lines celebrating Graham Norton Day, and
Kadiatu makes love to a chain smoking robot named Terrance.
 
 When Kadiatu wakes the next morning outside Peking, Terrance the
Robot is gone, and her datapen - containing all her money AND Sam’s
forged drug dealing documentation - has been stolen. 

 Broke, stranded, and still dressed like a giant mouse, Kadiatu
tries to crash the transit system to reach the only person who can
help her, but she is spotted and pursued by a ticket inspector. 

 The ticket inspector is a hovering robot with saw blades for hands,
death rays for eyes, and a ticket machine for a stomach.  The Ticket
Inspector is actually fully equipped to sell tickets to you at any
point in your journey, but it would much rather just kill you.


 The TARDIS materialises at King’s Cross station just as Kadiatu
arrives. He pulls Kadiatu out of harm’s way, and pays the ticket
inspector full fare for two All Zones Day Passes, much to the 
inspector's grave disappointment.

 In gratitude Kadiatu takes the Doctor to a cafe in the Sahara desert,
hoping to get him drunk and steal his moneypen when he passes out.  

 The Doctor gets blind drunk and explains that he's celebrating the
Universe’s 13500020012th birthday. He also tells Kadiatu that she is
the most beautiful girl he's ever rescued, and briefly ponders aloud
why more people don't want to live in Finland.

 Kadiatu knows who the Doctor really is, some incredibly alcoholic
alien who is going to desperately try to get into her pants by the
end of the night.   "Same story every weekend."


 Meanwhile, Benny arrives in Paradise Square, the ghetto at the end
of the line, where she is pulled off the streets by two hookers,
Bambi and Cherry. 

 Terrance the Robot is originally from the ghetto, a jive talkin',
drug dealin', gang bangin', computational gangsta.
 
 Cherry has never forgiven him for forgetting his roots and "going
all terminator", which she explains to Benny, meaning "Human on the
outside, robot on the inside".


 Cherry explains that the last time she saw Terrance he was making
crazy amounts of sex with some other chick. Seeing that drove Cherry
so crazy that she seized the opportunity of their massive distraction
and stole their moneypens.

 Benny convinces them to take her to a local gang, and convinces the
gang leader, a tough raised-on-the-streets cyborg named Jimmy, that
she can help him gain power and take control of Paradise Square.

 Bambi, oddly the most intelligent person for miles, realises that
Benny has her own agenda, but is unable to intervene as Benny’s
manipulation causes all of the pent-up frustration and anger in
Paradise Square to explode into violence. The Square becomes an
urban war zone, and Cherry is killed before the military arrives to
quell the uprising and evacuate the survivors. 

 The news media explains that this is another success of the new
international security policy of "Nuke first, never ask questions.
Glow for 500 years." 


 The Doctor awakens in Kadiatu’s room on Lunarversity, and is slightly
worried to discover that he's not been wearing a condom.  Anxious
the Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver and runs it up and down
his body multiple times.  It looks desperately kinky, but at the end
of this exercise the Doctor stares at the sonic screwdriver and
sighs -

 "Clean.  Thank heavens that I upgraded this thing with a sonic VD
Detector."
  
 The Doctor begins to breathe normally and turns his head to study
Kadiatu's body as she sleeps.


 The Doctor has realised that she has been genetically engineered; her
strength, her eerie muscular control, her stamina, and the way that
she has 'Made on Earth' stamped on her arse -- they're all giveaways.

 Bored, the Doctor decides to take up an old hobby - computer hacking.
At first he's just hoping to read some of her e-mails, daydreaming
that he will find one written last night reading -

 "Dear Tracy,
   Oh wow!  I've just passed out in mutual exhaustion from the best
lay I've ever had.  He's small, but charming, and you won't believe
what this dude can do with a question mark umbrella.
   I woke up and had to walk over to the computer just now to make
sure my legs still worked.
   Tell you what, come over here right now and check this guy out
for yourself.  Oh yeah, and bring Stacy, and Sara, and Hazel.  OH
and the bullwhip.
   We'll need them.

   Cheers,
   Kaddie"


 The good news is that the Doctor does ultimately find an e-mail
just like this.  The BAD news is it was written about some robot
named Terrance.   

 Dejected, the Doctor starts to poke around her program files, hoping
to play Doom.

 Instead of first-person-shooters, the Doctor finds that she has
pieced together her family stories and historical records to work out
who he is -- "Oh great.  I banged a genealogy freak.  I better hope
I used a condom. You just can't get a genealogist pregnant without
answering a lot of questions."

 The Doctor continues to search for something, anything, even a
classic arcade emulator, when he discovers more personal files which
reveal that Kadiatu has nearly solved the theoretical equations that
will enable her to build a time machine.

 Annoyed that he isn't finding anything COOL, the Doctor shuts down
the computer and channel surfs for awhile.



 Something shaped like a train but made out of folded segments of
reality is roaming the transit tunnels.  It's a temporal, reality
origami train of death basically.

 The origami train of death is busy capturing lone passengers and
“freesurfers” who ride the tunnels on reality surfboards, and
transforming them into mutant warriors and intelligence operatives.

 So as we can see, it's a very devious and intelligent Origami
Train of Death.

 
 A handful of engineers are sent into the tunnels to die in the most
horrific fashion possible.  They are not told this upfront.  
Officially they are to investigate reports of “unspecified incidents”.

 The "unspecified incidents" in question involve people being ripped
to shreds by hordes of bloodthirsty mutants.   That sounds pretty
damned specified to me.
 
 The Doctor and Kadiatu stow away on the service train of certain
doom, taking our engineers into the jaws of mutant death.

 When the train reaches the end of the line the Doctor and Kadiatu
leave and immediately see the TARDIS.  

  The Doctor is left puzzled.  Apparently, in a desperate bid to
escape the Doctor forever, the TARDIS moved itself here without
telling him and purposely re-materialised embedded in the concrete --
with its door facing the wrong way. 

 The Doctor feels momentarily betrayed by the TARDIS, but soon feels
even MORE betrayed when Benny arrives and tries to kill him.

 The Doctor deduces than an alien intelligence has possessed Benny.
This alien intelligence realises the Doctor's mental superiority
and therefore the threat that the Doctor represents to it's plan of
universal domination.

 Quickly the Doctor devises a complex and painful way to banish the
intelligence from Benny.  When it doesn't work at all Benny explains
that she's not possessed, but just feels really evil today.

 The Doctor is not totally convinced but Old Sam and Terrance arrive
just in time to save him. Benny flees as the mutant warriors cover
her retreat. She and Bambi join the rest of the evacuees and are
shipped off to the refugee relocation centre on Mars.

 Meanwhile, Kadiatu, fighting for the first time this afternoon,
finds that she can instinctively locate her opponents’ weaknesses and
punch hard enough to kill. 

 She does not yet know the truth about her birth, but being able
to punch through people like wet paper bags does make her wonder.


 Years ago, a mysterious hacker named Kevin told Old Sam that the
company Imogen was manufacturing genetically enhanced super-soldiers.
Kevin sent a hit squad of Network Admin guys to destroy the company
and shut down the monstrous project. 

 Although Kevin destroyed all of the project records, he found 
himself unable to murder the baby he found in their R&D creche
(he'd run out of bullets), and despite the risk, he adopted it...and
named it Kadiatu. 


 The Doctor takes Kadiatu and Terrance to his house on Allen Road,
where he makes pasta while they make love; he's mildly pissed off
over not being invited to join in, and even more annoyed when he
has to eat the pasta all by himself and watch Mastermind, as they
do it like bunnies.  

 The Doctor considers the situation and wishes that he'd installed
better soundproofing.

 Bored out of his mind, the Doctor watches a documentary on the
History Channel.  The documentary explains that the interstitial
tunnel system has grown complex enough to resemble a neural network.
While this system has allowed mankind new vistas of travel and
experience, the system has an inherent vulnerability which would make
it possible to invade in the same way a worm or computer virus does.

 The Doctor snaps to attention and realises that this is the answer!

 He realises that the network has already evolved its own
intelligence. He builds a machine from an amp, a coffee mug, a video
card, and an electric guitar, with which to hack into the network and
contact the Gap intelligence.


 The Doctor hastily explains his realizations to Kadiatu and Terrance,
in his excitement totally forgetting that they are having vigorous
sex.

"So," grunted Kadiatu "The Gap is infected by an intelligence that
is spreading like a computer virus and is a threat to all mankind.
And you figured all this out on your own while eating pasta and
watching Mastermind?"

"No, I didn't exactly come up with it all on my own.  A lot of
it I got off the History Channel."

"I'm not impressed."

"But the History Channel only carries five programmes, and four
of those are about World War II.  Don't you see what this means?
They've got to rerun each of their programmes an almost infinite
number of times.  That documentary is probably where the invader
got the idea in the first place!"

"Good point."


 Running into an underground station with a demented looking electric
guitar, the Doctor is mistaken for a busker and given 10p.

 The Doctor hooks up his guitar-like communication device to the
electrified rail on the track and begins to play Stairway to Heaven.
"The pan-dimensional song of peaceful cross-species contact!"


 The Gap Intelligence borrows the form of virtual TV host Yak Harris
to speak with him. Yak confirms that the Gap was infected while its
defenses were down - "What can I say?  We were young, I was drunk,
she was pretty."

 Simply put the Gap has a sexually transmitted disease from another
dimension. 


 Benny and Bambi mistaken for vegetables and put up for sale at a
green grocers on Mars, but Benny doesn’t intend to stay for long;
now that she’s out of the ghetto and on Mars, she can access
Underground control and set the next phase in motion. 

 Benny can feel some alien influence coursing through her body, and
she likes it.  Benny flees out of the terraformed area of Mars,
killing everyone she encounters on the way. 


 The Doctor and Kadiatu hop an express train to Mars and pursue
Benny to an Ice Cream Vendor nest.

 It is in the frigid wastelands of Mars that the best ice cream in
the galaxy can be made.  The Ice Cream Vendors "Weapons and
Confectionery Research Department" have been working on new formulas
which are said to put Gelato to shame.

 Kadiatu, realising that if she kills everyone she can have all
the ice cream to herself, shoots Benny before the Doctor can
intervene. 

 The Doctor examines the body and discovers that this isn’t the real
Benny -- it's a soy bean substitute Benny!

 "Of course!  That's why they sent her to the green grocers!"


 The Ice Cream Vendors are not impressed by the unruly behaviour
taking place in their Ice Cream Factories of Death and insist to
have one good reason not to kill the Doctor and Kadiatu on the spot.

 The Doctor identifies himself as Shango, the lightning god. 

 The Ice Cream Vendors laugh so hard at this assertion that tears
form and freeze in their eyes.

 Eventually one of the Ice Cream Vendors, Trevor, recognises the
Doctor for who he truly is -

 "Wait!  You're that time lord who gave us the recipe for Mango
Lime Kiwi Swirl.  GOD!  That was awful!"

 The Doctor merely nods his head in deep embarrassment, he’s getting
far too well known here.


 In deep shame and after many belittling comments, the Doctor and
Kadiatu are free to go.  With no way of knowing where the real Benny
is, and no idea where to go next, the Doctor decides to return to
earth and get seriously drunk on absinthe.

 When they arrive at Mars Central Station they discover the next
train to London is in 30 minutes, and the Doctor can't wait that long
to get pissed. 

 The Doctor decides that he's going to have to freesurf through the
tunnels to reach London faster.  Kadiatu thinks that the Doctor is
beyond stupid, as he is willing to throw himself into the tunnel
system unprotected, but also thinks that it sounds like a great
laugh, and she jumps in after him.

 The Doctor and Kadiatu arrive safely Peking, and the Doctor figures
that's close enough to London for him.  After drinking several litres
of Chinese beer, the Doctor decides that he rather fancies a curry.

 The only place still open is a small stall owned and operated by the
ever popular Kwik-Kurry franchise. 

 Even as the Doctor shoves hot naan bread into his mouth with great
abandon, he realises that the operator who has supplied them with
food is Benny in disguise!

 And even worse, he's just dipped the naan bread in mutant madras!

 "Ahhh!  Damn it Benny! Raising an army of evil mutants to rule the
cosmos is one thing.  But making them into curry is simply
unacceptable.  I'll HAVE to stop you now.  You're FORCING me."

 Benny explains that she has been possessed by an Old One, a dark
and ancient god from before the beginning of time, known only as
He Whom It Is Rather Difficult To Describe Accurately.

 The Doctor tries to carry out a reasonable conversation along the
lines of "He Whom Is Rather Difficult to Describe Accurately, I have
fought your evil since the beginning of creation...though mostly in
my spare time on weekends."

 However the long name becomes cumbersome and for ease he shortens
it to Fred.
 
 Fred explains that as the most arcane evil in the universe he can 
do anything in his new domain -- the gap between the train and the 
platform.

 The Doctor mentions that as far as evil empires go, this one actually
rather sucks.

 He briefly considers just letting Fred KEEP that domain, as the gap
really has fuck all no importance on the cosmic scale of things.


 However, before he allows even the Gap to fall to evil, the Doctor
feels compelled to see what Fred has done with the place.

 The Doctor waits for a train to appear on the platform and then
leaps into the gap, thus entering Fred’s new domain.

 Inside of the Gap the Doctor creates an analogue of reality
enabling him to function - which is a pretty damned neat party trick 
I'll tell ya.

 From thin air the Doctor creates two cats, one silver and one green;
he produces a magical ball of string and plays idly with them both,
and generally faffs about and wastes the readers time for pages and
pages, until finally he decides to get off his arse and actually
start killing the bad guy.


 Fred says that he recognises the Doctor’s potential, and that he
kidnapped Benny to lure the Doctor here, where it could defeat him
on its home turf.

 "The other Old Ones thought you were too young, too stupid, and too
annoying to join us in the halls of power.  I always disagreed. 
I told them of your potential.  We argued.  We murdered one another.
Until everyone saw that I was entirely, and totally, wrong.
You aren't worth it afterall.  
You've become a personal embarrassment to me Doctor.  And now it is
time to DIE!" 

 As Fred tries to absorb the Doctor into itself and acquire his
knowledge, Kadiatu arrives in a tight fitting latex catsuit -- and
while Fred is distracted, the Doctor kicks Fred in the bollocks.
Showing his classic sense of sportsmanship and fairplay, or actually
the lack thereof.
 
 As Fred lays on the floor curled up in a fetal position, the Doctor
calmly explains that Fred will remain in this dimension, where it can
achieve its full potential, and it won't ever fuck with the Doctor's
universe ever again if it knows what's good for it.

  The Doctor, Benny and Kadiatu return to reality by climbing out of
the gap.

 
 Before leaving, the Doctor visits Space Mountain at Disneyworld 
where, for some reason, the human race has decided to store the
complete archives of Earth’s history.

 The software which runs the archive has evolved its own sentience,
and the Doctor threatens to expose it to the human race unless it
destroys all records of his existence on Earth. 

 Apparently the Doctor has multiple unpaid parking tickets that
he's getting increasingly paranoid about.

 The requested files are deleted and later that evening the Doctor
returns to London.

 The surviving engineers cut the TARDIS out of the rock, and the
Doctor scolds it for trying to runaway AGAIN.  

 Old Sam, a veteran of the war with the Ice Cream Vendors, goes to
the Ice Cream factory on Mars and makes a symbolic gesture of peace,
giving them the secret to the much loved human delicousy - Mint Chip.

 Kadiatu gets a job with the Interstellar Engineering Branch of
the rail company, and thus gains access to the resources she needs
to build her time machine -- but she then destroys her research and
sets off after the Doctor alone. 

 The human race is not ready for time travel, but Kadiatu has
surpassed humanity and reached a new level of evolution.

 Will she be the Doctor’s friend or his foe? 

 
 
TV/Other Related - 
The Complete Index of Cthulhupunk and Steampunk, Vol. 1

Kadiatu and The Time Lesbians (alt.sex.stories.scifi.drwho.no.really)
as posted by LustLord


Links and References - 

The Doctor is once again depicted as doing deeply immoral things with
his question mark umbrella. (See, most of McCoy era)


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor mentions that he's killed so many deities that it's
beginning to get difficult to keep track - "The last deity I killed
was Ralph, of the Shadow Dimension.  That was a corker!"



Reader Reviews 
-----------------


A review by Jimmy Nelson:

Brilliant and deeply flawed. It's a very good novel, but very crap
Doctor Who. I currently use this book to level my couch.



A review by Larry Fintman:

The most controversial thing about Mind The Gap, are the blatant
sexual references. Now, I'm no puritan and have no wish to come
across as one, but people who write about this sort of thing, and
the kind of people who read it, will certainly burn in hell.

 Doctor Who has always had sexuality and sexual references.
But I think the author borrowed too much from hardcore cyberpunk
influences such as William Gibson and Father James O'Maley.
 
 The Doctor's constant and countless references to robot prostitution
does bother me.  I guess it wouldn't be so bad if his recommendations
didn't sound so damned tempting.



Review by Catboy72


Mind The Gap is a hard book to eat. I recommend curry sauce in
generous proportions.


A Review by Finn Fark

 This is the granddaddy of Doctor Who novels.  It's either the best
book ever or the demonic spawn of filth and degradation.

 The book lovingly includes swearing, explicit sex, prostitution,
drug abuse, and all powerful gods who live in train stations.

 There's also a sexually consummated 'love story'.  It's true that
the lovers don't connect beyond the groin, but this is a book of
casual violence, emotional detachment and prostitutes.

 In fact this is the BEST book about casual violence, emotional
detachment and prostitutes that I've read all summer!

 

Ben Aaaaronovitch Speaks!
"It paid the gas bill.  Not much else though."
 


>From the Back Cover
-------------------

Father James O'Maley says

"An extraordinary blend of ultra-macho cyberpunk designer violence!"




Notable Passages
----------------------------------------


 Rain fell on a particularly unlucky cat.  It was probably the most
improbable thing that had happened in quite awhile, but in the
otherwise baking sun of the Sahara desert, one cat, alone, was being
drenched by torrential rain.  

  A party of archaeologists should have noticed, but they were too
busy shooting up heroin and looting priceless artifacts.

 Kadiatu watched them shooting each other in a mad, drug fueled rage,
as she enjoyed an LSD and ouzo cocktail.

'We were talking,' said the Doctor, 'about the Meaning of Life.' 
He pushed a square of feta cheese around his plate. 'It's a great 
film. Classic.  We should get it on holovid.'

 They were sitting out on an expansive veranda which gave them an
unequalled view of the endless dunes. Rain continued to drum down
on the tabby.
 
'A great film?' said Kadiatu. 'Are you sure?' 

 The Doctor poured the remains of their second bottle of ouzo into
his glass. 'Of course I'm sure. I'm always sure.' He looked around
the table. 'At least I'm sure that we need another bottle.' 

Kadiatu ordered another bottle of ouzo. 

'Do you believe in fate?' asked the Doctor. 

'No,' said Kadiatu. 

'Pre-destination?' 

'That's the same thing with a slightly different name.'

'Do you believe in love at first sight?'

'If you want to get in my pants alien.  I need one thing.'

'Alwight.' Slurred the Doctor. 'Name it.'

'A temporal limiter.'

'You're in luck.  I've got one in me trousers.'

'HA. HA.' Replied Kadiatu, deeply unimpressed. 'I'm sure you tell
every time machine inventing super heroine that.  What kind of
moron would keep a temporal limiter next to his tackle?  
Think I'm stupid?"

 With a wide smile the Doctor roughly reached down the front of
his trousers and pulled out the limiter.

'Oh thanks....oh damn.  Guess this means I've got to put out now,
alien boy.'

 The Doctor smiled widely.

 The landlord's daughter arrived with the ouzo and thumped it down on
the table. Kadiatu managed to grab it before the Doctor and poured
herself a drink. 

'So why are you here?' asked the Doctor. 

Kadiatu held up her glass. 'To get drunk.' 

'Why am I here then?' asked the Doctor. 

'To get drunk, give me the secret of time travel, and of course to
have it off with me in the back carriage of the train home.' 

The Doctor finished his glass and poured some more. 'I never fuck,'
he said. 'I'm famous for my not fucking.' 

'How condoms do you got on you?' 

'Four.' said the Doctor. 

 The Doctor was quiet for a while, intent on the bottom of his glass.
Behind them, shrills cries of a deeply annoyed cat broke the silence.  

'Got anything special planned for tonight?' asked Kadiatu. 

'I'm celebrating,' said the Doctor without looking up. 

'What are you celebrating?' 

'A birthday.' 

'Yours?' 

'Not exactly.' 

'Whose then?' 

Kadiatu saw his eyes again as he looked into her face. 

'The universe,' he said. 

Kadiatu snorted. 

'You don't think the universe has a birthday, do you?' said the 
Doctor. There was an angry edge to his voice. 'Well, it does. In
exactly ten minutes the universe will be thirteen billion five
hundred million twenty thousand and twelve years old.
Do you know what that means?"

"Ummm, no." Said Kadiatu with mild disinterest.


'It means that the universe has had thirteen billion five
hundred million twenty thousand and eleven birthday parties, and
I've never been invited to even one of them.' 

'Harsh.'

'I mean what's the point of saving someone all the time, if you
aren't even invited over for cake every few billion years?'

'Maybe we should get it a cake.' 

'No,' said the Doctor, 'that wouldn't be a good idea. You'd never
fit all the candles on.' 

 The Doctor poured them both another drink. 'You'd think,' he said,
'that it would be old enough to look after itself.  Maybe I coddled
it too much as a youngster.  Maybe a bit more tough love at the
right times.  Maybe, I'm just a bad father.'
 
 Kadiatu watched through her drink as the Doctor drained his glass. 
'Why are you such a clueless weirdo?'
 
'Because I'm the anomaly, the spanner in the works, the ointment in
the fly, I'm that tall, sticky-outy thing that blocks the corridor.'
 
'I know what you are, a crazed alcoholic.' said Kadiatu. 

'Yes. I'm just an old man getting drunk.' 

'You're not drunk in my book,' said Kadiatu, 'at least you can still
walk.' 
 
'I beg to differ.' said the Doctor as he abruptly vanished from sight.
There was a crash as the chair hit the tiled floor.
 
Kadiatu carefully stood up and looked over the table. The Doctor was
lying on his back, still in the chair. His eyes were closed. He was
singing softly to himself, his slurred voice curling upwards like
cigarette smoke. 

'Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you ...'


----------------------

Lunarversity

 The Doctor dreamt of Ace running naked under the brilliant blue sky.
He was mildly disturbed by this -- were time lords supposed to have
erotic dreams about their regenerated granddaughters?  

 He had flashbacks to his first day in this third body, horrid,
sordid, but not in the least bit unpleasant.

  In his dream her eyes were the colour of amber, slotted like a
cheetah's, and her hair flew behind her like a mane. 

 Deeper calculations flowed through the Doctor's mind 'Now you
are having kinky-cat-girl thoughts about your renegerated 
granddaughter.  This is almost certainly naughty.'

 Out on the open plain Ace threw back her head and howled. The sound
floated over the ranked graves of the planet.
 
 The Doctor woke up with a blinding headache. 
 His sensory impressions were garbled by the pain. He was under
something soft and heavy. There was someone sleeping on top of him.

 He tried opening his eyes, shadows, blurred images on the ceiling
above, more pain. He closed his eyes again. 
His mouth tasted of aniseed. 

 He'd been sleeping with girls again, which was unusual.
 
 He tried opening his eyes very slowly.
 
 The girl was attractive.  She looked fit, authoritive, and powerful.
She reminded him of someone, someone important, someone he used to
work with -- but who?

 After a few moments he softly hugged the female form on top of him
and rolled it gently to the side.  He knew what he wanted, knew what
he needed - something to make him feel manly - he searched the house
for the remote control. 

 He's found it laying coyly next to the lazyboy, tempting him to
relax and submit to the box.

 The Doctor felt along the top of the unit. His fingertips found the
large circular 'power on' button.  With the gentlest of pressure he
pushed forward his thumb and a large wallscreen burst to life.

 The Doctor was vaguely disappointed, he'd hoped she had Sky.


-------------------------------------

Lunarversity

The Doctor had hacked into Kadiatu's computer system for a bit of
a laugh. His first plan of action was simply to copy all of her 
personal information and use it to stalk her until he got bored 
with the idea; it had always worked before.

 After a few moments though it became clear that she was using her
computers to crack the problems of paradox. She was, he estimated,
six months from finishing the theoretical basis for a working
time machine. 

And it was all his fault, sort of.  He HAD given her the spare
temporal limiter he kept in his pants.

 The universe works on a complex and causal chain of probable events.
A small ripple here, a butterfly wing there, all collectively doing
their part towards a drastic effect at the other end. 

 And then there's me, thought the Doctor, giving out time lord 
technology to anyone who promises a blow job.

 The Doctor took this time to seriously reconsider his life.

 Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. 

 It wouldn't take a genius to put the two together -
 Human beings on earth getting causal access to super advanced
hypertechnology AND that stupid grin on the Doctor's face...


 Someone would add them up.  And then there would be hell to pay.


 He had to spoil Kadiatu's work, introduce a false premise into the
complex chain of equations. Something subtle, something devious.

 It was then that the Doctor remembered he never went to Non-Linear
Maths classes.  Left with no other option, he added the word
"Penguin" to all the calculations at random points.

 Something blatantly stupid, but maybe annoying enough to throw
her off for fifty minutes or so...until he thought of something
actually competent to do.