[ Index for this Doctor ]
[ Index for this story ]
Dimensions in Time
Part One
The Rani stood in the console room of her TARDIS, accompanied by her henchman, watching the images of the first two Doctors swirling in the air around her.
"Pickled like gherkins in a jar," the Rani exclaimed triumphantly.
"Mistress Rani, the time tunnel is ready to receive its first guests," the Rani's henchman announced.
"Proceed." She looked at the two floating images. "Fated to wander a dismal corner of the universe for twenty years. Helpless. Paralysed. It will drive them insane!" The images of the first Two Doctors are sucked into the massive Time Tunnel lurking in space near the Rani's TARDIS.
The Fourth Doctor is standing in the middle of a swirling vortex, a microphone in front of him.
"Mayday! Mayday! This is a message for all the Doctors-- it's vitally important that you listen carefully to me, for once. Our whole existence is being threatened by a renegade Time Lord known only as the Rani. She hates me! She even hates children! Two of my earlier selves have already been snared in her vicious trap-- the grumpy one and the flautist, you remember. She wants to put us out of action, lock us away in a dreary backwater of London's East End, trapped in a time loop in perpetuity. Her evil is all around us! I can hear the heartsbeat of a killer! She's out there somewhere! We must be on our guard and we must stop her before she destroys all of my other selves! Oh! Oh! Good luck, my dears!" The Fourth Doctor has a look of desperation on his face.
In the Rani's TARDIS, her henchman is putting in the final roundels into two stasis chambers of sorts.
"A Cyberman, and a Time Lord from Gallifrey," he announced as he sealed each respective creature in. "The menagerie is almost complete!" The Rani paced quickly toward the console.
"Time is literally of the essence!" The Rani flipped a few switches on the console. "The Doctor's remaining incarnations are teetering on the edge of a precipice!"
"You're obsessed! Don't forget what we've come here for."
"Earthlings pose no threat to my technology, imbecil! It's the Doctor I want out of the way!" The Rani remarked fanatically.
"Interception in five seconds, Rani." The Rani's henchman flipped a switch on the console, and the scanner screen slid open to reveal the Doctor's TARDIS traveling through space.
"Although I will miss the challenge." The Rani had an evil smirk on her face.
"Three... Two... One..."
"Activate!" A bright flash of light came out of the Rani's TARDIS and whizzed over to the Doctor's TARDIS, throwing it violently off course.
In the middle of some sort of garden with a huge sailing ship in the water on one side, there is a wheezing groaning sound as the Doctor's TARDIS materializes. The door opens and the Seventh Doctor walks out, followed by Ace. The two begin walking away from the TARDIS.
"Oh to be in China, now that November's here!" The Seventh Doctor exclaimed happily.
"When was the last time you had that junk heap in for an M.O.T., Professor?" Ace asked.
"Oh don't be cynical, Ace. The instruments are just a little erratic, that's all."
"Great Wall of China? It looks more like the Cutty Sark to me!"
"Hmm..." The Doctor stared thoughtfully at the large sailing ship. "...Not a soul in sight!" They reach a trash bin, and the Seventh Doctor picks up a newspaper which is laying on the top of the bin. He glances at the date. "1973? I didn't set the coordinates for 1973!" Ace looked around.
"Oy! Is anybody there?"
"If I didn't know better, I could be convinced that someone has deliberately taken us off course!" The Doctor suddenly noticed Ace looking at a sign on a nearby gate. The sign reads 'Cutty Sark Gardens.' "Ace, what are you doing?" There is a bright flash.
Ace is standing in the middle of a crowded square, 'Albert Square' according to the sign, next to a man with curly hair, wearing an appallingly tasteless outfit.
"Hey, you're not the Doctor!" Ace exclaimed.
"Yes I am, Ace! We seem to have slipped a groove in time. Where did all these people come from?" The Sixth Doctor responded. He looked around a bit. "And where are we?" The two walked through the street markets. Ace suddenly noticed an interesting brown jacket on one of the many coatracks on the sidewalks.
"Hey, Professor, look at this!" She ran over to where the jacket was and started taking it off the hanger.
"All right, darling, special discount for you, seeing as it's nearly Christmas," one of the salesmen remarked.
"Oh, wicked!" Ace responded. Another saleswoman pulled the first one aside.
"Here, what do you mean discounts? This year's been bad enough as it is without you giving things away!" She accosted him.
"Don't worry, about it, all right?"
"Hey, do you like that, love?" The saleswoman asked Ace. The Sixth Doctor looked at the jacket with disgust.
"It clashes!" He exclaimed, holding it next to his outfit.
"I tell you, they're going to be the rage in 1994," the saleswoman commented. The Sixth Doctor suddenly had a grave expression on his face.
"Wha-" Suddenly there was a bright flash of light, which cut off the Sixth Doctor.
The Third Doctor is standing in roughly the same location, next to Melanie Bush."What's happening?" Mel asked the Third Doctor.
"Change! You, me, everything. It's as though someone is rooting through my personal time stream," the Third Doctor responded.
"But what on Earth for?"
"Earth? Yes." The Third Doctor walked up to someone at one of the fruit stands. "Excuse me, my good woman, but what year is this?" The woman suddenly noticed a boy stealing an orange.
"Oy, you! Come back here! He's just nicked an orange!" She exclaimed. Her friend turned to her.
"Well shouldn't your Martin be looking after the store?" She asked her.
"He's never here when you want him. I wish my Arthur were still alive." She suddenly noticed the Third Doctor handling some of the fruit. "Hey what do you think you're doing? Stop messing the goods about! Do you want to buy something or what?"
"Well, considering the quality of everything you have, madam, I'd say that your prices are rather expensive," the Third Doctor responded. Mel, in the meantime, was looking over some of the clothes.
"I see flares are back in fashion," she commented to the other woman. The woman walked over to her.
"Yeah, everything from the last century seems to be having a comeback. I just wish my looks were!" She remarked.
"Last century?" The Third Doctor inquired.
"Well, what year is this?" Mel asked.
"Oh don't you start! There's enough oddballs here as it is!" The other woman responded.
"Madam! What year is it?" The Doctor asked forcefully.
"Two thousand and thirteen!" The two women responded simultaneously. Suddenly there was another bright flash of light.
The same two women, though much younger, are standing in a similar market talking to each other. A young boy is next to them playing.
"Yeah, I can remember exactly where I was when Kennedy was assassinated," one woman commented to the other. "But don't tell Arthur!" The other woman laughed.
"How long ago was that, then?" The other woman asked.
"Well, it'll be ten years," the first woman responded.
"No?" The woman asked in disbelief. She suddenly noticed the young boy, her son, messing about a bit. "Ian, will you behave?"
The Sixth Doctor was walking down the sidewalk with his arm around Susan Foreman.
"Well, who are you?" Susan asked the Sixth Doctor.
"Precisely. I am the Doctor!" The Sixth Doctor responded. Susan laughed.
"Oh no you're not! You're nothing like my grandfather!"
"I feel as though I've been pulled backwards through time, and my companions are being drawn back with me." Susan suddenly appeared frightened. She looked around nervously.
"Ian? Barbara?" She called out. "Where are the others?" She asked the Sixth Doctor.
"Don't ask. Someone is trying to separate me from the TARDIS, and knows my affinity for this planet." Susan appeared upset.
"Where's grandfather? MY Doctor! The ORIGINAL!"
"The inrush of time zones is designed to seal us all together!" Suddenly, there was yet another bright flash of light.
Sarah Jane Smith was wandering down a sidewalk, lost. A woman walking next to Sarah, turned and began to talk."My skin's been great since I started using all-over sunblock," she commented to Sarah. "I think it frightens the law."
"Law?" Sarah asked incredulously. "Since when?" Sarah suddenly spotted the Third Doctor. She began to run towards him.
"Hey! Where you've been hiding, then?" The woman called out toward Sarah.
Sarah caught up with the Third Doctor and began to walk with him.
"Hi! I thought you'd be involved somewhere along the line," she remarked to him.
"Hmm.. What we're seeing here, Sarah," he paused for a second, "is the work of a genius. An expert in time distortion! A time traveller maybe, and an ingenius operator."
"Well then we must get back to the TARDIS, Doctor!"
"It's at the other side of the river, I think. You know, we seem to be flitting around in some sort of twenty year time loop. 1973..."
"Well, 1993..." Sarah caught on, and then realized the current implications. "...2013?!"
"Yeah, well time distortion of this nature requires an exact localized focus."
"But why this street market in London?" The Third Doctor stopped and looked at Sarah.
"This isn't the focus, Sarah."
In the Rani's TARDIS, she was monitoring the Third Doctor's conversation.
"The wandering fools! They're getting too near the truth." The Rani looked up at her henchman. "Release the specimens!"
The Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, and Perpugilliam Brown were on a sidewalk. Suddenly, an energy bolt blasted the ground near them. They jumped back against a wall. Nyssa looked up at the Doctor.
"Feeding time at the zoo?" She asked.
"And the companions went in two by two," the Doctor responded gravely.
"This isn't Noah's Ark, Doctor!" Peri exclaimed. A Cyberman and an Ogron were marching towards the group.
"Maybe it is," the Fifth Doctor answered. He unrolled his hat and put it on. "When I say run, run... RUN!" The Doctor made a mad dash away from the Cyberman and Ogron, accompanied by Nyssa and Peri. The Cyberman fired his Cybergun at them. The Doctor looked around and started running in the opposite direction from his companions. "This way!"
"No!" Peri cried out. The Doctor spun around and chased after his companions. Peri ran up to a woman standing in the middle of the square.
"Look out! You've got to clear the streets, you're in terrible danger!" She yelled to the woman.
"What's your game?" The woman asked, looking at Peri strangely.
"You've got to get away from here!" Nyssa reiterated.
"Who says? You start shoving me around, you'll know about it!"
"It's no good," the Fifth Doctor shook his head, "they're in different Time Zones-- to them we're the strangers!" The Fifth Doctor dashed away, followed by his companions. Monsters appeared in store windows and on street stands.
The Fifth Doctor was wandering around aimlessly.
"Have you any idea where we're going?" Peri asked.
"Doctor, where's the TARDIS?" Nyssa inquired. The Doctor ran for a park.
"Twenty years back and three miles away! COME ON! He shoved them past the gate into the park.
At the other end of the park, they ran to the gate, which was locked with a padlock and chain. A menagerie of monsters lines the streets outside the park, including a Robot, a Time Lord, an Ogron, a Cyberman, and many more. The Doctor looked out across the street at the Queen Victoria bar. The Rani stood outside with her gun aimed at them.
"You can't escape, Doctor!" The Rani yelled out. "Say goodbye, Doctors! You're all going on a long journey! A VERY long journey!"
End of First Episode Transcribed by
Doug Vermes_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Move on to the Next Episode