Rogue 2.1
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The room shook violently, and I staggered to the side, desperately reaching for a railing, a handhold, something, anything to grab onto. My shoulder nearly wrenched itself out of its socket as I caught myself on a low-hanging bundle of cables barely a few feet from the metal wall. I felt maybe a twinge of pain as I did so.
"Hang on!" the Doctor called, flipping switches on the console.
"You're telling me that, now?" I snapped at the alien, furious. "Can't you fly this thing stable?"
"Come on, what's a little turbulence between friends?" The Doctor flipped two more switches on the console and spun some sort of valve. This TARDIS really had some sort of steampunk aesthetic, especially when compared to the last one. "Come on, old girl, it's not like Jack's with us. Let's hurry on and get to our destination!"The console sparked..
"Oi!" The Doctor said, pulling out his sonic. "I'll re-calibrate you if I need to!" He flipped two more switches and then pulled a lever. The shaking leveled out and the wheezing noise restarted, as if we were fading in this time. The noise the TARDIS made really was hard to describe properly, a sort of wheezing in and out along with some mechanical movements, and then it suddenly stopped with a bang.
I assumed that meant it was safe to let go and did so.
"Are you alright, Taylor?"
"I'm fine, just need to do this." I adjusted my arm's position using the cable and then slammed my shoulder into the wall. Hearing a popping sound, I nodded and said, "There, that's better." The Doctor's face was impassive. Maybe he'd seen someone else do something similar before. "So, where are we?"
The Doctor grinned widely, moving the monitor that hung over the console to face me. "Barcelona, the planet, not the city. Where the skies are purple, the grass is blue, and the dogs have no noses. Their medical technology is top notch, and it's the perfect place for you to get a new arm, Taylor."
I held up my hand in a stopping gesture. "Dogs with no noses? Really?"
The Doctor's grin widened more. "Oh, yes. Makes you wonder how they smell, doesn't it?"
I just gave the Doctor a look from behind my glasses. If he thought I was going to let him use me to set up a joke like that, he had another thing coming. I wasn't that desperate for friendship. Anymore. Then I looked at the monitor. "Doctor, I'm not sure, but that doesn't look like what you described to me."
The world displayed on the monitor was one of steel, glass and dark skies as opposed to the blue grass and purple sky the Doctor had described. What indicated to me that this wasn't Earth was the fact that humans walked alongside things that were definitely inhuman in a way that I'd have described as Case 53s if not for the fact that I saw an actual family of some of them.
"What?" The Doctor pulled the monitor toward him and twiddled with the console a bit. "Right, this might take a bit, but it should be safe enough outside. Why don't you head on out? I'll come get you if we need to leave."
"Fine." I shrugged and walked to the exit. He knew his spaceship better than I did, and I was a little eager to check out something new that wasn't Earth Resh. I pulled open the TARDIS door and made my first steps onto an alien world.
We'd definitely landed in a city of some sort, though the architecture clearly wasn't of any kind I'd seen before. Cylindrical towers with helix windows rose from the ground like massive cables twining around each other as they were pulled to the sky, which upon closer look had reddish tinges to the dark clouds covering it. The sounds of people conversing filled my ears, and the smells of some sort of meat dish sizzling wafted toward my nose. The thing that truly amazed me were the people. Sure, there were humans or human-looking things walking around, some with skin colors that ranged from the normal to the truly bizarre like pink or blue, but what drew my eye most were those who were truly alien. There were aliens with non-human biologies walking on the sidewalk right next to the humans, and nobody even seemed to bat an eye. It was… normal. I felt like I stood out, just being here with my lack of arm.
"Amazing, isn't it?" The Doctor asked rhetorically as he stepped up beside me. I barely restrained myself from jumping and throttling the man. Time Lord. Whatever. "The glory of humanity, spreading throughout the universe. Showing tolerance for all living things. One of the reasons I love your species so much."
"It's really… something..." I said, a bit of wonder in my voice as I stepped aside for a family to pass. At least I assumed they were a family. There was a human woman, auburn-haired and muscular, with the kind of beauty that takes work to get rather than a natural kind. She wore a pair of combat boots, jeans and a V-neck T-shirt that showed off some of her assets. The father resembled a bipedal doberman, dark fur and humanoid-ish forepaws that looked like they could grab onto things. He wore a pair of jeans and a vest that exposed his toned chest which… looked really odd to me. The kids had traits of both the adults with them. Rather than the snout of the father, they had human-like faces, but they had the cropped ears of their father. Each of them wore a T-Shirt and jean combo as well, and the shirts had logos on them. One was of a hammer with some sort of serpent coiling around it, and the other was of… wait, was that Mouse Protector's emblem? No, maybe it wasn't. Disney must have still existed in some form here, and upon closer examination, it was probably an evolution of that logo. "That shouldn't be possible."
"Oh, I assure you, it is," the Doctor said. "Humans are funny sometimes. Sowing wild oats throughout the universe. I don't think there is a species out there that hasn't been propositioned by a human. Most don't say no either."
"Okay, but that doesn't explain the hybrids," I said. "Humans can't breed with other species on Earth. How the heck can we breed with… whatever that guy is?"
"I've never thought to find that out," said the Doctor. "But that's a Pemalite with her, and they look very happy."
"Clearly," I said with a small smile. The mother reminded me of an older Rachel. She'd probably have loved the idea of some sort of dog alien species. "So, Doctor… what are we doing?"
"Well, I figured out where we are. New Boston. Year 3294. Well… if we wanted to be accurate, it would be New New New New New Boston, as the city's been made five times on different planets. This particular one is on a planet by the name of Teluria. It's not Barcelona, but the medical technology available in this century should be able to get you an arm that will let you even feel things again with it."
"Doesn't something like that cost money?" I asked.
"Not a problem, Taylor." The Doctor grinned, pulling out his sonic. "We'll just find a cash point and make a withdrawal after you've had your consult."
"You've set one up already?" That was remarkably fast.
"Not yet, no, but I found a doctor that does walk-ins." The Doctor's grin nearly outdid Lisa's in how smug it was. "The hospital's this way."
Seeing no choice, I followed the Time Lord, hoping that his sense of direction wasn't terrible when it came to alien planets. Still, I actually felt myself getting a bit giddy. I was on an alien planet with actual aliens on it, in the future, and I was going to get a futuretech arm. Sure, it might not have been as nice as getting my old arm back thanks to a parahuman healing me, but it was the next best thing. Plus, this was an actual other world. Yeah, Aleph, Gimel, and the other Earths were other worlds than the one I'd grown up on, but they were still Earth. They still had humans, more or less the same histories, and other similarities. The architecture alone here marked this world as different, and that wasn't even factoring in the blatant aliens.
Turned out, the Doctor actually hadn't known where we were going. We stopped and asked for directions four times, and I think we managed to get turned around three times. As we went, I noticed something odd.
"Doctor?" I asked. "Now, I know this is New Boston, so the English isn't exactly out of place, but why are half the people we're talking with speaking with a British accent?"
"Well…" The Doctor blew air into his cheeks, puffing them before expelling the breath. "The TARDIS is translating for us."
"And translating means British accents, why?"
"She prefers it, I think," said the Doctor. "We spend a lot of time around the UK when we're in modern times."
I supposed that made a bit of sense. I didn't want to delve into how the TARDIS did the translations as I suspected the answer was either some sort of technobabble or something I didn't want to know. The fact that I heard English seamlessly and they seemed to understand what I said was enough.
The two of us walked up to a couple orange-scaled lizard-like people. I wasn't entirely sure what their secondary sex characteristics were, but one wore a blue dress that complimented the orange scales, so I assumed that one was female. The other wore what looked like a pair of jeans and a black polo shirt. I gave the Doctor a significant look before slipping into a sort of civilian-style diplomatic mode of speech.
"Excuse me," I said. "We're a little lost. I hope you can help us out."
"Lost?" Said the person not in the dress, and she had a lovely accent that stressed the o a bit. "Now, how did a pair like the two of you get lost in our fair city?"
"Just unlucky, I guess. We're actually looking for the hospital. Supposed to see someone about this." I gestured at my lack of right arm. "But we've asked around to several different people, and each time I swear that we miss it."
"Oh, you poor dear," said the lizard-person in the dress. That was a remarkably masculine voice I heard, and he sounded almost Welsh with his accent. "You'll be wanting to see Doctor Osserra, then. She's the one doing walk-ins."
"Doctor Osserra?" asked the Doctor. "That wouldn't be any relation to Doctor Jacob Osserra, would it?"
"Oh, you know of her father then?" The one in the dress offered a smile that extended past his snout. "Yes, little Rally's done a good job taking after him. She'll be able to fix you up with something nice."
I nodded. Sounded like a good deal. "Can you give us some directions?"
"Of course. Just follow down this street two blocks and make a right, and you'll be there." The lizard-person not in the dress pointed and gestured, smiling the whole while. "I hope that you'll stay in our city a while. It's a strange place at times, but it's never boring."
"We'll see," I said noncommittally. "Thank you for the directions."
"No problem. Good luck with the arm." The couple waved and walked off. We started doing the same.
As we walked, I noted the Doctor shooting occasional glances at me, a knowing smirk settling on his face, even as I looked around the city. The architecture and people that surrounded us were fascinating, but it was getting annoying that every time I looked at the Doctor, he had that grin. He was too male and too brunette to have that grin. "What?"
"You're enjoying yourself," the Doctor said, a bit of pride in his voice.
"Maybe a little," I admitted. "Probably will enjoy a bit more when I get the new arm."
"Of course. And here we are..." The Doctor said, gesturing at the obvious hospital ahead of us. It, like the rest of the city, had that twisted-helix-style architecture, but it combined it with a bit of large braids to it. The building was massive, had five different bays on different levels for emergencies, and it had a decent amount of some sort of parking that I could see.
Of course, what caught my attention was the hospital's name, written in all capital block lettering: PRINCE RODERICK TELLURIA HOSPITAL. The logo next to it clearly looked like some sort of battlement with its parapet with the typical medical logo over top of it. "Huh. Weird."
"Hmm?"
"Nothing, really," I said. It was just a hospital, after all. It's not like it actually meant anything. Odds were weird sometimes. "Guess this is it."
"Yep. Inside to see one of the most respected prosthetics experts on the planet's daughter who is equally respected."
"Right," I said., psyching myself up for this. It wasn't like I was going to have my arm regrown or any surgery done. I just needed a new prosthetic. "Shall we?"
"Yes, let's go, Taylor. Allons-y!" The Doctor led the way into the hospital and I followed, a bit of trepidation eating at me.
Yeah, it had to be coincidence. Something about parallel dimensions having similarities combined with time travel. Earth Resh—or was that Universe Resh?—had its own quirks. After all, the PRT was a Bet thing. I was probably just jumping at patterns that weren't there.
Probably. Hopefully.