The Techteun Nightmare

The Techteun Nightmare

By Danny Nicol

EPISODE 1

FORBIDDEN JOURNEY

“He’s pinched my Ladyshave again!” exclaimed Yaz, “Just when I was going to do my legs!”

“Well, he is the overlord of all evil, Yaz,” said the Doctor.  She was curled up by the roaring fire in the TARDIS library reading an important-looking tome History of the Time Lords. “In fact by the Master’s standards of villainy that’s quite a come-down.”

She half rose from the sofa in order to admire Yaz in her police uniform.

“Anyway, don’t be mardy, you look great.”

“D’you think it’ll work, half travelling with you, half doing my job?”

“Don’t see why not.  Now you can use your skills from outer space to sort out fair play in inner Sheffield!”

“Will you be okay?” asked Yaz.

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” she replied breezily, rising from the sofa. “Loads to do.  People to see.  Keep the Master in order.  And look forward to picking you up Friday.”

The Doctor’s chirpy bravado did not quite convince.

“There’s something wrong, isn’t there?” said Yaz.

“Well, if you must know.  All that stuff about me being the Timeless Child.  Preys on my mind.  How could I forget?  And what have I forgotten?”

* * * * *

The Master meanwhile was putting the finishing touches on his shaving efforts.  His beard of evil had its merits but designer stubble made more of his boyish charms. 

Evil, he reflected was a precious flower.  It needed to be pampered, cosseted.  Bit like him really.  But evil was not getting a fair crack of the whip in this TARDIS.   It was time he did something fiendish, something utterly abominable, to counter the nauseating goodness of the Doctor and Yaz.

The Master smiled at himself in the mirror as he admired his new stubble.  Buttoning up his waistcoat, checking his fob watch and hitching up his trousers to reveal his trademark purple socks he quit his room as he heard the TARDIS land.  Vwooorp!  Vwooooorp!

In the console room the Doctor was giving Yaz a final goodbye as she headed out.

“Break a leg, Yaz,” chipped in the Master, “In fact, break both.  In fact, knock yourself out”.  Yaz was inured to the Master’s nastiness.  With a wave to both, she was gone off to start her week’s work, and the TARDIS doors slammed shut after her.

“What do we do now?” asked the Master.

“Fast forward to Friday, pick her up.”

“Oh Doctor,” said the Master with a snort of contemptuous disappointment, “When did you become so gutless?  You had more sense of adventure when we skived off Borusa’s classes.”

“Oh I’ve got sense of adventure in bucketloads, way more than you” taunted the Doctor. 

“Oh come now Doctor, behind that façade you wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”

“I’ve said boo to quite a lot of geese actually Master,” she retorted, “Big lot.  What about the ten foot high geese on the planet Narscream.  I was arguing Hegelian philosophy with them.  Got pretty heated.”

“She’s done the travel-boasting,” commented the Master, timing the Doctor on his fob watch, “The name-dropping normally comes next.”

“Then there was the time I played the goose opposite Laurence Olivier.  Panto 1961.  Not that I said boo to myself.  Audience booed a bit.”

A smile grew on her face. 

“Tell you what.  All that guff you told me about the Timeless Child and Techteun.  Could be true.  Never believed you.  Let’s go check it out.”

Manically the Doctor gadded around the console entering coordinates. 

“Go back that far?  To a forbidden time zone?  You must be mad!”

“Fine one to talk,” said the Doctor, “Given that you’re completely bonkers.”

“Bonkers?  Is that a technical, mental-health expression?” asked the Master.

* * * * *

The TARDIS materialised in the small hold of a space vehicle, grey, drab and metallic.

“Oh well done, Doctor,” said the Master, “Travelling with you is sheer class.  You’ve landed us in the hold with Techteun’s luggage.”

“Stop bellyaching Master,” chided the Doctor, “This room’s sealed off but we can simply shimmy through that air duct to get to Techteun’s control room.  Wonderful exercise and good job we’re both titches.”

Prising open a grille she invited the Master to crawl into the duct.

“After you,” said the Doctor with courtesy.  Giving a look of resentment the Master squeezed himself into the duct but had difficulty making further progress.

“Hope you haven’t put on weight, Master,” said the Doctor.

“Ouch!” said the Master as he pushed himself forward, “There was a knob.”  The Master was unaccustomed to male genitalia over the last few years and gave a pained expression. 

“You should never have junked the upgrade, Missy,” said the Doctor, “Get a move on!  I need to get in.”

Just then the hologram of a huge face materialised in front of the Doctor.  It was a face she knew: Gat, a particularly ruthless Time Lady whom the Doctor had recently encountered. 

“You have entered the foundational time zone of the Time Lords,” said Gat, “Your presence in this era is strictly prohibited by Gallifreyan law.  You will now be returned to your previous point of departure in time and space.  You have ten seconds to re-enter your time capsule.”

“Yikes,” said the Doctor, “Quick, Master”.  The Master had made some progress down the air duct and only his ankles were visible. 

“Come on, old purple socks,” said the Doctor, grabbing his ankles and pulling him willy-nilly out of the duct, the Master wingeing at her rough manhandling of his person. 

“Chop-chop, into the TARDIS!” she said.  The time travellers only just made it before a roar of power filled the ship.  The Time Lords were throwing the TARDIS back through time and space.

* * * * *

“This is fascinating,” said the Doctor, “the TARDIS being dragged through time and space by the Time Lords.  S’pose we’ll end up where we dropped Yaz off.  Let’s have a dekko on the scanner.”  She flipped the necessary switch.

To their astonishment, the Doctor and Master saw not only the time vortex but an ashen-faced Techteun steering her ship precariously through it.

“How is that even here?” asked the Doctor, “The Time Lords have channelled us down a time eddy but Techteun’s ship got sucked in too.  Gallifrey was never that incompetent.”

The Master gave a look of perplexed sweetness and shrugged his shoulders.   Shades of when he was masquerading as “O”.  For the Doctor, nothing was more suspicious.

“Don’t play the innocent, Master.  Have you done something?  What the hell’ve you gone and done?”

“It’s your fault really,” explained the Master, “I had to keep myself awake while you were going on about geese.  I may have fiddled a bit with the console, y’know, just to ease the boredom.  I guess I may possibly have subconsciously hooked the hybrid intersectionality loop to the culture-cancel vortex transgressor.  It’s like putting the handbreak on.”

“You blunderer, Master!” accused the Doctor, “That would stimulate the non-binary amino-filters in Techteun’s ship and attract her nucleo-negative reassigners!  Thanks to you Techteun’s ship is being dragged along for the ride.  We’ll end up back in Sheffield in the twenty-first century – and so will Techteun and the Timeless Child!”

* * * * *

Police Constable Yasmin Khan knocked assertively on the front door of the council flat.  Stoical Yorkshire folk, the residents of David Blunkett Mansions did not complain lightly: a grievance from them was not to be taken lightly.

An unkempt middle-aged woman opened the door.  She was sporting a bizarre headgear with goggles.  Behind her the flat was unlit and dark.

“Hello,” said Yaz, “Are you Mrs Hollis?”

“Who wants to know?” snapped the woman.

“”I’m Police Constable Khan,” said Yaz presenting her ID.  “We’ve had complaints of children squabbling rather loudly, but we understand the Hollises are elderly and have no children.”

“They’ve gone,” barked the woman.  “Only one child here.  Very well behaved.” She made to shut the door.

Suddenly something emerged from the gloom beyond.

“Mama, should I shoot the nasty lady?” said a child’s voice.

“No, I want to shoot her” said another child’s voice.

“Just one child?” quizzed Yaz.

Emerging from the semi-darkness, advancing menacingly on Yaz, was a small figure brandishing what looked like a ray-gun…a child…with two heads…

EPISODE 2

 BEYOND THE UNKNOWN

A leap of faith…of faith in the Doctor …of faith in life with the Doctor…of faith in herself…  A leap….

With all her strength, Yaz leapt.  She rugby-tackled the Timeless Child, bringing her down, tolerably softly, onto the hall carpet.   Despite the gentle landing both its heads burst into tears.  The ray gun slipped from the Child’s grasp.  Tecteun made to retrieve it, but Yaz, swiftly back on her feet, managed to get hold of it first.

“Don’t like pointing guns at people”, gasped Yaz doing just that, “Only idiots carry guns.  But I just need to call back-up.”

She felt in her tunic for her second mobile phone, the one with the hotline to the Doctor. 

* * * * *

The phone rang on the TARDIS console.

“Oh hello Yaz,” said the Doctor, “What’s up?”

“I’ve a lady here whose child’s got two heads”, whispered Yaz, “I have reason to believe the household may conceivably be of extra-terrestrial origin”.

“Hmmmm,” nodded the Doctor thoughtfully, “Yes, that does sound conceivable. We’re homing in on your signal. Don’t let them out of your sight!”  Ringing off, the Doctor adjusted the console’s co-ordinates. 

“Master, you are a scoundrel of the highest order.”

“Why thank you Doctor,” said the Master, genuinely moved and placing a hand over his hearts in gesture of sincerity, “That means so much to me.”

“Thanks to you, Yaz is in hot water.  Sounds like she’s having to deal with Techteun and the Timeless Child – somehow they’ve materialised ahead of us.  And guess what: the Timeless Child’s got two heads!”

“They do say two heads are better than one,” said the Master, “Anyway, unlike you, my confidence in Yaz knows no bounds.  I am intensely relaxed about her facing mortal danger.”

Vwooorp!  Vwoooorp!

The TARDIS materialised high up on the flat roof of David Blunkett Mansions next to Techteun’s small battered spacecraft.  The Doctor and the Master exited the TARDIS: before them spread the buzzing metropolis and beyond the greenery of Sheffield’s famous hills.  The Doctor phoned Yaz.

“Yaz, we’re on the roof, could you bring ‘em up?”

Before long the Timeless Child and Techteun emerged on the roof, Yaz taking up the rear with ray-gun in hand.  In clear light of day the Timeless Child was an extraordinary sight.  Berobed in a cloak of oriental finery she had the perfectly normal body of a girl.  Above, however, her bizarrely thick neck bifurcated to accommodate two heads: one Black, the other South East Asian.

“You’re forever bleating for more diversity Doctor,” chortled the Master, “Behold – built-in!”

The Child’s mother followed behind, a scruffy woman sporting a strange hat of flaps and goggles, long hair, a homespun tunic, trousers and boots.  Her eyes however spoke of intelligence – energy – action!

“Hello Techteun, hello the Timeless Child,” said the Doctor artlessly.  “Sorry we blew you off course.  My, erm, friend the Master here was fiddling with my ship’s controls and we ended up dragging you in our wake.  Unforgiveable!  But we’ll make amends.  Fly you straight back, promise!”

“What strange world is this?” asked Techteun dreamily surveying the bustle below.

“Planet Earth.  Twenty-first century.”

“You don’t mean we travelled in time?  That strange space tunnel…”

Techteun’s voice tailed off in wonderment.  The Doctor smiled and shrugged.

“Come into my TARDIS, we’ll sort everything.”

As she led them into the TARDIS she draped her arms round the Master’s shoulders and whispered in his ear.

“Master, we need to be very, very discreet.  Remember the Bootstrap Paradox. Don’t go giving Techteun any ideas.  There’s no Time Lords yet, no time travel, no regeneration.”

“Doctor, you can rely on me,” replied the Master before bursting into a maniacal cackle.  The Doctor gave him a hard stare.

* * * * *

“We need to return to the exact point in time and space from where the Time Lords plucked us,” explained the Doctor as she reprogrammed the console, “Except this time I’ll try to plonk the TARDIS slap bang in your control room, Techteun.  Delicate operation.  Materialise the TARDIS around your spaceship - it can be in the swimming pool, I drained it the other day after the Master built a neutron bazooka out of toilet roll to massacre my plastic ducks.  Then I need to go back to Techteun’s time and space.  Then eject Techteun’s spaceship whilst materialising the TARDIS inside it.  Good job I’m a genius.”

Whilst the Doctor scurried round the console, pressing buttons here, adjusting levers there, both heads of the Timeless Child were watching her every move, mesmerised by the hyper-activity.  For her part Techteun became voluble, her principal victims being Yaz and the Master. 

“As a scientist this fascinates me.  Different dimensions in the ship to outside it.  So that’s how to conquer time travel: build a craft which transcends dimensions.  If only we Shabogans could produce something like this!” she lamented, “Fat chance.  My planet will never amount to anything.  Gallifrey, it’s called.  Hardly anyone lives there and those who do give mediocrity a bad name.  Not even second raters: third raters!”

Yaz dared interrupt the rant.

“And, er, is this your daughter?  Erm, why the two heads?”

“Don’t talk to me about the two heads!” barked Techteun, evidently longing to hold forth about the two heads.  “She’s not Shabogan.  Found her abandoned on a planet.  At a portal to another universe, dimension, whatever.  Anyway, I don’t hold with mollycoddling children.  Give ‘em some latitude, that’s what I say.  I perfectly innocently let her play on the clifftop….”

“Parent of the year,” whispered the Master to Yaz.

“…and her so-called friend only goes and chucks her over the edge.  Well, he insists she tripped.  Anyway, found her at the bottom of the cliff – fit as a flea - two heads!  Neither of them the one she started out with!  We were on our way to consult Professor Querilous at the Intergalactic Medical Centre when you lot diverted me.  And appointments are hard to come by these days.

The Doctor looked up from the controls.

“No worries, Techteun” she said, “We’ll get her to Professor Querilous in time.  I’m great at keeping medical appointments.  Did I mention I may have accidentally invented the medical appointment?  Plague of boils, ancient Egypt, 793 BC.”

“No Doctor,” said the Master, “Oddly enough that hasn’t yet featured among your increasingly implausible boasts.”

* * * * *

The Doctor was as good as her word.  Within minutes Techteun, the Timeless Child and the TARDIS crew were strapped into their seats aboard the cramped and shabby spacecraft as Tecteun steered it towards the Medical Centre’s space station.  The TARDIS sat in the corner, its power turned completely off to shield it from Time Lord surveillance.

“Give it some welly, Techteun!” said the Master who was seated next to her.

“I don’t need a man to tell me how to pilot my ship!” she snapped back.

“”Like most thwarted tyrants the Master’s a very good backseat driver,” chipped in the Doctor, who was sitting with Yaz and the Timeless Child in the back row.   Both the Child’s heads were asleep.

“And you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face, young man, when my race develops time travel,” said Techteun.

“Oh, if that ever happens, your species should award itself a collective peerage!” rhapsodised the Master.

“Pipe down, Master!” said the Doctor.

“Although my first priority is to spread regeneration to my own people,” continued Techteun, “Assuming that child of mine really did regenerate.”

“Oh, I’d be careful, Techteun,” cautioned the Master, “Regeneration could make people awfully arrogant.  If I were you I’d limit it.  Dunno,” he continued with contrived vagueness, “Ermm, say, something between eleven and thirteen times, something like that.”

“Put a sock in it, Master!” said the Doctor.

“So,” asked Yaz sotto voce, tilting her head towards the Timeless Child, “is she you?”

“Hope not,” replied the Doctor softly, “The Master says that the Matrix says so.  Two impeccable sources!  It’s a theory,” she pulled a face, “But I don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, she’s unique y’see, and she can regenerate endlessly.  But I always liked the idea of being dead ordinary.  Least, one of hundreds.  Hundreds of Time Lords, y’know: thousand, peak.  Yes, a silly old Time Lord who stole a magic box. Love the idea that anyone can be a hero, you don’t have to be born to it.  Don’t want to be a super-special space god.  No offence, Timeless Child,” she whispered, addressing the sleeping infant.

“Yes, I like your version best,” said Yaz.

* * * * *

“Vell, I cannot verk it out,” intoned Professor Querilous, “zur child appears to be an entirely new species.  Perhaps vee have to accept zat she sometimes has vonn head, sometimes has two. I suppose zat I could alveys do a DGI test on her.”

“DGI test?” queried Techteun.

“Deep Genetic Identification test,” explained the physician, “it vill identify an individual regardless of regeneration”.

“Remarkable!” said Techteun.  

Suddenly an idea came into Yaz’s head.

“Can we all have one of them?” she blurted out.  The others looked at her quizzically.  “Well, it would be useful.  Erm, iron out parentage, perhaps.”

“Vell yes of course, zat is all easily done,” said the Professor as mauve-skinned orderlies arrived to perform the DGI tests, a simple procedure of cutting a hair from each person’s head.

Meanwhile a plot was hatching in the Master’s mind.  He’d had his fill of the Doctor’s and Yaz’s sickening lovability!  It was time to spread a little chaos.  Imagine if he were to kill Techteun.  No regeneration, no Time Lords, no Doctor!    The idea was too sweet, too tempting.  He saw that Yaz had stowed away that ray gun in her pocket…

As soon as she was distracted by an orderly, he grabbed it!

“Farewell, Techteun!” he hollered.   And he pointed the ray gun at her.

But Yaz had turned sharply.  As he was poised to discharge the firearm she shoved him off his feet.  The Master fell heavily to the floor.  The ray gun discharged.

“If a female member of the TARDIS crew shoves me to the ground one more time, I’m off to a refuge for battered Masters,” protested the Master, feeling thoroughly oppressed. 

Yaz gave him a furious look.

“Look what you’ve done, Master!” she said, pointing to the Timeless Child who had collapsed in a heap, “You’ve shot her.”

“You can’t arrest me, Yaz.  Crimes committed in outer space would be laughed out of court.”

The lifeless body of the Timeless Child lay in the corner of the room.  But a golden glow now surrounded the little mite.  With fiery force the two heads disappeared; they were replaced by a single head, that of a young South Asian girl.

“Phur!  It was an accident,” said the Master, “Anyway, look: I’ve solved the two-heads issue, haven’t I?  The problem that baffled the boffins.  Do feel free to give me a round of applause.” He scrutinised the newly regenerated Child more carefully.  “And don’t you think she looks like me?  You could always call her Masterella.”

“You tried to kill me!” raged Techteun.

“I think we’d best get out of here,” said the Doctor, “Job done. Cheerio
Techteun, ‘till the next time, Timeless Child.  Fam, leg it!”

The trio ran out of the room as Professor Querilous entered with the results of the DGI tests.   The Doctor snatched the piece of paper from him as she ran, thanking him.  Within seconds they were back in Techteun’s ship, piling into the TARDIS.

Vwooorp!  Vwoooooooorp!

In the console room the Doctor had a bone to pick with the Master.

“Master, if you won’t curb your homicidal tendencies, there’ll have to be a parting of the ways.”

“Oh I like that!” replied the Master sarcastically, “I cure the two-heads, you find fault!”

“Now let’s take a look at these test results.  We’ve only got them thanks to the brilliance of Yaz.  Well done Yaz,” The Doctor scanned the sheet of paper for her readings and those of the Timeless Child.  They were quite different.  “Oh, what a relief, what a blessed relief: I’m not the Timeless Child after all.”

She smiled.  The Master looked over her shoulder.

“Don’t blame me, I was only telling you what was in the Matrix.  Cross my hearts and hope to die.”

He examined the report more carefully.

“No, but that’s incredible.  Look.  You’ve got exactly the same DGI as me, Doctor!”

“What does that mean?”

“You and me, we’re not just both Time Lords.  We’re the same Time Lord!”  The Master cackled then gyrated around her like an overexcited little boy.

“No, I’m not having that.  This is the biggest pile of baloney since your last one Master!” said the Doctor.

“Oh Doctor, all my Christmases have come at once.  You don’t suppose I’m a later version of you?  Must be.  The Master replaces the Doctor!”

“Glad this codswallop makes you happy, Master.”  There was no puncturing his elation.

“May I have the pleasure of a dance, Doctor?” asked the Master, at his most gallant, half bowing and kissing her hand.

“Oh go on then,” said the Doctor, “Could you put The Shepherd’s Boy on the gramophone please Yaz; it’s on the Classic Gold album?”

And as the Doctor and the Master spun around the console room the Doctor reflected that, for once, everyone in the TARDIS had reason to be cheerful.  She could rejoice at being a common-or-garden Time Lord; Yaz could be proud of her resourcefulness and derring-do; and the Master could revel in his new crackpot theory.

Yet the Doctor also felt unease.  She’d been a mere bystander, aware that the forced regenerations of the Timeless Child were a fixed point in time which no power in the universe could refashion.  But there must come a time when the Timeless Child’s body yields up all its secrets, when she is child no longer.  There must come a moment when the Timeless Child outlives her usefulness to the Time Lords.  The Doctor shuddered at what might be done to her.  That must be the Doctor’s mission: to save the Timeless Child.

THE END.