THE DOCTOR WHO PROJECT SEASON 28 1 THE DOCTOR WHO PROJECT SEASON 28 2 THE DOCTOR WHO PROJECT SEASON 28 Published by Jigsaw Publications/The Doctor Who Project Vancouver, BC, Canada First Publication May 2000 Second Publication October 2015 The Cosmic Plot of Doctor Hu © 2000 by Misha Lauenstein The moral right of the author has been asserted. Doctor Who © 1963, 2010 by BBC Worldwide The Doctor Who Project © & ™ 1999, 2010 by Jigsaw Publications A TDWP/Jigsaw Publications E-Book All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. All characters in this publication is fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental. Typeset in Century Schoolbook Logo © 2005 by Jack Drewell & The Doctor Who Project Cover © 2014 Mark Hyland 3 THE DOCTOR WHO PROJECT SEASON 28 4 THE DOCTOR WHO PROJECT SEASON 28 Part One – Jack of all Trades With the morning sun shining through her kitchen window, Tamara Scott sat at her marble- topped two-person bistro table with the cast-iron base, taking the occasional sip from her soy- milk Chai from time to time as she flipped through a magazine she had been dying to read all week. But with quitting her job and wrapping up her case files and an extremely thorough debriefing, Tamara had had little time to read her e-mail, let alone reading for pleasure. Tamara subscribed to several magazines, but this was the only one that was printed on paper and delivered to her door. She saw an advertisement for an outfit that she thought might suit her, and she was about to pull up the web-site when the computer chimed. There was someone at the door. She swiveled towards the giant flat-screen monitor that dominated the far wall of her living room. "View," she said to the computer, which knew from the context that she wanted to see the feed from the camera in the front lobby. Tamara's apartment was at the rear of her building, which didn't give her the luxury of looking out onto the street when someone came calling. "Ms. Scott," queried the man whose face appeared on the screen. He was a tall Chinese man with his shiny black hair combed to one side. "Yes," said Tamara. "I am your driver." He stepped to the side and allowed the camera to take in the limousine that was parked in the street. "Dr. Hu sent me. It's regarding the invitation." Tamara had received an invitation to Dr. Hu's party in a rather unorthodox way earlier in the week. At the time she had thought she'd be working today, but as it turned out... "Your boss has an interesting method of delivering invitations," Tamara said accusingly. "I'm just a driver, Ms. Scott. I have been instructed to wait until midnight tonight. If you decide to come, I will be sitting in the limousine." He turned and walked back to the car and got in. Tamara watched him for a few more moments and then told the computer to close the image. Tamara went to her closet and searched for the black outfit she had worn the night she had been given the invitation. She located the suit and found the invitation stuffed into one of the suits many pockets. She read it again: 5 THE DOCTOR WHO PROJECT SEASON 28 You are cordially invited to the estate of Dr. Winston Hu On Friday, the Eighth day of January, Twenty Hundred and Forty Nine. To take part in the festivities of Dr. Hu's Garden Party. Food and drink will be provide Fun and games are guaranteed. She looked at the back of the card. There was a brief outline of expected events. Dinner. Dancing. Sports. Accommodation would be provided. This was some party. She would have to pack a number of different outfits. It looked like this thing might last more than a day. Well, she had nothing else to do, and she had a few choice words for the Doctor. She took her time packing, locked up as if she were going out of town, which for all she knew, she might be, and then waited until the driver had had enough time to think she wasn't coming at all. As she opened the door to her building, the driver got out of the limousine, came around to the rear passenger side and opened the door for her. She handed him her bag and slid onto the leather seats. The door closed silently and moments later they were on their way. Years of being a secret agent had instilled certain instincts into Tamara, and she immediately realized that they were being followed as they turned off of Tamara's street. A pale- green sports-car which had been idling on a side-street pulled in behind them. "We're being followed," said Tamara. "Yes," said the driver. "Do we want to lose them," asked Tamara. "Where's the fun in that," asked the driver. Tamara smiled and settled back in the comfortable seats. She let the vibration of the road lull her into a sort of half-sleep. Before she realized it she was snoring. * * * * * Tamara awoke groggily. She suspected she had been drugged. Gas, probably. The limousine was in a dark tunnel. She looked out the back window. There were headlights in the distance. This tunnel was extremely long. "Where are we," she asked. She chided herself for not being able to stay awake. She could be anywhere. She could have been flown half-way around the world while she was unconscious. "We're almost there," said the driver. She looked at her watch. Apparently only forty minutes had passed, but they could have set her watch back. Days could have gone by. The tunnel began to rise gently and Tamara could see daylight up ahead. As the limousine emerged from the tunnel, Tamara blinked from the bright sunlight. The driver stopped only a few 6 THE DOCTOR WHO PROJECT SEASON 28 dozen meters after leaving the tunnel. He got out of the car and opened Tamara's door. She stepped out and looked around. For all intents and purposes they were in the middle of a vast desert. Sand as far as the eye could see. Except it was a strange colour. A little pink, she thought. Aside from the gaping hole from which they had emerged, there was only one other landmark, to the right of the limousine: a hedge of thick green leaves, two meters tall, extending as far as the eye could see in both directions. Directly in front of Tamara was a gap in the hedge, wide enough for a person to go through, but almost immediately, there was another wall of green. "It's a hedge maze," said the driver. The Doctor's house is right in the middle. It's his answer to a moat. I've been in it. It's quite a lot of fun. You've got about two hours before you're expected to arrive." Tamara examined his face. She couldn't think of anything to ask him. He had said it all. "Do you need anything from your bag," he asked. "If so, you'd better get it now. It'll be in your room when you get to the house." "So there is another way in," she said. He smiled and winked at her, saying nothing. "No," she said. She didn't want this Dr. Hu to have the satisfaction of having thrown her off-guard. "Thanks," she said over her shoulder as she walked through the gap in the maze. Without looking back, she turned right at the intersection and was lost from the driver's view. She stopped and listened. She heard the engine start up and then fade into the distance. She waited for another moment and heard the sound of another car arriving. It stopped. Silence for a few minutes. Then the door opened and closed. She heard the sound of footsteps scrunching on the sand. Someone was entering the maze. Tamara decided that she didn't want the person to make it to the goal before her. "Okay," she thought to herself. "What's the plan? Keep right. That's the technique for getting through a maze. She pulled out a pencil and a notepad and began to chart her progress as she kept always to the right. She had walked for about twenty minutes without seeing anyone when she entered a large square space. She walked all around it. There was only one way out: the way she had come in. She added the square to her map and was about to go back out when the air was filled with an unearthly noise. A cacophony of screeches and shudders and just plain eerie noise. And on top of that, a blue police box appeared out of thin air. "If this is part of the show," she said aloud, "you're off to a good start." The door to the police box opened and out stepped a man of about thirty-five, wearing a black shirt with a white star pattern on it, black trousers, really sexy boots, and the coolest sunglasses this side of Italy. "Pretty cute," thought Tamara. Short hair, goatee. "Bit of a klutz, though," she thought as he fell two meters to the ground. The TARDIS had landed on top of the hedge maze, and the Doctor had stepped out into thin air.