Chapter Seven: Future Shock

“I told you we’d see him again,” the Doctor muttered darkly, but Lisa wasn’t really paying attention. She was too busy staring at her doppelganger not ten feet away, who was, in turn, staring at the Doctor.

When the TARDIS instruments had indicated that they were trapped within a Time Corridor, both the Doctor and Lisa found it impossible, for the last Time Corridor was in London in 1984 and was destroyed. When it was mentioned that they were in Northern California, Lisa felt an uncomfortable twinge in her hearts. When she finally realized where they were, her hearts gave a painful twist.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t had time to dwell. The Doctor had picked up a signal off of some technology that didn’t belong on 20^th century Earth and they’d gone to investigate.

They hadn’t expected Dalek Caan, final member of the Cult of Skaro. They’d last seen him in 1930s New York, when he’d used his emergency temporal shift to escape the Empire State Building.

“I would have been merciful to you the last time we met,” said the Doctor, walking slowly around Caan. “You won’t be so lucky, this time.”

“You will not interfere!” Caan shouted. “You will be exterminated!”

What happened next happened so quickly, it barely registered with her.

Caan trained his weapon on the Doctor, who brought out his sonic screwdriver. The second Lisa’s expression was one of absolute horror. She shot over and knocked him out of the way seconds before the Dalek fired.

Lisa locked eyes with her double and the message she was trying to pass on was clear. A confrontation in such an open space was a bad idea. While her double had hold of the Doctor, Lisa grabbed Martha and the four of them disappeared in a flash of light.

They reappeared behind a large farmhouse. Martha was looking from Lisa to her double and back again.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I was about to ask that, myself,” Lisa said, glaring at her double, who was still staring at the Doctor and had not yet let go of his hand.

“This happens sometimes,” said the Doctor. “Time travel will do that to you.”

“There’re laws against this, though,” said Lisa, almost ready to smack her twin’s hand out of the Doctor’s. “What are you doing here?” she demanded of the doppelganger.

“I live here,” she answered, finally extracting her hand but not taking her eyes off the Time Lord.

“What? But…aren’t we in…?”

“Yeah.” She finally looked at her. “I came back about a year ago.”

“You know, that’s not really our problem right now.” Martha pointed out.

“She’s right,” said the Doctor. “Caan’s building a Time Corridor somewhere and we have to stop it before he causes any more trouble. The TARDIS indicated that he hasn’t found the right kind of power source to break into the Time Vortex, yet.”

“Great Orion…” Lisa’s double breathed. “That’s why he was skulking around here…”

“Why?” the Doctor asked.

“He wants the flux capacitor.” The Doctor looked at her, frowning. Sighing, she looked at all three of them in turn, then started walking to the barn, pausing to look over her shoulder. “Follow me.”

End chapter seven.

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