The Adventurous Time Adventures
Of
Doctor When
A Steampunk Time Drama in Eight Acts
By
Arielle K Harris
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this story are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © by Arielle K Harris
All rights reserved. This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published in the United States of America
Clipart courtesy of https://cliparts.co
Table of Contents
Act I: Doctor When's Most Important Mission and the Mysterious Ingeborg
Act II: Wilburforce's Smallclothes and 'Are You Ready To Time Travel?'
Act III: Next Thursday Morning and the Anomaly
Act IV: Anachronistic Danger and the Innocent Wheat
Act V: Underwater Adventure and a Fizz-popping Good Time
Act VI: The Unhappy Polar Bear and 'I Thought It Obvious'
Act VII: Nowhere and Nowhen
Act VIII: A Moral Machine and Everything Quite Changed
For Melli, who gave me Ingeborg
~
Act I: Doctor When's Most Important Mission and the Mysterious Ingeborg
Doctor When had a Time Machine. In fact, the esteemed Chrononaut was just stepping from said vehicle when a coattail caught on a knob or button or lever of some kind, nearly splaying its wearer across the floor.
'Damn and blast,' she swore, for Doctor When was of the bosoms-and-hips side of the gender barrier, 'this confounded Machine! If it’s not bringing me into the epicentre of some historic doom, it's trying to kill me in some other, less dramatic, fashion!'
And indeed, the Machine seemed to have a nose, if indeed it had a nose, for Danger Most Great, popping out of the aether of time-space at the most inopportune moments. It was this proclivity of her mechanical associate which prompted Doctor When to put out an advertisement in the local newspaper:
'Toughs Required: peculiar individuals interested in peculiar adversaries, must provide own weaponry.'
It was thus that Doctor When began to interview the likeliest candidates, putting each through an hour of 'on the job experience'. Of those that survived only three such peculiar individuals acquitted themselves to the level required of the position. They were:
Wilburforce, a man deprived of sheer bulk and size by the accident of his birth to parents of the Dwarf persuasion. It had been his life's work to fill every fibre of his considerably compact body with as much killing power as was humanly possible. By such headlines as: 'Ten Men and a Dwarf Enter a Pub, Only Dwarf Leaves Alive,' it seemed he had succeeded.
And the Spaghetti Sisters. The two Sisters were previously employed as contortionists in the Theatre of Implausible Amusements, but had taken offense to its Director's suggestion of how they might employ their skills elsewhere, such as in his personal chambers of an evening. The Director was never heard from again, and the Sisters found themselves in need of new employment. No one knew their real names, for the Sisters had the habit of only referring to each other by interchangeable pasta varieties, and thus their nom de plume. One might say to the other, 'My dearest Fusilli,' to which her sister would reply, 'Oh indeed, Farfalle, in very deed.' The next day, the one called 'Fusilli' would then be called 'Penne' or even 'Yakisoba' if the mood took her other sister to do so.
Doctor When was pleased with her new associates, never were such peculiarities so desirable in an employee, and they met in her laboratory to discuss the work at hand.
'I have a Most Important Mission,' the Doctor began, settling herself to face the others. She flipped her coattails out of the way before perching upon a corner of her laboratory table, and let them take in her formidable appearance. Doctor When was not particularly large or menacing as such, but her intensity of expression emanated through her clothed form, dressed as it was in a lace-cuffed shirt and smart waistcoat beneath her signature tailed coat, down through legs clad in finely-tailored jodhpurs and tall leather boots. Every atom of her person was imbued with most certain purpose, a purpose which was enunciated as such: 'I must find Ingeborg.'
Act II: Wilburforce's Smallclothes and 'Are You Ready To Time Travel?'
It pronounced with such precision and determination that the three gathered toughs merely stared at their new employer for a moment. Then Macaroni (as she was being called today by her sister Lasagne) spoke up:
'Who's Ingeborg?'
'Aha!' Doctor When lifted her index finger, as if a sudden epiphany had just blossomed in her illustrious brain. 'The question is: what is Ingeborg!'
When it seemed no further exposition was forthcoming, Lasagne decided to bite on her sister's behalf, 'Very well, what is this Ingeborg?”
'Indeed,' Doctor When nodded gravely, as if by asking the question this particular Spaghetti Sister was offering an answer in its own right. 'All I know is that my dear old classmate and rival, Doctor Inga Ekstrom, has let loose this Ingeborg into the aether of time-space where it is wreaking untold chronological havoc. My mission, and by extension yours, is to locate said Ingeborg and stop it from doing further harm.'
'Pardon, Doctor,' Wilburforce spoke up with unexpected civility for a man, Dwarf or otherwise, with his violent history, 'but how exactly will we locate this Ingeborg in all of time-space?' Even he, as untutored as he was in the arts of the Chrononauts, knew that time-space was infinite, a concept which boggled his mind in an unpleasant fashion. Normally such unpleasantness was followed by pain, usually of his making, and he unconsciously clenched his fists.
'Aha!' Doctor When repeated her earlier exclamation, and suddenly a riding crop appeared in her hand. She leapt from her perch and strode over to the blank face of a double-sided chalkboard, flipping it so that a complex diagram now faced the queer assembly. 'This is time-space,' she pointed with the crop for emphasis, 'with its four dimensions: the three spatial dimensions plus the temporal dimension of time. We must follow the distortions currently present in the very fabric of time-space,' here she pointed to an anomalous bend in the diagram, 'where it can only be assumed that Ingeborg has performed some mischief or other.'
'How do we find such a distortion?' Macaroni asked, pursing her lips in contemplation.
'That's one of the varied pursuits my Time Machine is capable of. I have programmed it to locate and bring us to each distortion in turn, where we can search for clues to Ingeborg's whereabouts.'
'And once we find this Ingeborg?' Lasange added her query.
'We find a way to either shut it down or destroy it,' she waved her crop in the air emphatically. 'And I can only guess that dearest Inga won't be inviting me to her Christmas Luncheon this year.'
'So when do we begin, Doctor?' Wilburforce cracked his knuckles in anticipation. He had been getting bored of brawling in bars and alleyways for a while now, so a new challenge of this sort was exactly what he needed.
'Good man!' the Doctor exclaimed in approval of his apparent enthusiasm. The Dwarf blushed, unused as he was to praise or the term 'man' as a fair description of his person. He was much more familiar with 'shortarse' or even 'gremlin'. Doctor When continued, 'We'll begin at precisely forty-five minutes past nine tomorrow morning.'
'Is there a reason for such precise timing?' Macaroni wanted to know, still trying to come to terms with this Mission they found themselves on.
'Of course!' Doctor When twirled her riding cro
p, 'That's when I finish breakfast! No need for an unnaturally early start when one's a Chrononaut – there's always time,' she chuckled to herself.
'Must we come provisioned in any specific way?' Lasange asked, sensing this discussion was nearing its end.
'Sensible shoes would be a start,' the Chrononaut suggested, 'not to mention any assorted weaponry you possess. And it wouldn't be unwise to bring a packed lunch, dinner or breakfast – you never know when we might end up!'
Indeed, the next morning they assembled at the laboratory ready for whatever the day might throw at them. Wilburforce was wearing his favourite knuckle-dusters, made of lead and formed into raised spikes across the surface. He was dressed in brown leather boots and vest, sturdy trousers, of surprisingly tailored fit, and shirt to match. It was an unknown fact that, due to his unusual size and proportions, he was forced to make his own clothing and had become rather adept at creating practical fashion for the smaller man. It would have pained him to admit it, but Wilburforce enjoyed the process of turning mere cloth into wearable garments. In his cups, the Dwarf considered giving up on fighting altogether and opening a little shop - he even had the name picked out: Wilburforce's Smallclothes.
The Spaghetti Sisters wore identical fighting leotards (much the same as normal leotards, only with hidden back- and