Rita awakened in a cold sweat that morning. What the hell was that all about!? It had to be a trick, like the moving shadows from the other night... It just couldn't be real
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As he'd expected, when the Doctor awoke in the morning, his injuries from last night were freshly bandaged. The bandaging somehow didn't seem quite as neat as before, but it was still better than the rushed job that had been applied last night
( ... )
Oh, good. The institute could reach them all the way out there. Not that Carter was exactly happy to be back at Landel's, but it would have been awkward if day came and they were stuck having to walk all the way back down the mountain again. Frank had been pretty badly burned, too, and without the magical healing science of the Institute to make him all better it would have gotten infected long before they reached town
( ... )
The Doctor had glanced over when a man he didn't recognize sat in the seat beside him, but he didn't pay much mind until he realized he was being asked a question. What card was he...?
Oh! The realization that they'd been handed the bit of plastic along with the usual coupons and bag was belated, and the Doctor took a quick look at his own: it had what was most likely a magnetic strip on it, along with a picture of himself and the name 'John Smith' printed on it.
"It looks like a credit card," he commented. "Well, I say 'credit card'... More like a credit card and ID, actually, or else it wouldn't have the photo. You heard what was said about a spending allowance, didn't you?"
The man had asked what the card did, though, so maybe he was from a time or place which didn't have anything similar. Best then to give a brief overview of its purpose... "The card should be for that, so you'll use it in town to make your purchases."
Carter flipped the card over and looked at his own photo. "So I show them the card and they give me ten dollars worth of whatever I want? That's a funny way of doing things. How do they make sure we don't just use it at every store in town?"
It was a little odd to see 'Harold Fuhrmann' underneath a picture he didn't remember anyone taking. He'd carried plenty of forged papers (his usual set was 'Corporal Hans Wagner') but never one that looked so official and shiny. Carter's free hand idly toyed with his dog tags, running his thumb over the raised lettering. At least the military men didn't treat them like they were patients instead of prisoners, but he'd have liked to at least have his name back.
"More or less... But that's basically it. There are a few different ways to limit how much you can spend," the Doctor commented, tucking his own card away along with the coupons he'd been given. The man had all but confirmed that he indeed wasn't familiar at all with the concept of cards, so it would be best to present the basic concept in what would hopefully be simple enough terms. Money wasn't exactly one of the Doctor's fields of expertise, but the card was a simple enough technology.
"Think of that card as being the same as 'ten dollars total'... Well, it's not really 'the same'...-Just think of it as the same," he said with a gesture towards the card that... Harold Fuhrmann (assumed alias) was holding. "Even though you won't be handling any cash, when you spend a portion of it, that portion will still be deducted from the balance-it'd be like getting change back from a tenner; the worth of the card will be equal to that change. So no matter what store you go to next, the card will register as ten dollars, less what you
( ... )
"But how does everyone in the town know that I've spent money when I've only been in one shop? There's no place on the card to mark it down." Carter checked the back just to make sure. Nothing but name, picture, and that odd black stripe. "I'm sorry, I'm from 1943 so I'm not really good with all this modern stuff," he said, looking slightly embarrassed. Even in basic training he'd felt like a country bumpkin, not quite knowing how the most sparkly pieces of technology worked, but here it was at least tripled.
Was this how all money was handled in the future? It seemed awful confusing.
Ah... Alright, a little more basic then-or perhaps, a little less? The Doctor had neglected to discuss the purpose of the stripe on the card earlier, but a man from 1943 would be better able to understand technology as technology (opposed to writing it off as 'magic') than a man from, say, 1443. He could afford to give a little more detail.
"Ah, well... There's no need to apologise for that!" he said, smiling at the man. "Magnetic tape is still relatively new in 1943, after all-it won't really make it out of Germany for a few more years, and it'll be even longer before you'll start seeing it on cards. That stripe there on the back-data can be stored there. The shops should have hardware capable of accessing the data... which in this case should be how much money you've got."
"Huh." Carter ran his thumb over the strip before carefully tucking the card away, wrapping it in coupon paper to keep it safe. He didn't completely understand the man's explanation, but it at least sounded futurey enough to be rational.
"I'm Andrew, by the way," he said, sticking out a hand and offering a sunny smile to the seemingly British man. "Andrew Carter. So you're from now, yeah?"
It seemed like the man understood now-or at least had run out of questions about how it worked. That was good... molto bene.
The Doctor returned Carter's smile and clasped his proffered hand with his own, giving a firm handshake. "A pleasure, Andrew Carter. I'm the Doctor," he replied. "And no, I'm not from... well, even if I'd already managed to pinpoint exactly when 'now' is, I'm not from it. But I am familiar with it." Maybe not with this place in this year, but at least with the year or decade in general.
It occurred to Carter, belatedly, that he hadn't attached his rank to his name. Ah, well. It wasn't that important here anyway. "I think it's 2008," he said, sitting back and watching the scenery begin to move outside their window. "Doctor of what?"
Maybe he knew Dr. McCoy. That had been a nice enough man, even if he'd yelled at Carter for just doing his job.
"Could be," the Doctor agreed. 2008 could fit well enough-but then again, so could a handful of other years, unless he found out about some current events or spotted some definitive piece of technology. "That seems like a reasonable enough estimate... 2008, then."
The Doctor's smile turned smug as he continued, "And I'm a Doctor of, well... everything." Well, maybe not everything, but he was a genius if he did say so himself. Still, a small correction wouldn't hurt (and it wasn't as though he held doctorates in every subject that had been thought up over the course of history, human or otherwise). After a pause he amended, "Or near about."
"Everything?" And of course Carter believed it immediately. "Boy howdy, you must be really smart! I've met some pretty smart guys here but you must really take the cake."
Thinkthink. Carter tilted his head, pondering the ramifications of being a doctor in everything. "So does that mean you're a doctor to aliens too?" he asked thoughtfully. "Because my friend Admiral ZEX, he was having some problems earlier. I'm sure the institute's fixed him up, but I was getting worried. He had all these scratches on him, you see, and I know he's human now but he used to be a VUX so I thought that might have something to do with it."
As Carter started talking about his injured friend, it occured to the Doctor that maybe he should have specified that he wasn't a medical doctor-or at least that he didn't have a doctorate for it. But then from the sound of it, this wasn't the type of case a proper medical doctor would typically encounter. He may not have heard of a VUX before, but that just made him all the more interested in finding out more.
"Well, scratches aside, a non-human forced into a human body is bound to have trouble from the start," he said. "Your basic humanoid would have the easiest time adapting, of course, but even then, suddenly having a different biology... It's not the most pleasant experience
( ... )
"ZEX drew me a picture. They're all green with tentacles instead of arms, and there's tentacles all over their heads too." Carter used his hands to demonstrate the various VUXian features, or at least how he imagined them to be. "And they've got one big eye in the middle of their faces and a trunk like an anteater instead of a mouth. I don't know what was scratching at him, it just appeared on his face like it opened up on its own. It was right when the translating thing in the institute went out, we couldn't even understand each other for him to tell me what was going on."
He'd seen ZEX since, in the showers and in passing during lunch, so he knew the alien was all right. But it would be nice to get a proper doctor to look at him. ZEX was just such a nice, friendly, innocent guy and Carter would hate to have anything bad happen to him.
Alright, not your basic humanoid... From what Carter described, it wasn't difficult to imagine the complication in adapting so such a dramatic change in anatomy. Modifying biology through the use of, say, the Chameleon Arch was one thing, but at least that didn't require becoming used to arms instead of tentacles or two eyes instead of one after the procedure was complete.
The scratches, too, were worrisome... Appearing on their own, with nothing in sight to afflict them? "I'll have to find this Admiral ZEX fellow some time," he said. "Maybe there's something I can do to help... I could at least try to figure out what happened."
His foremost question right now, however, was when it had happened. He was intimately familiar with translation through a telepathic field-which seemed to be in use here to allow people from across time and space to communicate flawlessly-but he couldn't recall it ever... going out. "The telepathi-, ah... The translation field, you said it went out. How long ago did that happen?"
"Last week, in the middle of the night." He remembered because he'd been in ZEX's room to deliver that animal book he'd stolen from the bookstore. Carter fidgered worriedly, hoping the doctor would be able to help ZEX not scratch himself up any more.
"Don't worry, he's easy to find. He's sort of small and he's got a patch over part of his face where the Landel doctors took his eye out." A small grin broke through the nervousness. "And he's real friendly, he always wants to talk or say hello to you. Though VUX say hello a bit funny." LeBeau kissed him hello and goodbye, but he'd never done it on the neck. Carter had found that a bit peculiar. But who was he to judge alien customs?
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Oh! The realization that they'd been handed the bit of plastic along with the usual coupons and bag was belated, and the Doctor took a quick look at his own: it had what was most likely a magnetic strip on it, along with a picture of himself and the name 'John Smith' printed on it.
"It looks like a credit card," he commented. "Well, I say 'credit card'... More like a credit card and ID, actually, or else it wouldn't have the photo. You heard what was said about a spending allowance, didn't you?"
The man had asked what the card did, though, so maybe he was from a time or place which didn't have anything similar. Best then to give a brief overview of its purpose... "The card should be for that, so you'll use it in town to make your purchases."
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It was a little odd to see 'Harold Fuhrmann' underneath a picture he didn't remember anyone taking. He'd carried plenty of forged papers (his usual set was 'Corporal Hans Wagner') but never one that looked so official and shiny. Carter's free hand idly toyed with his dog tags, running his thumb over the raised lettering. At least the military men didn't treat them like they were patients instead of prisoners, but he'd have liked to at least have his name back.
Fuhrmann. Did it really need to be German?
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"Think of that card as being the same as 'ten dollars total'... Well, it's not really 'the same'...-Just think of it as the same," he said with a gesture towards the card that... Harold Fuhrmann (assumed alias) was holding. "Even though you won't be handling any cash, when you spend a portion of it, that portion will still be deducted from the balance-it'd be like getting change back from a tenner; the worth of the card will be equal to that change. So no matter what store you go to next, the card will register as ten dollars, less what you ( ... )
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Was this how all money was handled in the future? It seemed awful confusing.
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"Ah, well... There's no need to apologise for that!" he said, smiling at the man. "Magnetic tape is still relatively new in 1943, after all-it won't really make it out of Germany for a few more years, and it'll be even longer before you'll start seeing it on cards. That stripe there on the back-data can be stored there. The shops should have hardware capable of accessing the data... which in this case should be how much money you've got."
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"I'm Andrew, by the way," he said, sticking out a hand and offering a sunny smile to the seemingly British man. "Andrew Carter. So you're from now, yeah?"
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The Doctor returned Carter's smile and clasped his proffered hand with his own, giving a firm handshake. "A pleasure, Andrew Carter. I'm the Doctor," he replied. "And no, I'm not from... well, even if I'd already managed to pinpoint exactly when 'now' is, I'm not from it. But I am familiar with it." Maybe not with this place in this year, but at least with the year or decade in general.
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Maybe he knew Dr. McCoy. That had been a nice enough man, even if he'd yelled at Carter for just doing his job.
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The Doctor's smile turned smug as he continued, "And I'm a Doctor of, well... everything." Well, maybe not everything, but he was a genius if he did say so himself. Still, a small correction wouldn't hurt (and it wasn't as though he held doctorates in every subject that had been thought up over the course of history, human or otherwise). After a pause he amended, "Or near about."
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Thinkthink. Carter tilted his head, pondering the ramifications of being a doctor in everything. "So does that mean you're a doctor to aliens too?" he asked thoughtfully. "Because my friend Admiral ZEX, he was having some problems earlier. I'm sure the institute's fixed him up, but I was getting worried. He had all these scratches on him, you see, and I know he's human now but he used to be a VUX so I thought that might have something to do with it."
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"Well, scratches aside, a non-human forced into a human body is bound to have trouble from the start," he said. "Your basic humanoid would have the easiest time adapting, of course, but even then, suddenly having a different biology... It's not the most pleasant experience ( ... )
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He'd seen ZEX since, in the showers and in passing during lunch, so he knew the alien was all right. But it would be nice to get a proper doctor to look at him. ZEX was just such a nice, friendly, innocent guy and Carter would hate to have anything bad happen to him.
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The scratches, too, were worrisome... Appearing on their own, with nothing in sight to afflict them? "I'll have to find this Admiral ZEX fellow some time," he said. "Maybe there's something I can do to help... I could at least try to figure out what happened."
His foremost question right now, however, was when it had happened. He was intimately familiar with translation through a telepathic field-which seemed to be in use here to allow people from across time and space to communicate flawlessly-but he couldn't recall it ever... going out. "The telepathi-, ah... The translation field, you said it went out. How long ago did that happen?"
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"Don't worry, he's easy to find. He's sort of small and he's got a patch over part of his face where the Landel doctors took his eye out." A small grin broke through the nervousness. "And he's real friendly, he always wants to talk or say hello to you. Though VUX say hello a bit funny." LeBeau kissed him hello and goodbye, but he'd never done it on the neck. Carter had found that a bit peculiar. But who was he to judge alien customs?
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