Just a Bit Off Course

As we had been tasked by Skippy, I set the time/space coordinates in my TARDIS for Vulcan in 2223. Not entirely certain the purpose behind this mission (owing to the fact that most despots listen to reason about as often as a country musician listens to Beethoven), never the less, we set the controls and entered the vortex.

Interesting thing about the time vortex: sometimes objects enter it at random, such as the left sock one can never find in the dryer. Navigating the vortex is often a trans-temporal version of dodge-em cars, attempting to maneuver past bits of random debris forever floating about in the vortex. This may seem a bit useless, but collisions in the time vortex are ACTUALLY as bad as the High Council would have you believe (unlike the previously mentioned materializing a TTC within another TTC).

Shortly into our journey, I made a slight miscalculation and collided with a chunk of time-lost Stilton Cheese, which, in turn, ruptured the fluidic links within the TARDIS and vented most of the artron energy, forcing us to make an emergency materialization.

We materialized in the form of a blue post box in the city of Chicago in the earth year 2001.

The console room, in fact, the TARDIS as a whole, was filled with grey-white smoke and sparks of multiple colours. and so, sapphire and I had to flee.

Having appraised the damages, I knew that my Time Travel Capsule could self repair, and, once that was complete, the artron energy could be replenished by finding an appropriate rift in space/time. I knew we had enough energy for one brief trip.

We estimated the repairs would take approximately one Terran year, which, while mildly annoying, became more of a challenge when sapphire and I realized we had no earth currency. We needed to find work.

Wandering the streets of Chicago with no money is not something I would recommend to anyone. We spent a few nights sleeping on the streets, which is generally frowned upon, especially dressed as we were, myself in a black and red waistcoat and ascot and sapphire in a short red dress.On the fourth day, our fortunes improved when I suddenly sensed the presence of another Time Lord in the area.

Now, mad though I may be, I do know that our actions within the Killing Time Alliance would likely attract the attentions of the High Council of Gallifrey, and they would likely be a bit put off by Time Lords mucking about in fixed points and such, so I decided we should act in caution and try to keep an eye on this unknown Gallifreyan from afar. I knew if I sensed them, they would likely have sensed me, so this task would be fairly difficult to achieve.

After several hours, we caught sight of a youngish Time Lady. She was about average size and build with short, ginger hair with tight curls. She would a bright green dress and seemed to take no notice of us, as she appeared to be barely awake and in a hurry. The barely awake part seemed a bit odd, since Time Lords tend not to sleep much.

We followed her for about 8 blocks before she entered an industrial looking building that seemed to hold manufacturing and executive areas. Above the main entrance was the symbol of a red bull. She walked in and we followed.