The pedestrians never noticed as they walked past the shops.  They were unaware that they were under secret surveillance by a perfectly disguised spy.  Carefully she noted everything down in her notebook, times, number of enemy agents and the style of the dress she was currently wearing.  Audrey still found it hard to cope with being an Auton, albeit one under independent control from the Nestene conciousness.  She looked like all the other shop window mannequins but in reality she was a living being, composed of plastic, but still quite alive.  Keeping a pose for hours at a time was easy, she no longer had muscles and tendons that got tired.  She didn’t need to eat unless it was to replace lost mass and apart from a need to overdo her make up when in public she could still carry on her life as normal.  Except of course her life was no longer normal.  She traveled through time and space with a strange man who wore fake red fur trimmed coats and a potentially murderous man who had lost his younger daughter during the Auton invasion that had led to Audrey’s new and interesting lifestyle in a shop window wearing nothing but a summer dress and a smile.

Mike trudged down the alley with his hands in his pockets and his head down.  He wasn’t looking where he was going but then he didn’t really care because he knew were exactly he’d end up at and that didn’t make him want to care any tiny bit at all.

“Cheer up Mike.”  The Doctor said brightly.  “We’ll just drop in, sort this mistake out and be on our way.”

“Yeah right.”  Mike replied.  “We just drop into the place where this planet’s biggest drugs dealer has built himself some sort of cross between a palace and a fortress and you’re going to ask him nicely to just stop and you expect us not to be brutally murdered, why?”

The Doctor looked at his sullen friend.  “Is that what’s worrying you?”

“No, it was the thought that I’m going to die on an alien planet far away from my friends, family and well my planet.  I want to go back to Earth, someday.”

“I’m sure we’ll get around to going back one day.”  The Doctor muttered as he looked at his wrist watch.  “I think I preferred the fob.”

“You kept dropping it in things.”

“Yes, that was why I had to get rid of it.  It was rustier than that boat we were on last week.”

“The Oceanic?”

“Yes, that was the one.  My memory isn’t up to much today for some reason.”  The Doctor pulled up short as they arrived outside of the heavily re-enforced metal security door.  “Look, Mike, you don’t have to come inside with me if you don’t want to.”

Mike smiled.  “Someone has to look after you Doctor.  You’d never make it out alive if I’m not there to keep an eye on you.”

Audrey tried not to react as the bored looking casual member of staff undressed her and started to pull a pair of jeans onto her legs.  She supposed she shouldn’t feel too bothered about it, as she was pretending to be a mannequin so she shouldn’t do anything that would break character and give the young woman a seizure of some sort.  She just put up with the indignity of being handled like an item and not a person.  Finally a blouse was put around her upper body and buttoned up almost to the top.  Then she was left alone so that she could get back to her real job.

Mike pushed the door open but stayed outside.  “After you Doctor.”

“You’re too kind.”  The Doctor replied and headed inside.

“Only fools rush in, Doctor.”

“Perhaps, but a fool is likelier to stay alive than an angel.”  The Doctor nervously looked about, his eyes soaking up visual images like a sponge/camera hybrid.

“You expect us to survive this then?”  Mike laughed.

“Of course I do.”  The Doctor replied.  “When have I ever let you down?”

Mike was about to answer, when something caught his eye and instead he slowly put up his hands.

“What is it?”  The Doctor asked, before turning around to see the tall men with guns.  “My, those are big.”  He smiled.  “I’m the Doctor.  Give in now and you might just be glad I let you survive.”

Mike put one hand over his eyes and shook his head as the gangsters started to laugh.

“Get off me!”  Audrey complained as the creepy kid tried to unbutton her jeans.  “Help, theft in progress, call security.”  This worked and the kid left, thinking she had some sort of sophisticated alarm system installed.  However the outside view was dull as the sun went away and it was night or something outside.  “Better find the Doctor and Mike.”  She packed her notebook away into her new handbag and walked out of the store in her nice new outfit.

“I may have miscalculated.”  The Doctor decided to be open and honest with Mike.

“You think?”  Mike asked.  “They just shot me!”

“Don’t get excited.”  The Doctor replied.  “Calm down, you’ll just lose blood quicker if you get angry.”

“I’m sorry.”  Mike said calmly, before speeding up his rate of speech.  “I’ve just been shot.”

Audrey looked at her wrist watch.  It was flashing red, meaning that the Doctor and Mike needed her help.  At least she wanted to believe this was the case.  Mike also used it to get her to bring him pizza and alcohol free beers from the TARDIS kitchen.  “This had better not be another false alarm.  Fool me eighty seven times, shame on me.”

“Say your prayers.”  Kiffron aimed his gun at the Doctor’s head.  “Filthy aliens, coming to our world with your unhealthy lifestyles and your diseases.”

“I can assure you that I got a clean bill of health when I last visited my GP.”  The Doctor glared at the man with the gun.  “Now throw that thing away before you hurt yourself.”

“You don’t know when to shut up, do you?”  Kiffron growled and shot the other one.

“Frigging hell!”  Mike swore as his arm exploded into an interesting new world of pain and suffering.

“Am I too late?”  Audrey rushed into the room and everyone shot her.  “Hey, this is a new blouse.”

The Doctor took the moment of surprise to act.  He pulled Mike out of the way, dragging him out of the room and down the corridor to the cool night air outside.  “Try not to bleed if you can help it.”

Mike tried to think of something to say but he was too tired and sleepy.  “M…zzt…y…nnn.”  And that was his final word on the matter.

“Stay awake.”  The Doctor slapped Mike’s face.  He looked up as the drone of sirens grew closer.  “Hopefully they’ll have a paramedic who’s familiar with human biology.  I do wish I had that Dr. Zoidberg’s number on me.”

Audrey read Mike’s favourite book to him, well it wasn’t so much a book as a magazine and there were very few words, mainly lots of pictures and a few interesting articles.  “Are you feeling better?”

Mike nodded.  “Yes.”

The Doctor entered the room.  “Great news you two.  We’re bout to get a visit.”

“Is it my great aunty Bess?  She said she’d let me know what it was like on the other side.”

“No, and for the sixth time the TARDIS is not a taxi cab to the other side.”  The Doctor’s smile returned.  “We’re getting a visit from Krista, special envoy to the pacifistic world of Tranquility.”

“Should I change into a nicer dress?”  Audrey enquired about protocol.

“No, that one is fine.”  The Doctor replied.  “They want us to go on some sort of special mission for them.”

“Great, Mike can recover while we’re doing that.”  Audrey wondered what sort of shoes to wear.  “

“I’m sure Mike will be fully recovered by then.”  The Doctor replied.  “I’ve given him a special compound to accelerate the healing process.”

Audrey went back to her room to brush up on her homework for her Open University degree in applied chemical sciences.  She may have been denied a decent education on Earth but the Doctor was quickly helping her find ways to put her new mental abilities to good use.  “Mum would have been so proud to see me graduate too.”