Words with Enemies

Chapter One: The Perfect Day

By Gale Force

Date: 2 November 2017

Location: London, England, Earth, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, Laniakea

I.

The Doctor paused the computer screen once more.

One hundred days. For one hundred days he'd scanned every single newspaper published electronically, or scanned in via the newspaper archives, from the year 2525 backward until newspapers hadn't yet been invented.

And nothing. No perfect day.

There were still over 11,600 years of history to go through. History from the advent of mankind on the Earth to 1690 when the first newspaper had been published.

Well, he certainly wasn't going to find the perfect day during the 1690 years from 500 AD onward! The Dark Ages from 500 to 1400 AD. The 1500s through the 1700s with religious persecution…so…start with the year 500 AD and work backwards…no newspapers…he'd have to take the TARDIS…

Where should he start?

What had Amelia said to him? AA? Lava, she'd called it. Well, she hadn't been accurate. AA wasn't the Hawaiian word for lava, it was the Hawaiian word for a particular type of lava…a rough, ugly lava with CLINKERS. PAHOEHOE lava, on the other hand, that was beautiful lava. Smooth and ropy, the way lava should look.

Amelia was tired of London, and she'd mentioned…surely she'd mentioned that she'd like to see Hawaii? He'd take the TARDIS to Hawaii in the year 500 AD. What could be a better place to start?

Well, not Hawaii, obviously, the Doctor corrected himself. The islands that would become known first as the Sandwich Islands and then as Hawaii. One must always be accurate.

The Doctor switched off the computer.

So, that was done. And Amelia would be pleased.

II.

For Amelia, when she returned to the TARDIS that evening, her initial joy at the news quickly turned to shock.

"We're going to Hawaii," she said, "in 500 AD? 500 AD?"

"what's wrong with 500 AD?"

"There's no resorts there! No cars! No people."

"There will be some people," pointed out the Doctor.

"Well, yes, explorers from Polynesia," Amelia said. "The Marquesas Islands, I think."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "That's true. How did you know that?"

"I've spent the last hundred days living the same day over and over," Amelia pointed out. "I started dreaming of Hawaii and volcanoes and surfing and naturally I read up on the subject."

"So what do you have against Polynesians?"

"Nothing! I would just prefer to be going today. I'd like to see Pearl Harbor, the Arizona monument, the…"

"Remnants of war," the Doctor pointed out. "In 500 AD, there'll be nothing but peace."

"You're wrong there, Doctor. The Marquesasans….I don't know if that's how they'd be called…anyway, they worshipped two gods – Ku, god of war and Lono, god of peace. If they're worshipping a war god…there's got to be a lot of wars going on, wouldn't you say?"

The Doctor nodded.

"Ku, god of war," he murmured. "Of course. Who better to worship than a god of war?"

He slammed his hand on the console of the TARDIS.

"Well, 500 AD is out, then. We'll go in 499 AD."

Amelia put both hands over her face and rubbered her temples.

"Doctor, will you please tell me what's going on. You're looking for a perfect day. What perfect day?"

"Isn't it obvious, Amelia?" snapped the Doctor. "The perfect day is a day where nobody dies. No war being fought, no murders committed, nobody raped, nobody suffering…."

"And that's why you've spent the last hundred days going through the newspapers? You were looking for a day when no news happened?"

"Yes!"

"And?"

The Doctor shrugged. "There was always something. Something. In over five thousand years, from 1690 to 2525, you would have thought there could have been one day when the whole world was happy."

"Doctor," Amelia said. "This is the Earth you're talking about. People are people. The only way to find a day where no one is suffering is to go back to a day when there are no people on the earth!"

The Doctor started at her with a sudden epiphany.

"Of course," he said, pointing his forefinger at her. "Of course. That's the day. How stupid of me not to have seen it before. Remove the human element, and you remove the problem."

He heaved a sigh. "Well, that's solved, then."

"What is solved?" demanded Amelia.

"What we've just been talking about. The perfect day. Any day before the advent of humans on the earth. We'll go back to the time of the dinosaurs!"

"Dinosaurs?" said Amelia excitedly. "I'd love to see dinosaurs. From a distance, of course."

"You'll see all the dinosaurs you want," the Doctor assured her. "I can't believe I never thought of this before. Well, I was too close to the problem, obviously. Well, Amelia, ready to go?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Amelia said excitedly. "When and where? Can we go to the Cretaceous Period? That's when the Tyrannosaurus Rex lived. I want to see a T-Rex. Find out the mystery of those tiny little arms of theirs."

The Doctor nodded.

"Yes. We'll go to the Cretaceous Period. Just after we get back from Planet Queue."

"Planet Queue? What's that? And why're we going there?"

"I've had the technicians there working on a little invention of mine," the Doctor said. "I call them Time Spinners. With enough of them, I'll be able to control the passage of time on Earth. It will always reset to the perfect day. Over and over again. Never ending."