We Will Rise |2| The Ascension

Chapter Twenty Five: Partners In Crime

About six months after Martha had left the TARDIS, McKenzie was leaning against the console alone, searching news databases for anything dangerous on Earth they could get themselves stuck into. Since they'd started travelling on their own, she'd started dyeing her hair; it was now more of a pinewood brown.

"Found anything?" the Doctor inquired as he entered the console room, handing his fiancée a mug of tea as he took a gulp of his own.

"Well..." She turned the monitor round to face him, showing conspiracy theories centred around one company, Adipose Industries. "This looked interesting."

***

As soon as McKenzie had dressed for her role, she and the Doctor hit the streets of London, leaving the TARDIS in an alleyway. McKenzie now wore a short-sleeved black button-up with matching leggings, heels, and a jacket. The Doctor had to admit, the look suited her, and although her wings couldn't stretch out underneath the shirt and jacket, they were perfectly comfortable.

When they reached their destination, the Doctor soniced their way in through a fire escape round the back of the building, and they made their way up to a lecture theatre, only stopping once to flash the psychic paper at a guard. "John and McKenzie Smith, Health and Safety," the Doctor said, smirking as the guard waved them on.

***

What they didn't realise was that at the same time, a fiery ginger was doing the same thing, albeit using more conventional methods of entry, like the front door. She showed her ID to a security guard by the lifts. "Donna Noble, Health and Safety." The guard waved her through into the lift.

***

Once they'd reached the lecture theatre, the aliens had split up, McKenzie going inside with the rest of the audience while the Doctor opted to watch from the projection room. A blonde woman with her hair in a tight bun stood on stage, and smiled thinly, her red lipstick making her skin look pale behind her black-framed glasses.

"Adipose Industries," the woman, Miss Foster, announced, "the twenty-first century way to lose weight. No exercise, no diet, no pain. Just lifelong freedom from fat. The Holy Grail of the modern age. And here it is." She held up a tiny pill that McKenzie had to squint to see. "You just take one capsule. One capsule, once a day for three weeks, and the fat, as they say..."

"The fat just walks away," a voice echoed around the room from the presentation on the screen.

A young woman in the audience held up her hand. "Excuse me, Miss Foster. If I could? I'm Penny Carter, science correspondent for the Observer. There are a thousand diet pills on the market, a thousand conmen stealing people's money. How do we know the fat isn't going straight into your bank account?" A few of the other journalists in the room started nodding.

Foster covered up any irritation expertly. "Oh, Penny, if cynicism burnt up calories, we'd all be as thin as rakes. But, if you want the science, I can oblige."

***

The Doctor had introduced himself as 'Health and Safety, Film Department' to the man operating the projector, and was now watching the presentation through a small window.

"Adipose Industries," the pre-recorded narrator stated as the screen lit up with the appropriate logo. "The Adipose capsule is composed of a synthesised mobilising lipase, bound to a large protein molecule. The mobilising lipase breaks up the triglycerides stored in the adipose cells, which then enter..." The Doctor tuned out of the lecture, choosing instead to watch Miss Foster, trying to decipher her facial expression.

***

Back in the lecture theatre, McKenzie sensed the lecture coming to an end. "One hundred percent legal, one hundred percent effective," Foster was saying.