All's Fair (audio story)

All's Fair was the second story in the audio anthology Everywhere and Anywhere, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Max Kashevsky and featured Jacob Dudman as the Eleventh Doctor, Safiyya Ingar as Valarie Lockwood and Mia Tomlinson as Roanna.
== Publisher's summary ==
Chicago's World's Fair, 1893. An ideal date for a pair of loved-up engineers.
However, there are certain things you don't want to happen on a date. An impossible reunion derailing things. Abominations stalking the streets. Your date dying at the end...
== Plot ==
Valarie and Roanna go on their first date at Chicago's World's Fair in 1893 whilst the Doctor works on the Arkheion device in the TARDIS. After receiving an update from the Doctor, Valarie is approached by Hayden, a man who knows her and the Doctor and claims to be her husband. She and Roanna take him to the TARDIS where he further explains that he is a normal human and presents a photograph of his and Valarie's wedding at Niagara Falls with a note on the back telling him to find her at the fayre on this day. When he first met her, she knew all about him and now he finds that the roles have been reversed and asks the Doctor for help.
The Doctor leaves Valarie and Roanna and goes with Hayden to the Lockwood Foundation office where he meets his assistant, Maria, and learns that Hayden's inventions are anachronisms explained to him by Valarie. Hayden takes him to his Valarie, who has been on life support for some time, and a number of people locked in the basement who have become monsters thanks to an alien mutation which the Doctor names "the Surge". Valarie was trying to find a cure when one of the affected, Roanna, drained power from her cybernetics whilst attempting to escape the facility, an attempt during which she killed a nurse.
Frank, the nurse's husband, attempts to assassinate Roanna to change time and save his wife, but Valarie saves her and they flee towards the TARDIS whilst the now-monstrous Frank gives chase. The Doctor realises what is happening based on the few words Roanna is able to say and goes with Hayden in his car to save the two of them, running Frank over and allowing the group to take refuge in the TARDIS. Frank starts draining the TARDIS, so the Doctor decides to send out a pulse using the telepathic circuits to render him unconscious and is surprised when Frank dies despite him not having enacted his plan yet. Analysing him with Maria, he determines that Frank died from draining too much power.
Maria sends Valarie and Hayden to the Doctor and, once they are gone, shoots Roanna and disconnects the older Valarie's life support. The Doctor has identified a Fulcrum Corporation delivery system implanted into the monsters and takes the others with him to save Roanna, having realised that Maria is actually Mrs Hendricks downloaded into another robotic body. Mrs Hendricks has already sent Roanna back in time to become the monster, however, and reveals that she is working with somebody to wipe out the Daleks, who have no knowledge of the Doctor. She takes the Surge serum from the monster Roanna and teleports it away to be put on the market by her affiliate as a way to make people immune to the Daleks' gunsticks.
Mrs Hendricks teleports away and Roanna escapes into the city, but the Doctor converts a delivery system into an energy regulator to restore her so long as she keeps it on. When he and the group find the older Valarie apparently dead, he is convinced that she is a robot, a hard-light projection, Flesh avatar or an alternative version until the TARDIS says otherwise. She refuses to damage time by living on Medrüth to avoid her death and instead wants to spend what time she has left travelling in the TARDIS once he has confiscated the advanced technology from Hayden, who accepts Roanna's invitation to join her on Medrüth to research the Surge. The Doctor pilots the TARDIS there and Valarie convinces Roanna to continue their relationship despite them knowing that it will not last.
== Cast ==
* The Doctor - Jacob Dudman
* Valarie Lockwood - Safiyya Ingar
* Roanna - Mia Tomlinson
* Hayden Lockwood - Christopher Ragland
* Maria - Liz Guterbock
* Frank - Jack Myers
== Worldbuilding ==
* Tesla and Ferris are inventors.
* The Doctor says that Hayden has "dodgy kidneys".
* Valarie is surprised to learn that she can pull off a bowler hat.
* Hayden drives a Model V.
* The Doctor rhetorically asks if speeding tickets have been invented.
* The Doctor mentions powerstations and Tamagotchis.
* Hayden has learnt from Valarie of adventures with Sontarans in Zurich.
* The Doctor assumes that Mrs Hendricks is being assisted by the Master, the Rani or the Monk.
== Notes ==
to be added
== Continuity ==
* The Doctor has been working on the Arkheion device he acquired in .
* The Doctor rhetorically asks Hayden if he got his designs from Tiaanamat, which appeared in .
* The Doctor notices the similarity between Valarie and Hayden's relationship and his own with River Song, whom he first met in before marrying her earlier self in .
* Hayden knows that Gallifrey is gone. It was sealed in a pocket dimension in .
* Valarie has told Hayden about her encounters with the Yearn from , Évariste Galois in and the Fulcrum Corporation in .
* The Doctor has encountered several Dalek survivors of the Time War, the first in .
* The Daleks have never heard of the Doctor because of the events of .
* The Doctor contemplates the possibility that the older Valarie is a Flesh avatar. He was previously tricked by a Flesh avatar of Amy Pond, which he realised in .
* The Doctor considers visiting Hoster and Wyler, whom he met in .
== External links ==
Category:Everywhere and Anywhere audio stories
Category:Stories set in Chicago
Category:Stories set in 1893