To Be Human

Chapter 12 - The Lazarus Experiment

The Lazarus Experiment, part 2 -

When they came out from their spot behind the controls, they found Lazarus and his wife as he'd just taken a tray of hors d'oeuvres from a waiter and chugged it down.

"I'm famished", he mumbled with a full mouth.

"Energy deficit. Always happens with this kind of process", the Doctor said.

"You speak as if you see this every day, Mister?"

"Doctor. And well, no, not every day, but I have some experience with this kind of transformation."

"That's not possible", Lazarus almost mocked him as Jane chuckled under her breath.

"Using hypersonic sound waves to create a state of resonance. That's inspired", the Doctor explained.

"You understand the theory then?", Lazarus asked.

"Enough to know that you couldn't possibly have allowed for all the variables."

"No experiment is entirely without risk."

"That thing nearly exploded. You might as well have stepped into a blender."

"You're not qualified to comment", Lazarus' wife spoke up.

"If I hadn't stopped it, it would have exploded."

"Then I thank you, Doctor. But that's a simple engineering issue. What happened inside the capsule was exactly what was supposed to happen. No more, no less", Lazarus seemed very full of himself.

"But if it wasn't for the Doctor, you wouldn't be here, there's no way that was planned", Jane said.

"You've no way of knowing until you've run proper tests", Martha agreed with her.

"Look at me. You can see what happened. I'm all the proof you need", he gestured to his face arrogantly.

"This device will be properly certified before we start to operate commercially", his wife said.

"You want to commercialise this? Rich people living forever? That's a whole new level of social injustice", Jane said, shocked.

"You are joking. That'll cause chaos", Martha agreed.

"Not chaos, change. A chance for humanity to evolve, to improve."

"You mean waste the resources on Earth, fighting FOR overpopulation?", Jane muttered.

"This isn't about improving. This is about you and your customers living a little longer", the Doctor said.

"Not a little longer, Doctor. A lot longer. Perhaps indefinitely."

"Richard, we have things to discuss, upstairs", his wife interrupted the discussion and led the way.

"Goodbye, Doctor. In a few years, you'll look back and laugh at how wrong you were", he kissed Martha's hand walked away.

"Might fight him in court about this one day, what do you think?", Jane looked after him.

"Oh, he's out of his depth. No idea of the damage he might have done", the Doctor was looking after him as well.

"So what do we do now?", Martha got their attention back.

"Now? Well, this building must be full of laboratories. I say we do our own tests."

"Lucky I've just collected a DNA sample then, isn't it?", Martha wiggled the hand Lazarus had just kissed.

"Oh, Martha Jones, you're a star", the Doctor grinned.